Introduction
The Police Department aims to strategize how to tackle the growing problem of violent crime in the neighbourhood. Six key divisions/units will be involved to facilitate successful implementation of the strategic plan, namely: The Emergency Preparedness Department, The Patrol Unit, The Criminal Investigations Division, The Vice and Narcotics Division, Family Crimes and Sexual Assault Division, and the Special Operations Division.
The Emergency Preparedness Department
This unit is responsible for planning for any emergencies that would call intervention of the police department. It thus handles matters relating to intelligence information and analysis of crime. The division has operational and administrative personnel responsible for planning the deployment of officers and other resources for both prevention and suppression of criminal-related activities (Dempsey & Forst, 2011). As such, the emergency preparedness division would provide primary operation for all the other police departments by defining the four phases of all emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
The Patrol Unit
This unit is responsible for preventative patrol activities, discovery of public hazards as well as delinquency causing situations in addition to all initial distress calls for police, assistance and fire. The patrol officers undertake preliminary investigation into crimes, DWI detection & apprehension traffic enforcement and drug interdiction (Dempsey & Forst, 2011). The officers are mandated to enforce all applicable as well as arrest violators of the laws. They routinely perform house and business checks as necessary. They also do processing of those arrested and prepare written offense reports and make appearance in court of law when needed to assist in prosecution of suspects.
The patrol on foot strategy will be used to increase efficiency of coverage and increase police contacts with citizens to make the latter less fearful of reporting violent crime besides improving citizen attitudes toward the officers. Car patrols will come in handy in creating the feeling of widespread presence of police and in turn help in deterring crime (preventive patrol). Brief periods of intensive patrolling will reduce or displace robberies, theft, burglary, sex crimes, assault, disturbances, malicious mischief and homicide. The best strategy to deter and fight the violent crime in the area would be to adopt proactive policing. Proactive operations shall entail using decoys, relying on informants, raiding, stopping and frisking suspects, maintaining police presence repeat-complaint places, shadowing repeat offenders, and saturating a location with police to maintain constant order.
The Criminal Investigations Division
The criminal investigations Unit has a key role in enabling the police department to respond to the increasing violent crime and drug dealing incidences in the area. The division is tasked with undertaking investigations requiring special expertise, or owing to their complexity, duration or location, are unable to be finalized by the Patrol department handling the preliminary report (Dempsey & Forst, 2011). This implies that that the unit will liaison with the Patrol Unit by conducting follow-up investigations to all criminal cases. The unit would assist officers from the Patrol division in their initial investigations as needed – detectives develop and maintain sources of intelligence information. The unit would thus review all criminal activities reported with the area, correlate the information whether it relates to open investigations.
Specialized gang intelligence would be help through routine assessment of information relating to gangs and their associates, ensuring the police department database is up to date and channelled to all departments especially the Special Operations Unit. The CID would also step up its gang awareness programs to the community.
The division would also apply for and implement search warrants, run forensic tests, maintain photograph and fingerprint files, besides preparing cases for prosecution. The detectives from this unit would also help in storing and securing evidence pertaining to all investigations and found property as a result of robbery by the gangs (Dempsey & Forst, 2011).
The Vice and Narcotics Division
This division is tasked with collecting, archiving and relaying vice- and narcotics-related intelligence to enable successful investigations and prosecutions of suppliers and pushers of drugs. The objective is to limit all criminal activity through effective investigating, combating and interdiction of the dealing of illegal drugs in the neighbourhood. This unit shall with the Patrol, CID, Family Crime and Sexual Assaults divisions to develop and implement strategies to address street level drug sales and purchase (Dempsey & Forst, 2011). Success shall be accomplished through precise informant networks, surveillances, undercover investigations, efficient processing of criminal intelligence information, and timely arrests of drug dealers and buyers.
Family Crimes and Sexual Assault Division
This is a specialized unit that employs an innovative multidisciplinary team strategy to prosecute family violence and sexual assault. Cases that fall under the jurisdiction of this unit include physical sexual abuse of children and adult sexual assault, severe domestic violence, murders of children and/or other family members, child pornography, and prosecution of sexual offenders. The division would conduct detailed and thorough follow-up investigations of family and sexual assaults as initiated by the patrol and CID departments (Dempsey & Forst, 2011). A winning collaborative team strategy would be to pull together the entire police department divisions as well as external medical and health services.
Special Operations Division
The tactical, traffic enforcement and victim assistance sections of the Special Operations will be most applicable to this strategic plan against violent crime. The Tactical section is the elite unit that would provide specially trained officers and equipment to respond to emergency situations such as managing barricades, hostage rescues, counter terrorism, along with high risk felony. The traffic section would handle drunk-driver checkpoints as well programs related to intoxicated people operating motor vehicles. The unit would enforce drug laws by engaging in police crackdowns to make drug arrests and check street dealing (Dempsey & Forst, 2011). The strategy would employ undercover, buy-and-burst operations, sweeps, raids on apartments, asset forfeiture, and reverse stings.
References:
Dempsey, S. J. & Forst, S. L. (2011). An Introduction to Policing. Connecticut: Cengage Learning.
