Choose a particular crime (incident) in New York City’s history, and then divide the paper into the following sections:
1. Describe the crime in detail (using both book and newspaper resources). When did this occur? What were the dates? What were the circumstances? Who was/were the victim(s) and offender(s). Tel me the story of the crime. This does not have to be a crime where someone was found guilty in court (i.e. Casey Anthony in Florida), but you cannot invent a crime from your imagination (i.e. “the Boston Marathon bombing was an inside job orchestrated by the President’). You must make the case that this was a crime even if the alleged offender was an NYPD officer.
2. Using newspaper resources, discuss how NYPD handled the incident and the measures used to deter the criminal behavior. What type of surveillance or crime control did they have in place in order to prevent this type of crime? Did they handle the incident according to police protocol? How does the arrest made prevent this crime from occurring again?
3. Discuss the measures that could have been implemented to “prevent” the crime altogether. Forget about “crime control” and “punishment”, and think “prevention.” This could be community centers or better relations between neighborhood residents and NYPD. This section is all discussion and does not require any research. But you have to discuss how this crime could have been prevented from occurring in the first place. What type of surveillance could have been used? (i.e. a Subway bombing is prevented through the “If you see something, say something” culture). How could the community have played a role?
