Criminal Justice

In looking at the Kansas City Patrol Experiment, it appears that adding more police officers has little or no affect on arrests or the crime rate. Please review the study and explain why more police does not mean less crime. Due Date March 11, 2005

More police officers doesn't mean less crime because many of the crimes committed such as burglary, robbery, auto theft, larceny and vandalism which are preventable cannot be prevented if the response time is too slow. Even though more officers were on the job, even the fasted response had little influence of crime since the crime reports made came a significant time after the actually occurrence ,therefore flawing even the fastest police response.

How prevalent is police discretion and why does it exist? Can discretion be eliminated? Should it be? Due Date March 11 2005

I think police discretion is very common. Police officers exercise the choice of whether to question someone, arrest a suspect as well as several other duties and each of these decisions are made without the presence of supervision so perhaps this is the reason it exists. Discretion may be decreased but I don't think it can be eliminated, even with supervision police officers together hold the authority to make discretionary decisions even if the public disagrees with their tactics. I don't necessarily think police discretion should not be eliminated because, majority of the decisions that are made by them are made in the best interest of the public or victim.

Describe the various "styles of policing" discussed in this chapter. Which do you think are the most popular today? Which do you think are the most effective? Due Date March 11, 2005

The following are various styles of policing: the watchman style, the legalistic style, and the service style policing. I don't think any one of the three styles are more popular than the other. I think that all three styles are enforced and effective in their own way. For example in lower class communities where there is a greater amount of violence or physical abuse there is a greater number of "watchman style" police, where as outside of a busy city where there are larger number of highways and busy road there is more "legalistic style policing," where officers may be giving out more speeding tickets. Lastly service oriented police departments are found in most communities