Preventing crimes is always a preferable strategy since it allows minimizing harm and promoting healthy relationship within a community. In his article, Couper (2015) outlines ten main approaches to crime reduction suggested by R. E. Foster, a retired police lieutenant. Though each of the suggestions offered by Foster is a reasonable piece of advice, the idea of maintaining awareness about community problems appears to be the primary one due to the range of opportunities for forecasting and prevention that it provides.
The application of a strategy based on the community analysis allows understanding the specific dynamics within it and, therefore, identify emergent conflicts. In addition, other factors s that may entail crime and the related incidents, such as increased poverty rates or rising levels of social injustice, will serve as an essential piece of information for analysis. Namely, information concerning physical threats, the presence of unhealthy attitudes, prejudices, and similar issues, as well as other factors that may entail instances of violence, fraud, or other criminal activities must be collected and processed actively (Couper, 2015). Thus, a crime analyst will develop a critical understanding of the core problems that a community is facing in relation to crime management, which, in turn, will point to the potential cases of criminal activity. Remarkably, the approach in question incorporates both crime reduction and situational analysis since it enables a crime analyst to assess immediate changes in the environment to produce an accurate evaluation and a corresponding solution.
Since being aware of the social climate within a community allows one to model the core dynamics within it and, thus, predict instances of violence and crime, the recommendation concerning building community awareness appears to be the most valuable one. The proposed option encourages a crime analyst to consider a variety of underlying factors that contribute to a rise in crime rates. Therefore, the assessment and monitoring of the community must remain a core strategy for a crime analyst to prevent a rise in crime.
Reference
Couper, D. (2015). Improving police: A Necessary conversation.Improving Police Blog. Web.