Criminology

Crimes are a rampant phenomenon in todays society and this has prompted the installation of counteractive measures of dealing with them. As such, crime intervention and prevention has become an area of great emphasis as it is the last result of a society which is struggling to ensure that the rule of law prevails. Law enforcement plays a fundamental role in the eradication of crime but can only achieve its desired results with the implementation of appropriate policing mechanism. The effectiveness of policing strategies depends on a variety of factors which include the type of crime, the crime area, crime offenders and the crime rate among others. This paper seeks to provide a practical application of a policing strategy in dealing with a neighborhood problem. The problem under discussion is street drug dealing in Brunswick Street, Fortitude valley and using the hotspot policing strategy, the paper will evaluate its effectiveness in eradicating this neighborhood problem.

Location Site and Problem
Brunswick Street, Fortitude valley is located in Central Brisbane and is aligned with arcades, casinos, clubs and other leisure facilities. Basically, this street is the hub of nightlife in Brisbane. Brunswick Street has previously received a lot of attention from the media due to the arrests of high school students caught purchasing narcotics from street peddlers, serious assaults, car theft and other offenses. This street has a train station which has been a central point for criminals. The large group of people frequenting this street has made it a haven for drug peddlers as they can camouflage themselves at the bus and train stations, clubs and street corners. Street drug peddling in this suburban neighborhood occurs mostly at night when these clubs are open.

Hotspots Policing Strategy
Hotspot policing is a contemporary policing strategy which is both problem and situational oriented. It involves the dissemination and illustration of crime trends in specific areas and devising mechanisms for eradicating the specific crime in that specific area. The underlying principle behind hotspot policing is that law enforcers seek to address the underlying factors which cause crimes as opposed to concentrating on individual occurrences of these crimes. In addition, it is founded on proactive mechanisms of crime prevention. Jacobson (1999, p.1) emphasizes that hotspots policing functions on the rationale that crimes are not evenly distributed within areas but tend to cluster around specific areas.

Battin (2009, p.3) explains that crime mapping is carried out using spatial modeling and analysis of hotspots which are identified as areas which have higher rates of crime and disorder events or those which pose a greater risk for victimization. In fact Jacobson (1999, p.5) illustrates a case of crime mapping of drug markets in New Bedford, Massachusetts where the analysis of drug related incidences was used in identifying areas where drug activities occurred rampantly. This survey implies the element of repeat crimes which also guides hotspots policing. Hotspots policing has been utilized in various places in eradicating drug markets. There are emerging strengths and weaknesses of this strategy of which the strengths indicate the utmost effectiveness of this strategy.

Strengths of Hotspots Policing
Goldstein (1990, p.23) argues that repeat victimization provides the possibility of a proactive intervention measure in reference to the characteristics of the repeat crimes. Consequently, hotspot policing gains one of its strengths in eradicating such disorders like street drug peddling. This is because it gives law enforcement officers the responsibility of combating repeat incidences especially those occurring in places which have been identified as crime hotspots. The repeat place and street theory portends that hotspots are places or streets where many crimes are said to occur and these places have characteristics which fuel or encourage the occurrence of these crimes. Concentrating on such repeat places in policing strategies can eradicate other interrelated crimes as indicated by Kitto, Teece, White and Williams (2001, p.2) who point out that interventions on drug markets which are hotspots can indeed elevate other crimes like robbery, burglary and property crimes.

Offences which are often related to drugs emanate from the distribution of these drugs which makes hotspot policing most appropriate for the eradication of drug related crimes. Ratcliffe and Taniguchi (2008, p.18) showcase that drug related crimes occur highly in gang corners and streets more than in other areas. The street theory therefore plays a significant role in drug street peddling. It is after this identification that policing moves to control these identified territories. This control involves monitoring area operations by increasing patrol services or even establishing a temporary police post which will deter the crime. Barrett, Lister, Seddon and Traynor et al (2008, p.35) highlights that this form of control should also incorporate monitoring behaviors of individuals frequenting the specific places and making sure to note of any out of place behaviors and actions.

