Philadelphia Foot Patrol

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Term Paper: Chapter 7-10
Sandra Wallace
Policing in America
Montana State University Northern Abstract
Start–here

The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment represented a unique approach to crime prevention through patrol. Discuss how this approach is different from traditional patrol.

“During the summer of 2009, Philadelphia police departments, police and academic researchers worked together to plan the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment as a randomized controlled trial (Katz, C., & Walker, S.).” They used 250 officers to go out and patrol locations with a reputation of high crime. The Goal of the Foot Patrol was to reduce crime in the “Hot Spots” where crime seemed to happen more frequent. Hot Spots usually appeared within the cities, …show more content…

With police on foot patrol, they can interact better with the people within the high targeted areas and give them a sense of safety where crime is more likely to happen. Although the foot patrol cannot always fight crime due to their lack of mobility, they can detour crime from happening with their mere presents.
“Violent crime levels spiked in Philadelphia, Pa. As of 2008, there had been more than a hundred shootings within Philadelphia as of 2002 (crimesolutions.gov).” I used to love talking to the police officers who rode on horseback as a child. I honestly feel a lot safer with there being a foot patrol. I feel vehicles are a distraction. You are taught to keep your eyes on the road while driving, so how can you completely pay attention to the surroundings. I feel as though for every crime a police officer driving around spots, he or she could have missed a few potentially dangerous …show more content…

Hate crimes are fairly hard to identify unless the suspects are gang related or patterns of behavior and threats have been an issue in the past based on gender, race, etc. (Walker, S., & Katz, C. 2013) Lately there have been many movies and documentaries based on hate crimes against a person’s sexual orientation and race. One movie in particular has been showed in schools and other places to spread awareness is “Boys don’t Cry.” In this movie there is a young female who does not quite feel right in the body she was born with. She had to move frequently because people find out “He is really a she” and cause a lot of problems and threaten her on a daily basis. She moves down south where she identifies herself as a man and falls in love with a woman. “Her” friends find out and killed her and his close friend who tries to stand up for her. The film is very graphic and