Commentary
| Date | 01 October 1984 |
| Published date | 01 October 1984 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8405700401 |
| Subject Matter | Commentary |
The
POLICE
JOURNM
Crime Prevention
In an interesting article on the very topical subject of Crime
Prevention, Doctors Boostrom
and
Henderson, of the San Diego
State University, describe a"Community Hypothesis" developed to
promote citizen participation
and
police-community relations -
and present three alternative models which might be used to
operationalize this hypothesis.
The article pinpoints the role to be played by the community, but
appears critical of what the authors curiously describe as a police
domination of the scene.
It
is alleged that, in the United States of
America, the police perspective on crime prevention and control is
focused on security deterrence and tends to discount
and
downgrade
much ofthe crime prevention activity ongoingin the community. It is
said
that
the police have attempted to contain
and
control these
crime prevention activities
and
to steer them in a direction which will
best serve the organizational needs of law enforcement agencies.
Whether or not these disturbing allegations are well based is not
known,
but
the mere suggestion of a police monopoly in such a vital
field is sufficient to raise the temperature of most law enforcement
officers
and
provoke the necessary heart searching:
It
must be said
that
the police have developed a lot
of
expertise over the years
and
the prevention of crime is an integral
part
of their responsibility,
furthermore, unless the efforts of the community as a whole can be
fashioned into a worthwhile deterrent, the end result will be
both
feeble and ineffective. We must strive for auniversal awareness ofthe
need to take arms against the piratical raids of predators
and
harness
individual initiatives into a communal defence pattern,
but
although
such action demands aco-ordinating agency in which undoubtedly
the police have a vital
part
to play, the agency will only beeffective if
it is representative of all those bodies whose contribution is essential
to its viability.
Domination
by any particular organization is
unnecessary and could well be counter-productive.
October /984 305
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