The neighborhood theory is also utilized in analyzing hotspots and it underlies that there are neighborhoods which have higher crime rates than others and which are often preferred by offenders. In such neighborhoods, people result to moving from these neighborhoods as the containment of these neighborhood crimes becomes difficulty. However as indicated by Rengert and Robinson (2006, p.34) hotspot policing can be applied in such neighborhoods and that it has indeed been effective in some places. The case of Alphabet City in New York provides an impeccable example where hotspot policing was used to rid the community of drugs and related crimes. In this endeavor, police officers used crackdowns, sweeps and intensified patrolling in removing the drug dealers from this community (Davis and Maxwell, 2002, p.6).

Hotspot policing strategy has been empirically tested in a vast range of areas and shown to produce effective results in the decline of crimes and disorders in specific hotspots as pointed out by Braga (2005). An illustration of the effective application of this hotspot policing was seen in Jersey City where this resulted in a reduction of calls for crime for service and also reduced crime incidences (Braga, 2008, p.18). Sherman and Weisburd (1995) also reported survey results of the Minneapolis Hot Spots patrol program where increased patrol in identified hot spots also led to reduced crime incidences and calls for service.

Weaknesses of Hotspots Policing
Even though the effectiveness of this policing strategy cannot be refuted, there are certain negative implications of the strategy with speculations directed at how lasting the effects of crime reductions last. Rosenbaum (2006, p.246) argues that under controlled conditions hot spots policing does work but the impacts are short term. Other negative implications include the difficulty in justification of expensive concentration of police resources on a specific crime. Bond and Braga (2008, p.597) also indicates that hot spots policing may result to effects of displacement and diffusion of crimes but there are no clear indications that this effect actually occurs. In addressing the issue of expenses, it will be a justifiable endeavor to carry out hotspots policing in Brunswick Street because the expected benefits exceed these costs.

Hot Spots policing will be highly applicable in eliminating street drug peddling in Brunswick Street, Fortitude valley as it fits the above mentioned characteristics. Brunswick Street is a frequent place for drug peddlers and with their target clients being youths and high school students hot spots policing is a drastic measure which can be used to instantly disseminate these activities. Queensland Police application of crackdowns will be quite effective as it will increase risks of arrests for the drug dealers and also heighten the inconvenience for both drug peddlers and the youths or high school students whom they are selling the drugs to (Jacobson, 1999, p.9). Together with these police crackdowns police officers will also carry out sweeps in these streets and indeed there is likely to be a rapid drop of this disorder after as was the case of Alphabet City in New York (Rengert and Robinson, 2006, p.34). Increased police presence in Brunswick Street will also lead to the decline of other crimes, an increased fear of crime and also inhibit peddlers from dealing.

Conclusion
The above analysis has sought to apply hotspots policing strategy to street drug peddling in Brunswick Street where the disorder has increased rampantly. In doing so, the paper has evaluated characteristics of hotspots policing which include the identification of places with high disorders, devising appropriate measures and applying them to these specific areas. Furthermore, repeat streetplace theory and neighborhood theory have provided a practical justification of the hotspots policing strategy. The likelihood of future crimes in places with high incidence crime rates can be used in deriving proactive strategies for the prevention of crimes and disorderly events. The effectiveness of this strategy is also irrefutable and as showcased in the given illustrations it has led to the eradication of drug markets in New York, Jersey and in Minneapolis.

Hotspots policing in Brunswick Street will serve to eliminate drug markets in the city and also prevent other drug related crimes within the region. This policy has been shown to be applicable to Brunswick Street because it has recorded high drug dealing incidences. In fact, high school students have been arrested in the same spots quite frequently but the disorder has persisted. As such applying intensified police patrols, carrying out police crackdowns and sweeps will lead to a significant decline of streets drug peddling in these streets.