The Community Problem-Solving Era

Discuss About The Policing In An Introduction To Police Work.

The Community Problem-Solving Era was a focus in the United States and the United Kingdom during the 1980s which thrived to find new policing approaches that could reduce crime and bring the police and community together to implement strategies. It established a trustful relationship with the police to attain a safe community.

The focus of this era has been effective to promote the safety of the public and has changed the quality of life in the community. It plays a major role in problem solving and identifies solutions to reduce crime and the fear of crime in the community. The strength of community problem-solving has led to a feeling of safety and security and has assisted the community to interact with police to implement effective strategies for the betterment of the community.  ‘Outcomes of success are typically based on; community satisfaction, problem solution, reduction of fear of crime, and increase in quality of life.’ (Kelling & Moore 1998). Therefore, community involvement is essential to generate solutions and enhances communication which assists in reducing crime.

However, the main weakness is that; It will only work effectively if the community is involved and requires a long-term commitment which takes time. ‘It is proposed that police need to engage with the community to discuss priorities and to develop problem-solving strategies’. (Bayley 1998)

This exemplifies that community engagement is important in order to eliminate problems in the community. ‘A major issue for police organisations when implementing community policing is the presence of strong personalities and influential groups, who may dominate discussions and control the initiative’s direction’. (Thurman et al 2001)

Therefore, the strengths of community problem-solving era outweighs the disadvantages. The attempt of community problem solving era has effective long-term crime prevention strategies to make these practices more lawful in the community.

‘Entrapment is a practice where a law enforcement agent provokes a person to commit a criminal offence which the person would have otherwise, been unwilling to commit’. (Marcus 2015). It is used as a defence to criminal charges and is based on the communication between the defendant and police officers prior to the commission of the alleged crime.

Entrapment emphasizes on the origin of the criminal intention, so, if criminal intention originates with the law or government enforcement, the defendant is entrapped and can be used as a defence. If the criminal intention originates with the defendant can be convicted of the alleged offence.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Community Problem-Solving Era

Entrapment is subjected to two tests namely, objective and subjective entrapment. The Subjective standard usually emphasizes on the characteristics of the individual/defendant. It refers to the standard where the defendant uses entrapment as defence and the court will decide whether the defendant was inclined to the committing of the offense in the absence of pressure from the law enforcement. If the facts indicate the same, the defendant cannot use the defence of entrapment (Davies 2010).

As per the Objective standard, it emphasizes on the behaviour of the law enforcement instead of the individual characteristic of the defendant. If it is established that the tactics used by the law enforcement can provoke a law-abiding citizen to commit crime, which he would otherwise will not be willing to commit, the defendant may use entrapment in his defence.

Interviews are conducted at several stages of the investigative process, which varies from initial police interview of victim, suspect or witness to an in-court interview before the judge, or any other decision maker.

The PEACE Model of investigative interviewing was developed which uses non-confrontational and conversational approach to obtain information from an investigation interview subject. There are five essential phases to the PEACE framework which includes Planning and preparation (P); Engage and explain (E); Account clarification and challenge (A); Closure (C) and Evaluation (E).

Planning and Preparation phase is the most essential phase as it includes all the necessary information and recognizes the essential issues. It enables the interviewer the opportunity to review the questions, establish the existing material and determine the aims and objectives of the interview (Snook, Baron and Education 2014).

The Engage and Explain phase allows the interviewer to engage the interviewee and initiate conversation. It is important to pay proper attention to the interviewee, as it would enable the interviewer to recognize the topic during the interview, manage the conversation, and communicate the interest to the interviewee while recognizing essential evidentiary information.

The Account and Clarification challenge phase includes account by listening actively to obtain non-verbal behaviour and encouraging the interviewee to continue reporting their account until they are finished reporting (Davies 2010). The clarification of the account can be obtained by breaking their reporting to focus on the subject matter, examining any such information during the planning phase.

A Closure phase requires the interview to be structured and planned where the interviewer should summarize the account of the interviewee accurately and prepare a witness statement.

