Community problem saving paper

INTRODUCTION

The law enforcement agents and community residents of the bayside community in Chicago, Illinois share a common concern for sustaining quality and safe neighborhoods. Law enforcement initiatives have somewhat contributed to the decline in the levels of crime and disorder although there are still parts of the Bayside community that are still plagued with some small incidences of violent crime. This paper will attempt to discuss how the law enforcement agencies and the bayside community have attempted to resolve the levels of crime and disorder in the community through a law enforcement initiative.

DISCUSSION

In bayside’s law enforcement initiative, one of the initiatives that was stipulated was the community capacity. The community capacity is the extent that all the members of the bayside community in Chicago went to work together efficiently, including their capabilities to sustain and develop strong relationships with each other and the law enforcement agents to solve the levels of crime and disorder. In addition to this, the members of the community and the law enforcement agents needed to collaborate efficiently in order to identify the key goals and get the job done. The members of the bayside community observing the law enforcement agents reducing the levels of crime and disorder is not the same as them working together with the police to control the levels of crime and disorder. This is because some things that the law enforcement agents do to prevent or reduce the levels of crime and disorder might somewhat promote the dependency of the community on the law enforcement agents. Therefore, reduce the strength of the law enforcement initiative, even if this would have a short-term positive effect on the levels of disorder and crime in the bayside community (Parr, 2000).

In addition to this, other things that the law enforcement agents may do to reduce the levels of disorder and crime may somehow promote the community’s experience in civic engagement that fortifies the civic bodies and thus allow the members of the community to solve other problems in the future through the law enforcement initiative. When the law enforcement agents and the members of the community make this kind of contribution to the law enforcement initiative, then the community will be moving in the right direction in relation to fighting levels of crime and disorder.

According to the Chief of Police in bayside community, Lee Andre, he stated in an interview that one of the objectives in the law enforcement initiative was to improve the overall neighborhood space in bayside community. This would involve many interactions between the law enforcement agents and the members of the community to prioritize problems in each area of the community as well as by instituting projects to achieve this objective. In an attempt to reduce the levels of crimes and disorder often attributed to negligent landlords and tenants, though co-productive efforts between the different community group and the police have developed a kind of training for the landlords on how to screed their tenants (Parr, 2000). Furthermore, the police through the law enforcement initiative have also developed problem solving teams who work together with the members of the community and other agencies to identify certain problems, find out why these problems occur and take the necessary steps to get rid of the causes of these problems (Siemens, 2008).

Furthermore, the second objective of the law enforcement initiative in bayside community was to develop law enforcement partnerships with other interested parties to involve coordination on many issues pertaining to the levels of crime and disorder, education, economic revitalization and cultural awareness in the community (Rossing, 2000). The steps to improve the bayside community sometimes represented the challenge of trying to break the eminent disorder-fear-crime cycle that the Chief of Police in bayside community, Le Andre attributed to the community decline. For instance, the members of the community together the police worked hand in hand to renovate, clean the streets in the community as well as inhabit the abandoned buildings and this closed the community to social ills such as prostitution and drug dealing. This initiative resulted in reduced levels of crimes and disorders in the bayside community.

CONCLUSION

The law enforcement agents and community residents of the bayside community in Chicago, Illinois share a common concern for sustaining quality and safe neighborhoods. The law enforcement agencies and the members of the bayside community resolved the levels of crime and disorder by stipulating the above-mentioned initiatives that were quite successful in reducing the level of crime and disorder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Parr, J. (2000). Community problem solving. Colorado: University of Colorado.

Rossing, B. (2000). Community problem solving: mobilizing the disadvantaged: a training model. Georgia: University of Georgia

Siemens, C. (2008). Community education and crime prevention. New York, NY: Springer