1. Briefly Summarize the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment. Are the implications of the results still current today? Should they be relied on to make patrol allocation and distribution decisions in modern cities and communities? Why or why not? Fully explain your position.
In October 1972 the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department conducted a year long experiment to "measure the impact routine patrol had on the incidence of crime and the public's fear of crime" (Kelling, Pate, Duane & Brown, 1974). This year long experiment tested the effectiveness of Kansas Cities, traditional policing strategies of routine preventive patrol of that time (Kelling et al, 1974).
According to the experimental findings after of surveying in Kansas City researchers concluded that; "decreasing or increasing routine preventive patrol within the range tested in this experiment had no effect on crime, citizen fear of crime, community attitudes toward the police on the delivery of police service, police response time, or traffic accidents" (kelling et al , 1974). That may have been true in Kansas City in 1972-73 but in todaysworld I don't feel that the finding still hold true. Fritsch mentions that some feel that police tend to have a "big city" bias or "East coast" focus, basically saying that there is in fact a difference in the way police handle different communities. There are more police in these more dense big cities then there would be in somewhere like Kansas city, so to assume that decreasing or increasing police presence would have no effect on the crime rate or citizens fear of crime would be just that, an assumption (Fritsch, Liederbach & Taylor, 2009). So to answer the question, no they findings from the Kansas City experiment should not be relied on for allocation in todays modern cities because of factor such as the time or era in which the experiment was conducted (over 40 years ago) the location and the undeniably larger population.
2. In 1982, Kelling and Wilson proposed the famous "Broken Windows" theory that resulted in many changes in police patrol emphasis. Recent studies have resulted in some professional disagreement with the original theory. Again, using recent academic references, briefly discuss the theory and whether you believe it should be considered valid for police resource utilization.
In 1982 James Wilson and George Kelling came up with a theory to reduce and possibly hindering future crimes from happening, by using police as a deterrent. This theory is called "Broken windows". The Idea was that stopping small crimes such as vandalism or petty thefts would deter future more major crimes from happening. "If they (Police) focus in on disorder and less serious crime in neighborhoods that have not yet been overtaken by serious crime, they can help reduce fear and resident withdrawal" (Weisburd & Lum, 2013). When it comes to the question of whether or not Broken Windows should be used in policing today my opinion is yes to an extent. I do believe the basis of the theory that by stopping smaller crimes it might stop a worse crime from occurring along with a larger police presences. Weisburd explains that the theory its self has changed with time. In New York Broken Windows has been linked up with "zero tolerance policing", in which "disorder is aggressively policed and all violators are ticketed or arrested" (Weisburd & Lum, 2013). Connecting the two is not the correct way to look at this theory because zero tolerance policing is looked at in a negative light because its as though police are over exercising their right to arrest and ticket in some cases. Broken is a valid way for policing when used in the right way.
Fritsch, Eric J., Liederbach, J. R., Taylor, R. W., , M. C. (3/1/2008). Police Patrol Allocation and Deployment, 1st Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781269514415/
Kelling, G. L., Pate, T., Dieckman, D., & Brown, C. E. (1974). The Kansas city preventive patrol experiment. Police Foundation, 1-910.
Weisburd, D., & Lum, C. (2013). Broken Windows Policing. Retrieved July 14, 2016, from https://cebcp.org/evidence-based-policing/what-works-in-policing/research-evidence-review/broken-windows-policing/
The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment was put into place to evaluate how valuable police patrol was in terms of visibility in reducing crimes and reducing fear of crime in citizens. The experiment was conducted over a year's time, utilizing civilian specialists in economics, statistics, and other fields.
The implications of the results could still be current today, but in order to accurately say "yes" or "no", I believe that the experiment would have to be conducted again. My answer to whether or not the results should be relied on to make patrol allocation and distribution decisions in modern cities and communities is that no, the results should not be relied upon. The results can be taken into consideration, but I do not think they should be completely relied upon.
Controlling and trying to limit crime will always be ranked high when it comes to the responsibilities of the police. When it comes down to whether or not police patrol diminishes crime, or potential crime, it cannot be accurately said due to one experiment from one department. Multiple departments can participate, but each department and community is different, as is how people respond to the police. For instance, a foot patrol experiment was conducted in Newark, NJ following the Kansas City experiment. "Varying foot patrol levels across 12 Newark, NJ, beats resulted in no significant differences between treatment and control beats for recorded crime or arrest rates, although treatment areas did show improvements in community fear of crime (Pate, 1986)" (Philadelphia Foot Patrol, p. 3).
In Police Patrol Allocation and Deployment Strecher is quoted saying, "In science, all knowledge is provisional. The essence of science is the verification and advancement of what is already known with repeated and refined research. The value of most police research findings is limited by a lack of both replication and refinement of the research" (Fritsch, Liederbach, Taylor, p. 15). Something that should be taken into consideration with this particular experiment is that not only did the chief have an unusually long tenure, he was liked and respected by not just his department, but the community as well. The community expected that he would do a good job in keeping the community safe. Perhaps the public didn't necessarily take note of the change in patrol. If trust has already been established within the community, why would that change drastically, especially if there wasn't a noticeable drop or rise in crime. Perhaps the experiment would show different results if it were carried out within different departments whose relationships vary with the community.
The famous "Broken Windows" theory proposed by Kelling and Wilson in 1982 uses a metaphor that if a broken window is left unrepaired, it will then lead to all the other windows of a building being broken. "Since its first utterance by Wilson and Kelling (1982), broken windows has become a powerful and enduring part of the criminological nomenclature, with deep influences in both disciplines' scholarly and applied tradition" (Welsh, Braga, Bruinsma, p. 448).
Wilson and Kelling used a developmental sequence in which neighborhoods would fall into high-crime areas due to disorderly conditions. These conditions included social incivilities such as public drinking, prostitution, and loitering. Physical incivilities included trash, abandoned buildings, vacant lots, etc. A field experiment using seemingly abandoned cars was conducted by Philip Zimbardo to demonstrate the process. The cars that were left with hoods up and without license plates in the Bronx, New York and Palo Alto, California were vandalized. The car left in the high-crime area of the Bronx was vandalized within the first ten minutes. After a twenty-four hour period the car had been completely stripped. The car left within an upscale area of Palo Alto was untouched for a week until Zimbardo vandalized it himself with a sledgehammer. With a couple of hours the car that had been untouched for a week was not only vandalized, but stripped and turned over.
To Wilson and Kelling, this particular experiment suggested that crimes such as vandalism, or more serious crimes, were not limited to high-crime areas, but could happen anywhere. With the "Broken Windows" theory, I agree that when a community gives the impression that it doesn't care or will turn a blind eye to small occurrences, what was once small can escalate into something much more. "In essence, crime is contagious and can spread to an entire community via environmental features. Relatively minor problems such as aggressive panhandling and graffiti serve as an invitation to an array of would-be offenders that particular neighborhoods are good locations to commit more serious crime" (Welsh, Braga, Bruinsma, p. 449).
Alexis
Works Cited:
Fritsch, Eric J., Liederbach, John., Taylor, Robert W.
Police Patrol Allocation and Deployment. 2008.
Ratcliffe, Jerry H., Taniguchi, Travis., Groff, Elizabeth R., Wood, Jennifer D.
The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment: A Randomized Controlled Trial of
Policed Patrol Effectiveness in Violent Crime Hotspots.
Criminology. 2011.
Welsh, Brandon C., Braga, Anthony A., Bruinsma, Gerben J. N.
Reimagining Broken Windows: From Theory to Policy. 2015.