Edmund F. McGarrell

In the following viewpoint, Edmund F. McGarrell argues that community policing—in which police officers try to prevent crime before it happens by establishing trusting relationships with the people in the neighborhoods they serve— has helped produce a national decrease in crime rates. Police departments must reward officers for preventing crimes, he asserts, and provide them with more time to become acquainted with the people on their beat. McGarrell directs the Hudson Institute’s Crime Control Policy Center and is chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to McGarrell, what percentage of Spokane’s drug arrests occurred in the West First Street neighborhood in 1994?
2. By the end of the second year of Project ROAR, what percentage of residents reported observable...