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FACTORS THAT LED TO CRIME REDUCTION IN NEW YORK
FACTORS THAT LED TO CRIME REDUCTION IN NEW YORK
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FACTORS THAT LED TO CRIME REDUCTION IN NEW YORK
New Yorkers for the past two decades have been the beneficiaries of the longest and largest sustained street crime drop ever experienced by a developing world big city. Several common crimes that often spark public fear like bugler, homicide and robbery in less than a generation recorded an 80 percent drop. The homicide rate by 2009 was lower than it had been in 1961.There was also a decrease on the risk of being robbed which compared to the 1990 level reduced by one sixth, while there was also a one sixteen percent decrease on the car theft level.
Although there was a failure by the experts to anticipate the decline, there has been no divergent hypothesis shortages that try to explain the crime drop rate. One explanation that is frequently used is the innovative policing principal. Increased imprisonment is also another explanation that is frequently attribute to drop in crme rate, market for cocaine, crack, tougher gun control laws, the aging of the population, Increase in number of police and strong economy are also other factors (Becker, Gary, 1968).
Particularities that led to a more prolonged and steeper decline in crime rate in New York City include facts like there being an increase in number of police. Since they are regarded as the first line of defense against crime, which makes it necessary for policing to use an approximately 60 billion dollars annually. Studies on the connection between crime and police in the 1970 and 1980’s revealed a negative or insignificant correlation, due to the fact that these studies typically failed to address or account for the main endogeneity issue. The response of the political class to rise in crime was to hire more police, so in this manner there is a direct correlation between the number of police and rates in crime
The rise in the prison population was also another aspects related to crime rate decrease which applies since the 1990’s is mainly reviewed as a period of enormous growth mainly in the number of prison population as exhibited by the expansion of the population behind bars in the mid-1970s which was a contrast to the initial stable imprisonment rates that had been experienced for decades. An approximately two million individuals by 2000 were incarcerated at one point in time; this figure approximately was four times the number imprisoned in 1972.Half of this prison population growth occurred in the 1990s.A number of divergent factors can however be attribute to this increase like rise in sharp incarceration for offenses that were drug related, Increased longer sentences and parole revocations for those convicted with these crimes (David, et. al 1988).
The crack epidemic reduction that begun in 1985 as there was an increase in the market for crack cocaine, the crack cocainesis that was produced by the heating of a powder mixture of baking soda and cocaine. The precipitate that resulted took the form of airy nuggets, when smoked even extremely small quantities of this compound produced a short lived but intense high. Crack cocaine emergency signified a relevant growth since it not only helped with the cocaine sales per dose at a retail price of 5 to 10 dollars and due to the extreme highly related to crack it became vital to the clients. The reduction of this market helped reduce the crime gangs within the city (David,A, 2002).Legalizing abortion was also another factor that helped with the crime also reduction following the 1973 U.S Supreme Court Roe v. Wade which even though seems like an unlikely crime reduction source in the 1990s, but a body of evidence that is still growing suggests that legalized abortion plays an important role in explaining a two decade later fall of crime rate two premises can be used to explain this underlying theory mainly the there is a recorded reduction exhibited in the unwanted births number and the fact that the unwanted children are at a greater risk of getting involved in crimes(Van Dijk JJM:,2008).
The exhibited strong economy in the 1990s which saw an economic growth that was sustainable. Between 1991 and 2001 there was a recorded 30 percent growth on the GDP per capita this also facilitated a decrease in the yearly unemployment rate from 1991 recorded 6.8 to 2001 recorded 4.8.If other determinants like macroeconomics can be considered vital in the analysis of crime rates then it would be possible to explain the falling crime rates by using the economy. Other economic crime models like the Becker 1968 explanation that state that legitimate improvements in labor market opportunities discourage crime, The relevance of this prediction to crime include direct motivations on financial aspects such as robbery, burglary, and auto theft, but less relevance for assault, homicide and rape cases.
Change in demographics also helped in the reduction of crime this can be explained by reviewing the baby boomers aging which represents a significant change in the demographics. There is a relatively low rate for criminal victimization and offending among the elderly, people over the age of 65 in 2001 had per arrest capita level an approximately one- fiftieth percent as compared to 15-19 year olds. In 1997 by using NCVS data, Perkins reported that those over the age of 65 experienced higher victimization rates for seriously violent crime which were was one-tenth lesser than that of teenagers. This analysis is given that the elderly population level increased during the 1990s, and it shows that an expected demographic driven decline would possibly occur. Their strategies involved enforcement increase on activities they considered a nuisance like using technology and panhandling aggressively to effectively identify common crime hotspots, other implemented changes they implemented included reviewing policing strategies like the community policing where the police tried to align with the community as compared to their usual response to emergency calls (Aebi MF,2004).
