Policing and Crime Control

Flashcards about policing and crime control based on lecture notes.

What was Garland’s core argument?

Garland argued that the 20th Century saw the emergence of the ‘myth’ of state crime control and the ‘Rehabilitative Ideal.’

Metropolitan Police Establishment (1829)

The establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829 was justified in relation to growing concerns about crime and disorder.

Police Time Allocation

Findings from empirical research from the 1960s-1990s showed that the majority of police time is spent on ‘non-crime’ matters.

Research Studies on Policing

Classic research studies emphasized limited effectiveness of traditional policing in reducing crime, such as the Kansas City Patrol experiment 1974.

Order Maintenance

Definition: Keeping the peace in small (neighbour disputes) and large scale (mass public disorder) situations.

Police Effectiveness

Government reforms from the 1990s onward have focused on police ‘effectiveness’ in reducing crime.

Zero Tolerance Policing

Vigorous policing of minor crimes/disorders leading to falls in more serious crime.

Smart Policing

Hotspots, crime pattern analysis, directing limited police resources to key places and times where crimes occur.

Police as CJS ‘gatekeepers’

Almost all prosecuted ‘crime’ comes to the courts via the police.

findings on myth of police crime control

-Crime control is primarily achieved via network of informal/community controls

-Very small proportions of those crimes that do come to the attention of the police result in detection/prosecution

-Majority of ‘solved’ cases are down to information provided by the public, or are ‘self-solving’, rather than through traditional detective methods

recent trends in detection rates

• overall rates halved 2014 (18%) to 2021 (9%)

• rape (detections down from 8.5% to 1.5%)

• violence (down from 22% to 7%)

non crime police function: breadth of the police mandate

‘no human problem exists, or is imaginable, about which it could be said with finality that this certainly could not become the proper business of the police’ (Egon Bittner 1974)

Non crime police function: order maintenance

keeping the peace in small (neighbor disputes) and large scale (mass public disorder) situations

non crime police function: emergency response

traffic accidents,natural disasters citizens in trouble

non crime police functions:general ‘social service’ functions

Reassurance, problem-solving, helping the public, giving directions,

dealing with missing persons, supporting vulnerable people

policing innovations

• Zero Tolerance’/Broken Windows policing – vigorous policing of minor

crimes/disorders leading to falls in more serious crime

• ‘Smart policing’ – hotpots, crime pattern analysis, directing limited police resources to key places and times where crimes occur

• ‘Saturation’ policing following terrorist incidents – impact on general crime rates