Directed Patrol Research Paper

Words: 884
Pages: 4

In the United States, not a day goes by where one cannot turn on the television, read the newspaper, or browse the internet and see one if not multiple stories about crimes that have occurred. There will be stories about individuals being murdered, people arrested due to drugs, and even phone notifications saying when a child has been kidnapped. Some media outlets even gone as far as to say that crimes are on the rise. With this information constantly being thrown into the faces of the public, it is easy to see why many believe that there is truly a crime problem in America. Although this seems to be the popular consensus it is not entirely true; there is not a crime problem in the United States. So why does America not have a crime problem? …show more content…
Directed patrol is having patrol with direction (Worrall). This meaning that police departments will have officers patrol specific areas that are known to have the greatest problems with crime (Worrall). These specific areas that directed patrol hones in on are called hot spots. Hot spots are concentrated areas of large amounts of criminal activity (Worrall). There have been studies done that show the effect that directed patrol can actually have. One example, is a study done by the Kansas City Police Department on the effect of directed patrol of hot spots for gun violence (Sherman). The results of this study were that there was a 65% increase of gun seizures and a 49% decrease in gun related crimes of that area (Sherman). This meaning that the officers were able to obtain more illegally held fire arms then they would have without the direct patrol (Sherman). Due to the fact that officers were able to get more illegal weapons off the street, the amount of gun crimes in that area decreased (Sherman). This study was able to show that heavier police presence and patrol can have an influence on reducing some crimes. Since this method is used throughout the United States, it has helped to cut back on the amount of …show more content…
Evaluating the incidence of crime in America will help to showcase the true amount of crime that occurs in our country. Violent crimes are the crimes that most people are afraid of. The most fearful violent crimes are crimes such as forcible rape, murder, assault, and robbery (Worrall), but violent crimes do not occur as often as many may think. From 1993 to 2011, the amount of serious violent crimes and total violent crime victimizations were measured (Truman). The table from this study was able to show that during that time span, both serious violent crime and total violent crime victimizations had drastically decreased by a little over 70 percent (Truman). A closer look is taken of this graph that compares the victimizations between a span of nine years. From the years 2002 to 2011 there was a total decrease is serious violent crimes by 28 percent, and a decrease in total violent crimes of 30 percent (Truman). Being able to see just how much violent crimes have diminished in America, can help to show just how uncommon these crimes actually