S.A.R.a

S.A.R.A The history of policing seems to be riddled with trial and error models of policing. During the years “Traditional Policing”, almost all of the police departments and other law enforcement agencies were more focused on handling situations and or crime if you will, after the fact. With a strong belief that rapid response times to CFS and addressing the problem at hand and showing a strong police presence with deter and therefore eliminate crime and the fear of crime in those areas. Herman Goldstein was an individual that could see policing did not work efficiently for police or the communities in question as it was being applied. As a direct result of his work and others, came “Problem oriented policing”. The concept of problem solving is by no means a new concept to police. Goldstein recognized that there were deficiencies surrounding the concept. The community policing models gave the police and the community a new direction to go. Realizing in order to be more efficient the police and the community needed to combine their resources and work together in order to have long-term success in reducing crime. Through the works of Herman Goldstein, emerged a problem-solving process called S.A.R.A which is the acronym for scanning, analysis, response and assessment. This model has the four critical stages of problem solving. Each step relies on the prior step or steps to be successful. Here are the four steps in the S.A.R.A model. Each step is crucial to the next, but remember that analysis is the most important of the four steps. Scanning is the first step to be applied for the identification of problem or if a problem even exists. First we need to understand the definition of a problem. Peak & Glensor define a problem as being “A group of two or more incidents that are similar in one or more respects, causing harm and therefore being a concern to the police and to the public”. There are different ways that incidents may be similar which include; behaviors, locations, persons, times and events. The patrol officers that are out in the field are in a position to be able to scan and identify the reoccurrences of particular crimes or dealing with certain individual over and over again. They should be looking for patterns that form in their patrol areas. If the scanning process shows that the topic is not a “problem” then it should be handled with normal procedures (Peak & Glensor). On the other hand, if during the scanning stage of S.A.R.A. you discover that there is indeed a “problem” then this would allow for the initiation of step two of the S.A.R.A. model. The second step is Analysis and it is thought of as being the heart of the problem solving process and the most important of the four stages. This step should be looked upon comprehensively by police. “The purpose of analysis is to learn as much as possible about the problem in order to identify their causes; officers must gather information from sources inside and outside their agency about the scope, nature and causes of problems” (Peak & Glensor 2008 P.72-73). Much of this information collected is local and in the immediate area of the problem. The objective in the analysis stage is to learn and know how the problem arises and locate points where intervention can occur, this is where we can begin to suggest ways to reduce and or eliminate the problem. During the analysis we must be able to answer certain questions. How serious are the crimes that are being looked at' How often does it occur' Is it the same offender or offenders' Who are the victims' Where is it happening' When does it occur' Are there any patterns within time and space' Once we start to build on our knowledge of the issue, we can begin to look at why the problem exists and what are the underlying causes of said crimes or harms. We can look at many resources that are available via the internet concerning similar problems that may exist elsewhere or research that may help with your analysis. Harmful behavior is an important part of the analyzing the problem. Peak & Glensor use the example of gang to look at harmful behavior. Some of their behaviors present harm to the community and need to be the focus of police, while other behaviors surrounding the gangs were not harmful. Because gang problems can be very broad and far reaching, it would be better to use the analysis stage to focus on the harmful areas and break the gang problems down into smaller more manageable problems. If you chip away at big problem with a series smaller more focused wins, then this will have a positive impact on the overall problem solving process. Not only would the small wins chip away at the crime problem, but the small wins would also have a positive affect on the people working towards these goals and the community as well. The third step is Response. This can only been accomplished after it is very clear as to what the problem actually is and has been scrutinized carefully. In this stage, we should be forming specific plans and goals that combat the problem. When reviewing the problem, we should develop a solution that addresses at least two sides of the crime triangle. There are five groups of potential solutions to problems; 1) totally eliminating the problem 2) reducing the number of incidents the problem creates 3) reducing the seriousness of the harms 4) deal with the problem better 5) remove the problem from police consideration. Officer that are involved in problem-solving need to look for help and assistance from outside resources such as: the surrounding community, businesses, neighborhood groups, schools and other departments. You should not over look any possible ally in the community that can help with your problem-solving cause. Peak & Glensor point out that “it is important to remember that the key to developing tailor made responses is making sure the responses are very focused and directly linked to the findings from the analysis phase of the project”. The fourth and final step is Assessment. In assessment phase of S.A.R.A. officers need to evaluate how well their responses worked in phase three. Several different measures can be used to assess their effectiveness. This includes the people arrested, crimes reported, response times, clearance rates, citizen complaints and various workload indicators, such as CFS and the number of field interviews conducted (Peak & Glensor 2008). One of the things that I have noticed is that, what makes S.A.R.A a good problem-solving tool, is that you can if needed take a step back and re-assess your strategies and outcomes and then plug in the newly learned factors that have been brought to the surface and move forward in other directions that may be more effective and if done correctly you should be receiving plenty of welcomed support from the outside sources that you have included in your project. Works Cited Peak, Kenneth and Glensor, Ronald. Community Policing and Problem Solving: Strategies and Practices. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Inc., 2008.