¶ … Police Studies)
Community-Oriented Policing and Victimless Crime:
Street-Level Drug Trafficking
The high rates of individuals who are arrested, on probation, incarcerated, or on parole throughout our nation have led some critical criminologists to advocate for the decriminalization of so-called victimless crimes. Victimless crimes include nonviolent crime such as gambling, prostitution, and illegal drug possession and drug sales. Although these activities may appear consensual or self-inflicted at first glance, this conduct creates victims indirectly because it presents larger threats to overall community security. The most pressing threats arise from drug use and trafficking, as these behaviors are a catalyst to gang activity, intimidation of law-abiding citizens, robberies, assaults, murders, and other forms of violence and community degredation. Indeed, drug users are disproportionately represented among the most active and dangerous offenders, and violence associated with the trade easily spreads to the general population (Moore & Kleiman). The question for law enforcement then is, what is the most effective strategy for dealing with the widespread social problem of street-level drug trafficking?
In general, law enforcement interventions may involve proactive...
For example, once upon a time, consensual homosexual acts between adults or the use of birth control were both criminal activities, punishable by imprisonment or fines. Now these acts are not considered criminal violations, but personal behavior beyond the reach of the law. Smoking was once considered a normal social activity, especially when society was less aware of the health risks posed by smoking. Thus, there is a psychological
United States has the highest rate of confinement of prisoners per 100,000 population than any other Western country. Analyze this phenomena and discuss actions that you feel are necessary to combat this problem. The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate of any nation worldwide. For example, greater than 60% of nations have incarceration rates below 150 per 100,000 people (Walmsley, 2003). The United States makes up just about
Juvenile Delincency in Urban Areas Juvenile delinquency is a contemporary term for an old problem. One of the oldest relevant studies of the phenomenon was 'social disorganization' theory, which was developed by the Chicago school of sociology in the 1920's. This theory posits that there exist areas in a city in which traditional institutions have little or no control. This was studied in Chicago using a system of 'Concentric Zones' which
, 2001). Based on the proliferation of the Internet and the near-ubiquity of personal computers in many affluent homes, these rates can reasonably be expected to have increased even further in subsequent years. In fact, it would appear that the more people of both sexes are using the Internet for these purposes, the more ways they are finding to do so. In this regard, Green and her associates point out that,
"As a case in point we may take the known fact of the prevalence of reefer and dope addiction in Negro areas. This is essentially explained in terms of poverty, slum living, and broken families, yet it would be easy to show the lack of drug addiction among other ethnic groups where the same conditions apply." Inciardi 248() Socio-economic effects Legalizing drugs has been deemed to have many socio-economic effects. A study
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