Chapter 13 Flashcards
Addressing Offenders and Victims
Describe some of the front end and back end issues involved in dealing with mentally ill persons.
At the front end of the problem, an estimated 20-40% of police calls for service involve a mentally ill person, while an estimated 7% of police contacts in jurisdictions with 100,000 or more people involve the mentally ill. On the back end, America’s jails and prisons have been termed by the Treatment Advocacy Center as the “new asylums” because they house more mentally ill persons than any psychiatric hospital in the country.
List several strategies for police that are essential for providing a foundation for problem reduction among the mentally ill population
- Work with the mental health community
- Work with emergency hospitals
- Appoint police liaison officers
- Train generalist police officers
- Use less lethal weapons
- Target repeat criminals, locations, and hotspots
Review what police agencies can do to address mental illness using the Crisis Intervention Team concept.
officers learn to approach mentally ill suspects differently, using body language and voice commands to de-escalate situations and to ease emotionally disturbed persons into compliance and safety.
Explain in brief how police treatment of domestic violence has changed over the past three decades.
Before the 1970s, incidents of domestic violence rarely came to the criminal justice system. Police would only pursue a case with serious physical injury or death (e.g., homicides). Many responding officers viewed domestic violence as a family matter. They did not believe domestic violence should be prioritized over other criminal cases. They questioned the time and effort when victims often became “uncooperative.” In most jurisdictions, domestic violence represented a simple assault, a misdemeanor offense.
A Delayed Response to Domestic Violence Calls
In the 1970s and ’80s, some police departments trained police officers to delay the response to domestic violence calls. The purpose behind the delayed law enforcement response was two-fold:
If the police response were slow, the problem would resolve itself at home.
If the police did not appear, the aggressor would leave before the police arrived.
This delayed response reduced the time the law enforcement agency spent on the call. It also decreased time spent on a criminal investigation of the incident.
Unfortunately, this strategy failed to provide for victim safety. Instead, it became a “free pass” to batterers. At that time, police officer training was not victim-centered. It did not focus on many factors now known as key in understanding a domestic violence incident. For example, officer education and training failed to consider the role of victim intimidation. It also did not identify warning signs that each party’s behavior might provide at the scene. The delayed response to the domestic violence call had other deficiencies. It reduced the ability to document physical abuse. It limited referrals for follow-up medical treatment for physical injury.
What are some common practices contained in police policies regarding officers’ response to incidents of domestic violence?
- Approach carefully
- Separate the parties
- Collect evidence
- Obtain protection orders
- Perform lethality assessments
- Do domestic violence crime analysis
- Have protocols for protecting children
Describe the types of cybercrime that exist today, and some police tactics for dealing with it; include initiates for the Electronic Crimes Task Force in New York and the U.S. Secret Service in your response.
Online identify theft, financial fraud, stalking, bullying, hacking, email spoofing, information piracy and forgery, intellectual property crime, and even romantic enticements.
Electronic Crimes Task Force (NYECTF): partnership between the U.S. Secret Service and a host of other public safety agencies and private corporations to fight electronic crime. Formed in 1995.
Define what is meant by identify theft and the extent/nature of victimization in the United Sates each year.
Crime where a thief stays one’s personal information, such as his or her full name or social security number, to commit fraud.
17.6 Million persons age 16 or older are victims of at least one incident of identity theft each year.
Explain what law enforcement measures can be taken to combat identify theft and other financial crimes; include the task force in Pennsylvania in your response.
Prevention and Victim Assistance
- Encourage businesses’ awareness of their responsibility to protect employee and client records.
- Educate people about protecting their personal information
- Collaborate with government and other service organizations to protect private information
- Work with local banks to encourage credit card issuers to adopt improved security practices
- Track delivery
Task force in Pennsylvania: Financial Crimes Task Force of Southwestern Pennsylvania has been investigating, arresting, and prosecuting criminals involved with financial crimes including mail theft and identity theft. The task force was formed to develop a cooperative efforts with various agencies to address the problems of financial crime and identity theft. They have a website designed to assist and educate in dealing with the complexity of financial crimes.
Define human trafficking, its extent, the nature of most victimization, and how law enforcement can work to address it; include the diagnostic center approach in Minnesota in your response.
essentially modern day slavery and affects thousands of people in the United Sates. Under the Trafficking Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), human trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, though the use of force, fraud, of coercion, for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. Includes sex trafficking.
Victims: preexisting problems such as mental illness, drug abuse, and/or family dysfunction.
Addressing:
Collaboration is key.
T Visa- allows some victims of human trafficking and immediate family members to remain and work temporarily in the US if they agree to assist law enforcement in testifying against the perpetrators.
The Office of Victims of Crime:
offers funding for anti trafficking programs to serve pre-certified victims of trafficking; this program also supports the TVPA’s goals of preventing and prosecuting.
Diagnostic Center: 2012- employs data driven strategies for combating human trafficking. The city of Albert Lea, Minnesota, became involved with the federal Diagnostic Center to assess the impact of human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking, and to identify best practices to address these crimes.
True or false:
Because of the myriad of care facilities provided for them, police officers rarely encounter mentally ill persons on the street
False
True or false:
Two long standing policies for officers responding to domestic violence calls include sending at least two officers to the scene and separating the parties so each can speak candidly .
True
True or false:
About half of American adults have their personal information stolen by hackers each year, primarily through data breaches at large companies.
True
True or false:
Nearly all (about 90%) of identity theft victims report the incident to police.
False
True or false:
Of the estimated 2.4 million people in the world who are victims of human trafficking, very few of them are exploited as sexual slaves; most are in forced labor situations.
False
