Week 8

Intro to Police I


This week dealt solely with community policing (COPP) and problem oriented policing. (POP)
As we have discussed already community policing is the new model of policing used by police to improve community relations and get the citizens involved in preventing crime. POP is a method of policing that aims to get to the root of a problem to resolve it, instead of responding to the same calls over and over again.

For the assignment this week we watched a video on the web about how the city of Boston, MA has used foot patrols to reduce the crime rates in high crime areas (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=3028081n) Then we wrote a report summarizing the video.

In the discussion we debated whether police should put more emphasis on solving crimes they get called to, or using COPP and POP strategies.































Intro to Criminal Justice I

This week we got into very detailed study of the rules of search and seizure, including the "exclusionary rule" that was created by the US Supreme Court that set forth very strict guidelines for the ways that police can obtain evidence through search warrants, arrest warrants and incident to arrest searches. It also covers some modifications that have been given to police in emergency situations to do searches and seizures. It also covers the special circumstances surrounding vehicle searches, because of the ability of a vehicle to flee a departments jurisdiction quickly. They were covered under incident to arrest and plain view searches, meaning anything in plain view of an officer or when a person in a vehicle is arrested the entire vehicle is legally able to be searched by the police, however rumor has it the US Supreme Court within the last few weeks has changed the incident to arrest procedures to those of arrest warrant searches where only the person being arrested and the area within their "immediate control" can be searched, this could really cause problems for the officers on the streets.

In the assignment we wrote a report on scenarios provided and referencing them with court cases provided in the text to tell if the evidence seized in the scenario would be excluded in court or not. I also turned my final project for this class, which is worth 150 points. For this project I did an interview with my friend Eric, a police officer, and also wrote a report on Westwood College Online CJ instructor Mark Smith.

In the journal entry I had to provide what states I intended to contact to start my criminal justice career, for which I picked Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky police departments all have paid training through the academy, Ohio does not. So I'm looking at moving down there as it would be a much easier route than trying to go through an Ohio academy at my own time and expense, which is about six months long. Unless of course I pursue a career with the Ohio Highway Patrol, then I would receive paid training. But I really do love responding to calls in a city environment also, so I'm not sure yet which way to go. If I do decide to go the city officer route I will certainly look to KY then.