Entrapment and its tests

The Evaluation phase requires the interviewer to evaluate the account made by the interviewee with an objective to determine whether any further action is necessary or how the account of events reported by the interviewee is consistent with the remaining investigation, thus it demonstrates the performance of the interviewer (Brewer and Williams 2014).

Critical victimologists theory deals with the analysis of the broader social, economic and political context of victimization. The theory considers the manner in which generative mechanisms of patriarchy and capitalisms set the material conditions in which distinct movements of victims have flourished. This theory argues why certain criminal actions are considered as criminal when there are certain harmful acts such as genocide,  war time rape, crimes related to abuse of power that are usually committed by powerful or wealthy individuals or nations but such acts are not regarded as crimes (Fattah 2016).

The field of critical victimology emphasizes on the power and its connection with the reality construction that is, who may be legally defined as a victim. Thus, this theory is based on conflict theories that concentrate on two essential elements. Firstly, the structural factors like poverty and patriarchy, which subjects poor and women or the powerless groups, at the greater risk of victimization. Secondly, power of the state to define or reject the label of victim, which implies that the state applies the label of victim to some but denies if from others. For instance, when a police denies pressing charge against husband for assaulting his wife, the wife is denied her victim status. Hence, in this victimization hierarchy, the powerless groups are likely to be subject to victimization and the state often is least likely to acknowledge the same, thus, denying them any redress against the offence against them.

Human trafficking in persons amounts to a severe offence, which leads to serious violation of human rights. UN Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC] acts as the guardian of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime [UNTOC] assists the state parties to implement the Protocol for suppressing, preventing and punishing trafficking in persons (Humanrights.gov.au. 2018).

The term ‘transnational organized crime’ refers to several crimes that take place internationally. However, the distinguishing characteristic of transnational organized crime is that any such crime must have international link in its commission. However, due to the lack of judicial meaning, one cannot be charged for committing a transnational crime. In Australia, human trafficking, drugs, cyber-crimes are some of the criminal activities that is taking place using transnational criminal networks. Australia is a signatory to the Trafficking protocol, which defines human trafficking as the transportation, recruitment, harbouring, transfer or receipt of persons through the means of threat, coercion, deception, force, vulnerability or abuse of power. This takes place for exploiting the person through forced labour, servitude, forced labour, debt bondage, organ removal or other forms of exploitation (Unodc.org. 2018).

It is possible to exercise control over trafficked persons through threat of violence, fear of physical isolation, etc. Although transnational organized crime has been identified as a phenomenon that has drawn the attention of the international community but due to lack of necessary legislation and delays in diplomatic channels may hinder its effective implementation.

References

Bayley, D.H., 1998, What Works in Policing?, Oxford University Press, New York.

Brewer, N. and Williams, K. (2014). Psychology and Law : An Empirical Perspective. New York: Guilford Publications.

Davies, S. (2010). Policing in Context: An Introduction to Police Work in Australia. Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Fattah, E.A. ed., 2016. Towards a critical victimology. Springer.

Humanrights.gov.au. (2018). Australian Human Rights Commission |. [online] Available at: https://www.humanrights.gov.au [Accessed 12 Apr. 2018].

Kelling, G., and M.Moore, 1998, ‘The Evolving Strategy of Policing’, Perspectives on Policing, National Institute of Justice and US Department of Justice, Washington.

Marcus, P., 2015. The entrapment defence. LexisNexis.

Snook, B., Baron, T. and Education, D., 2014. Investigative Interviewing-PEACE Model 01–Peace Engage.

Thurman, Q., Zhao, J. & Giacomazzi, A., 2001, ‘Community Policing in a Community Era’: An Introduction & Exploration California: Roxbury Publishing Company.

Unodc.org. (2018). What is Human Trafficking?. [online] Available at: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html [Accessed 12 Apr. 2018].

Walsh, D. and Bull, R., 2015. Interviewing suspects: Examining the association between skills, questioning, evidence disclosure, and interview outcomes. Psychology, crime & law, 21(7), pp.661-680.