The Purpose and Efectiveness of Police Patrol
Running Head: POLICE PATROL
Purpose and Effectiveness of Police Patrol Police patrol is the ‘backbone of policing’. It accounts for more than two-thirds of a department’s personnel. Their main purpose are similar to those of security guards, only they have a wider area to survey. These watchmen go around the community and arrest or question suspicious people and possible law offenders. Due to this fact, they are avoided by criminals. After World War II the idea of police patrol became a critical duty of police (Samaha, 2005). Police mobile are given to increase the capacity of police officials to respond to citizen’s calls and in crime scenes. According to Wesley Slogan and Kathleen Fredyl (2004), ‘preventive patrol has been the core police activity, designed to prevent crime by deterring potential offenders through a visible police presence, create feelings of public safety and police availability’. Thus, police patrol in these terms ought to instil a sense of security for the citizens and fear and/or caution for law offenders. The presence of police patrol in an area somehow reduces the number of crime. According to Joel Samaha (2005), preventive patrol consists of ‘police officers making themselves visible’. The reason for preventive patrol is to keep in the mind of criminals or law offenders that police are just a call away and a police might appear anytime. The goal of police patrol ‘was to spot and investigate suspicious activities’ (Slogan and Fredyl, 204). This goal makes police patrol available for the prevention of crime and serves as respondents after crimes occur. Police themselves and the general public have always believed that police in patrol severely inhibits criminal activities. Weisburd and Braga (2006) shown, in their book Police Innovation, the result of the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment which concluded ‘increasing or decreasing the intensity of routine preventive patrol did not affect either crime,
Purpose and Effectiveness of Police Patrol Police patrol is the ‘backbone of policing’. It accounts for more than two-thirds of a department’s personnel. Their main purpose are similar to those of security guards, only they have a wider area to survey. These watchmen go around the community and arrest or question suspicious people and possible law offenders. Due to this fact, they are avoided by criminals. After World War II the idea of police patrol became a critical duty of police (Samaha, 2005). Police mobile are given to increase the capacity of police officials to respond to citizen’s calls and in crime scenes. According to Wesley Slogan and Kathleen Fredyl (2004), ‘preventive patrol has been the core police activity, designed to prevent crime by deterring potential offenders through a visible police presence, create feelings of public safety and police availability’. Thus, police patrol in these terms ought to instil a sense of security for the citizens and fear and/or caution for law offenders. The presence of police patrol in an area somehow reduces the number of crime. According to Joel Samaha (2005), preventive patrol consists of ‘police officers making themselves visible’. The reason for preventive patrol is to keep in the mind of criminals or law offenders that police are just a call away and a police might appear anytime. The goal of police patrol ‘was to spot and investigate suspicious activities’ (Slogan and Fredyl, 204). This goal makes police patrol available for the prevention of crime and serves as respondents after crimes occur. Police themselves and the general public have always believed that police in patrol severely inhibits criminal activities. Weisburd and Braga (2006) shown, in their book Police Innovation, the result of the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment which concluded ‘increasing or decreasing the intensity of routine preventive patrol did not affect either crime,
Bibliography: Levinson, D. Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment. SAGE, 2002 Palmiotto,M. Community Policing. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2000 Samaha, J. Criminal Justice. Thomson Wadsworth, 2005` Sherman, L.W. Evidenced-based Crime Prevention. Routledge, 2002. Skogan, W.G. and Frydl, K. Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence. National Academies Press, 2004 Weisburd, D. and Braga, A.A. Police Innovation. Cambridge University Press, 2006