SARA Model

Implementation of the SARA model in Community Policing

CJ-345: Supervising Practices in Criminal Justice

Unit 1 Assignment

In this assignment, I will explain how I, acting as Police Chief of Riverside, would implement a plan to address the issue of graffiti that looks gang related to the Town Council in a meeting using the S.A.R.A. model. The S.A.R.A. model stands for scanning, analysis, response, and assessment (Miller, 2017). I will also include an examination of how my own multiculturalism and diversity perspectives could impact the plan elements.

Trying to make everyone in the community feel as though they can speak to me about anything, as Chief of Police of Riverside, I would start off by letting the whole community know that they are all invited and encouraged to attend the Town Council meeting to come together as a community. I would have the Principal hand out letters to be taken home to the families of the students, so that the parents can be made aware when they can attend with their concerns. I would state the issues of graffiti in the letter along with a brief description on how the safety of our school and community is the main concern.

Since there are also concerns with the neighboring city of Rockville’s gang issues that may be spreading to Riverside, I will make it clear that this could be a good opportunity to put a stop to the impending growth of activity that could destroy our chances to win awards and bring a negative public opinion of our school.

First things to address at the meeting would be that everyone can easily play a part in the protection of the community by simply keeping an eye out for something that is out of place. As Chief of police, I want to make it clear the community that if there is some sort of activity going on that is out of the normal it is easier for them to notice since they spend so much time on a regular basis in their neighborhoods. I would set up a hotline to report those tips to, designating a few people to taking and processing those tips to give to the officers. I would ask that any suspicious activity be reported as soon as possible because this can lead to preventing crime and making the presence known to the offenders that the community is intolerant of their activity. Deterrence is a future oriented aim in that the intention behind is to reduce crime (Hucklesby, 2013). This deterrence could prevent the growth of gang activity and other criminal activity just by the possible offenders knowing they are being watched.

Along with the community playing their part, I would implement regular patrols on the hot spot activities that we already know about. The football field, the parking lot at the school, around bridges, and other places we get tips on to look at. If the activity is managed properly, it can be taken care of. Once the activity is left unmanaged or uncontrolled it can take over the entire community by making the citizens scared to go out of their home, children won’t be able to experience just being a kid out at the local parks, and it can create such a hostile environment that it can ruin people’s lives.

My plan to address to the Town Council, and the community, would be to scan the community using them to help the police force by calling in tips. I would then analyze the information from the community and make the appropriate plans to handle the issues. After I implement my responses to these areas of concern, I would assess what the outcomes were. Did my plans work? Did we make our presence known and was it enough to deter any more activity? Deterrence is a future oriented aim in that the intention behind is to reduce crime (Hucklesby, 2013). Is this something we handled or do we need to reanalyze our plan and come up with a new one?

After a few months, I would take an in depth look at where our community is at and see if we needed to restructure our plans, or see if they worked out the way we wanted them to.

Coming at the issue full force would be the best idea I have. I come from a few different communities, since I am an Air Force brat and we moved a lot, so I know the impact that gang activity has on different sizes of communities and the role it can play to destroying the small town. A larger town has a higher risk of the activity getting out of control sooner due to the inability of a larger community to come together as easily. I think a small town has a better chance of trying to get on top of it because they usually all know one another and can come together a lot easier. I think the man-power to stop gang activity could be a huge problem for a smaller town since they could lack the resources to have a big impact. Where larger towns have the resources, they are widespread and harder to manage.

I am of Spanish and German background, so I come from two very different backgrounds. On one side the family is very tight knit and comes together for every holiday, but they also live in lower income communities where you are always needing to be aware of your surroundings. The other side is semi-close and they may call on the holiday but they live in an upscale gated community where some people never lock their doors. I think I make my decisions based on my negative experiences, so I come at the issues with a lot more impact. I hope to get some different views of problem solving from this class since leadership roles need to be able to come at issues with many different viewpoints and opinions.

My back ground allows for me to see the benefits of some community decisions as well as see where some decisions could take a community. I feel that because of my perspective I would come at the issue full force to make sure that the activity doesn’t grow, but I feel that this could be a plan to backfire as well. What if the aggression I take as the Police Chief creates a target on the city and instigates the gangs to make a stance or try to show us they won’t be pushed out? This is where the personal perspective can make me have on blinders

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