Assignment : LASA 1: The Neighborhoods of Centervale

Here's What Happened . . .

You have just been promoted to sergeant in the Community Policing Division of the Centervale Police Department. Your first assignment is to examine the criminal behavior in your area and work with local agencies to develop proactive policies to help reduce criminal activity and lower the overall crime rate. Your jurisdiction covers many different areas; you know that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. You decide to break down your jurisdiction into smaller areas to tackle them individually.

Area 1 is a low-income area that is often featured in the news for its high murder rate. This area is a transient, high-rent district (for example, the housing is not expensive, but most houses are rented, not owned, by occupants) populated with single-parent households. Most citizens are unemployed, and the high dropout rate paints the school system as being one of the worst in the region.

Area 2 is also a low-income area with a lot of property crime but with an overall lower crime rate than that in Area 1. Many employed dual-parent households have purchased their homes through government programs instead of opting to rent. Although the schools are better and the dropout rate is relatively lower than that in Area 1, the dropout rate is still higher than the national average.

Area 3 is culturally diverse and continually changes and grows every year. Although the overall crime rate has risen slowly, unemployment is high, property crime is high, and violent crime is high. Specifically, Area 3 has an unusually high murder rate.

Area 4 has both employed, high-income families and employed, low-income families. Because land costs less, expensive houses continue to be built in low-income areas. The Centervale Police Department reports an extremely high number of calls-for-service from citizens residing in high-income housing in low-income neighborhoods, who report frequent incidents of vandalism and other property crimes.

Here's What You Need To Do . . .

Review the details and prepare a 3-4-page report that discusses the criminal activity in these areas. Compose your paper based on the following points:

Analyze and evaluate each area. Based on your knowledge of the explanations of crime, identify and discuss key factors (for example, biological, environmental, and cultural) that may influence criminal activity.

Select and apply the best criminological theory to explain the criminal activity for each area. Identify and discuss each area's specific characteristics as they relate to the theory's specific concepts and key terms. Be sure to include each tenet of the theory and explain how it connects to the characteristics of the specific area.

Support your explanations with research gleaned from assigned readings, optional readings, and additional credible academic sources.

Create a three-pronged plan to recommend that promotes crime reduction for each specific area to present to the city's stakeholders.

Compose a clear and concise theoretical argument for your plan. Be sure to use the tenets of the selected theory to support each prong of your plan.

Note: Be sure to organize your paper into clear and concise paragraphs. You should read the grading rubric before starting your paper to ensure you cover all the material appropriately. Use APA in-text citations to cite external sources that link to corresponding references on a separate page.