Page 58 - 1Proactive Policing

Pro-Active Policing

types of approaches (Braga, et al. 2012). The first approach, problem oriented policing,
represents police-led efforts to change the underlying conditions at hot spots that lead to recurring

crime problems. It requires police to look past traditional strategies and include other possible
methods for addressing crime problems (Weisburd and Eck, 2004). The second approach relies
primarily on traditional policing activities, such as vehicle patrols, foot patrols, or crackdowns

concentrated at specific hot spots to prevent crime through general deterrence and increased risk
of apprehension.

Pro & Con: Tactics of Transit Officers; Police Decoys, Temptation and Crime

SINCE the days when burly, bewigged policemen masqueraded as women to catch molesters,
police departments around the country have used decoy officers to trap suspected muggers,
rapists and other criminals. The technique works, but it has sometimes been abused.

Officers have been accused of entrapping suspects by dangling money, flaunting jewelry, planting
evidence a practice sometimes called ''flaking,'' though the origin of the term is uncertain or

tricking a target into picking up a valuable item an officer has purposely dropped.

Last month, the New York City Transit Authority Police Department suspended the operations of

its elite 23member decoy squad amid accusations that its officers had made dubious arrests on
subway platforms and trains. Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau is investigating

the allegations.

The transit decoy unit, the most recent version of which was formed in 1985, had been making

about 600 arrests a year. It was considered one of the most prestigious assignments in the
3,800member transit force. Critics contend, however, that pressure to justify the unit's continued

existence may have motivated officers to make arrests involving what Mr. Morgenthau has called
''aggressive enticement.''

Todd S. Purdum, a reporter for The Times, discussed the matter with Thomas Reppetto, a former
Chicago police commander who is president of New York City's Citizens Crime Commission, and
Richard D. Emery, a lawyer and former staff counsel to the New York Civil Liberties Union, who is

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