Describe the positive aspects of the collaborative initiative
The community-based initiative was started in order to ensure justice was maintained in the thirty-six states where crimes were experienced. Many people attended the community meetings where youth programs and other important programs were started in order to educate people on ways of minimizing crimes and maintaining justice. The initiative ensured that police hours were added to the known crime hot spots and that more police officers were employed in order to combat crimes. The initiative was established to ensure a census was done. This showed the number of people in those affected communities. The initiative educated members of the public on ways of eradicating crimes and reporting lawbreakers to the authority. The initiative helped many people who were affected by both domestic violence and other external crimes. This showed the importance of the initiative to the people. The youths were educated and trained in order to educate other people on the importance of justice. Many youths were employed to work at the known hotspots in order to eliminate major crimes. The initiative brought positive changes to the known states where crimes occurred. They came up with policies on how to combat crimes by involving the affected people thus discovering problems faced by the affected people. Since the initiatives were introduced, the crime rate decreased which included property and violence crimes. Most crimes as per the study were caused by drug related cases. The initiative had started a policy on educating people the negative effects of drugs especially the youths. The consumption of drugs decreased which led to decrease in the crimes since many youth participated in crimes because of drugs.
The initiatives realized that juvenile crimes were mainly conducted after school since kids were not closely supervised. They came up with ways ensuring kids were supervised and given tasks right from school in order to ensure they had something to do. The initiatives provide an after school program where youths and kids involve themselves in recreational and educational facilities thus they are not idle. Members of the community and of the initiatives act as good mentors to the youth and as role models for youths to emulate. These programs from the initiatives have helped in crime reduction since most youths are involved in crimes since they are not supervised and guided accordingly. The initiatives through community policing ensured that there exist good relationship between the people and the police force. The police officers based on community are friendly to the people and are able to discover the problems faced by the people in that local community. They come up with common solutions for the discovered problems in order to help the affected people. The community police officers work for more hours in order to ensure the people are well protected through carrying out patrols. The local people joined hands with the in initiatives since they were friendly to the people and helped people. The initiatives were successful since they involved the affected people without discrimination and bias.
What partner do you feel is less essential to the initiative and why?
State police officers are less essential in the initiatives. The initiatives are supposed to train the youths instead of employing the state officers. People fear police officers and thus problems will not be discovered accordingly. The government police officers who have been employed to combat crimes have not been able to solve the problem. Thus, they should not be involved in the community-based organizations since they have already failed to attend their duties well. Police officers are not friendly to the people and most people fear them. Problems cannot be solved in the midst of fear. The initiatives should train the members of the community who understand the communities better. For example, Easton Hotspot initiative came up with ways of helping the youths find alternative ways of living without use of drugs. The initiative did not employ police officers but looked for alternative facilities for youths to enjoy and learn instead of involving themselves in drugs. This shows that crimes can be combated without use of police officers. Most crimes are caused by youths who abuse drugs. Thus educating the youths on ways of eradicating drugs lead to decrease in crimes. The youths should supervised and exposed to educational and recreational services. The initiative did this, which led to crimes reduction rate.
What criminal justice entity do you feel could have enhanced the success of the initiative?
The state criminal justice board and commission could have been useful in this initiative. This commissions and boards are aimed at advising members of the public on ways of eliminating crimes. The commissions also provide funds to those local initiatives in order to support youth and kids development. Funds are important in order for the initiatives to run smoothly (Ross, 2009). They ensure justice is done by coming up with policies and program on juvenile justice. The state commissions ensure that justice is efficient and that criminals are sentenced accordingly. They ensure that funds are available in order to support the minority groups and youths. The initiatives through these state commissions would become more successful since the main aim of the initiatives in maintaining justice by combating crimes. The youths are the most affected since they are involved in crimes because of drug and substance abuse. The commissions would ensure that funds are available for the youths to enroll themselves in other activities rather than drugs and crimes (Ross, 2009). The state is responsible to take care of its people thus the initiatives should work hand in hand with the state for success to be achieved.
What NON-criminal justice entity do you feel could have enhanced the success of the initiative?
A criminal justice and information service is an example of a non criminal justice entity that the initiative could have used. This aims at taking the fingerprints of the community people and recording them for the purposes of ensuring that criminals are sentenced and discovered easily. It aims at maintaining security and thus ensuring justice (Senior et al, 2007). The service is aimed at keeping people’s records in order to ensure that information is retrievable at any given time concerning a particular person. Information should be safely recorded in order to ensure that criminals do not escape unpunished. The initiatives through using such commissions are able to get successful since they will information regarding each member of the community. This will help to solve crimes more easily and punishing those people working against justice. The information services ensure that justice is maintained since information is recorded without discrimination and bias (Senior et al, 2007). The information services ensure that members of the public are educated on their rights and get knowledge on justice related issues. The community-based initiatives through using such initiatives are able to become more successful and educate people more easily.
References
Ross, D. L. (2009). Civil Liability in Criminal Justice. Burlington: Elsevier Science.
Senior, P., Crowther-Dowey, C., & Long, M. (2007). Understanding the modernisation in criminal justice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/html/cd_rom/solution_gang_crime/pubs/PromisingStrategiestoReduceGunViolence.pdf )
http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/pubs/20010801.pdf
