1) According to the Rand Study how successful are detectives? Using the findings of the Skogan and Antunes article explain why the Rand Study findings are not surprising.
2) Zero Tolerance policing has become popular in some circles. What is zero tolerance policing? How does it differ from other police strategies such as problem oriented policing and directed patrol? What are the drawbacks of this approach
3) Three competing hypotheses are provided by Eck to explain the ability of investigators to solve crimes. What are these three hypotheses and what is the basic idea of each theory? Does the article by Brandl and Frank support any of the hypotheses, and why (or why not)?
4) The issue of "equity" in the delivery of police services was discussed in relation to three police strategies in the course readings. 1) What is equity in terms of the delivery of police services? 2) Did Worden find that the police respond in an equitable manner? 3) Does zero tolerance policing have a problem with "equity"?
5) The Kansas City Study (Kelling et al.) is probably the most commonly cited study of random preventive patrol. While it was a very well thought out study, many questions have arisen about what was actually being tested by the study. In other words, there were questions about the police treatment. What do the authors say they tested and how did they test it? What does Larson believe was tested
6) Measuring the effectiveness of community policing has proved to be more difficult than with traditional police strategies. Three distinct reasons have emerged explaining why the effectiveness of community policing is so difficult to measure. Please explain each of the three reasons.
7) Over time there has been a debate over the proper number of officers who should be assigned to a single patrol car (one versus two officers). What are the arguments (for and against) provided by each side in this continuing controversy? On which side are officers and policy administrators? What does the evidence say about the effectiveness of one versus two officer cars? What does the evidence suggest about the relationship between patrol car staffing and response time and why does this result occur?
8) What is problem-oriented policing? How does problem-oriented policing differ from more traditional incident based reactive police work? Why do many suggest that this strategy is promising and likely to be effective (see Eck and Maguire, and Sherman, Gartin and Buerger and others)?
9) Both the Spelman and Brown article and the Antunes and Scott article address problems with rapid responses to citizen requests for service. Why do they (these two articles) say rapid response does not matter with most crimes? In answering, please address the following: 1) why most calls do not require an immediate response; 2) the difference between involvement and discovery crimes; and 3) why citizens delay in calling the police.
10) Attitudes toward the police are often viewed as a valid measure of the effectiveness of a police policy and/or a police organization. What do Brandl, Frank, Worden, and Bynum say about the stability of attitudes over time and what influences them? In answering this question, make sure you address the following: 1) what are specific and general attitudes? 2) how are the two attitudes related over time? Or in other words, how do specific attitudes influence general attitudes, general influence specific, and general influence general attitudes; 3) why might it be difficult to change peoples' attitudes?