The 1980s increase in the use of capital punishment in the United States saw a total number of 117 prisoners put to death that number significantly quadrupled from the 1990s to 478.This methods effectiveness as a deterrent has been a prolonged debate currently other early evidence have argued in favor of this effect. The Ehrlich findings reviewed by many critics have been found to be sensitive and only exhibiting minor changes in their application, other recent studies from the 1990s have incorporated data that have a tendency of having deterrent and divergent series of effects.
Lessons that Zimring identified from the United States crime drop have included facts like most people never realizing things like the city experience exhibited most of the dominant assumptions found in modern America these include presumptions like for the crime rate to decrease first there has to be strategies put in place to address unemployment, poverty, and drug use, majority of the population considering crime as wrong, and that there also has to be majority movement of the minorities out of the city centers, and in addition it entails a necessity for throwing many people in jails which is a misguided concept(Zimring FE: 2012).
He also learnt from the period that just like New York other urban areas can also make giant strides towards addressing their high crime rates without making any major changes in their ethnic and racial profile; they can achieve this without lowering their unemployment and poverty levels which they can achieve without either participating in mass incarceration or winning its war on drugs that occurred throughout the rest of the nation.
He also states that the cities would be much safer and better off, if it could effectively solve its social problems mainly issues like reducing inequalities in income, improve its schools, and improve the worst neighborhoods living conditions. In this aspect he notes that like New York experience most crimes are majorly as a consequence of factors that can be changed without requiring expensive social and structural changes. Communities are not ethnically hardwired and people are not intentionally doomed to commit crimes and socioeconomic or genetic characters are at risk.
In addition he explains that all Americans whether in suburbs or in cities, whether poor or rich, can be considered safe today, by casting an unerring and critical eye on current explanations, he states that recent and long-lasting generated theories fall short of the 1990s crime rate drop. Zimring also learned that economic and imprisonment as independent factors did not have any major roles in the reduction of crime rate as many theorists suggest.
He also learns that there are for future progress there has to be a constant review of the divergent factors that combine to facilitate the crime level decline and according to him the crime rate do not need any structural or social changes and effecting smaller shifts in the necessary policies can make a major difference to the crime rates. There is also a lesson to be learnt from the significant reductions in crime rates like in places like New York where there has been a recorded of crime drop twice this review according to the national average shows that there is still significant room for other cities to replicate this result of successful crime decline.
Reference
Becker, Gary (1968) Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy, print
David, Henry, Zdenek Dytrych, Zdenek Mate-jcek and Vratislav Schuller.(1988).Born Unwanted: Developmental Effects of Denied Abortion. New York: Springer
David,A, (2002) Review of the Econometric Evidence on the Effect of Capital Punishment, Journal of Socio-Economics Spring/Summer
Zimring FE: (2012)The City that Became Safe: New York’s Lessons for Urban Crime and its Control. London: Oxford University Press; PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text
Aebi MF, Lande A: (2008) Crime trends in Western Europe according to official statistics from 1990 to 2007. In The International Crime Drop: New Directions in Research. Edited by van Dijk JJM, Tseloni A, Farrell G. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Van Dijk JJM: (2008)The World of Crime. London: Sage.
Don’t Let a Personal Crisis Go To Waste
Don’t Let a Personal Crisis Go To WasteName
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All over the world people are always making plans of either making more money, investing the hard earned money in profitable ventures, and for parents with young children many always think of saving for the good future of the kids. Thinking about the future is not a bad idea; the only problem is the method that some people use in achieving the goals. Even though man is not a perfect being some mistakes that most of the people make is at times disastrous. There are people or organizations that may have very brilliant plans that can be very successful but no follow up is done to make sure that they succeed.
So as to understand the concept in saving, planning, and investing I had to look for articles that would bring out the connection. I had to look for journals that are connected to the topic in all business related journals. Eventually I settled on the Wall Street Journal as it has business related articles from all over the world.
In one of the articles in the Wall Street journal by Chuck Jaffe under the heading “Don’t let personal crisis go to waste” the writer gives his story about his health. He describes how he ended up having a blocked artery as a result of his “bad habits”. He instead chose the moment when he was being treated to see ways in which he will live healthy other than thinking about the condition he was at the moment. He elaborates how he deals with the situation the plans he makes, the challenges he faces and how he deals with them.
The writer goes ahead and relate health problems with finances, in the article he says “There is a personal finance angle to all of this, because saving, budgeting and investing properly are remarkably similar to diet, exercise and eating right. Just as many people have trouble with a diet, so do they have issues living on a budget, spending within their means, and saving properly”, in the explanation he points out that just as many people have problems with diet and exercise so do people have problems with personal finances.
Follow Up
In the hospital bed , the writer was able to come up with a three year plan on how to restore his health, just like many people, when faced with financial crisis people always make plans on how to solve the problem. He further states that plans without proper follow up is fruitless which I totally agree with. The argument that I don’t find convincing is when he states that there is always room to make mistakes, financial mistakes do have serious consequences and any mistake might have a very huge impact. Many people always have very good plans to help them solve financial problems such as investments, and saving. People save for various reasons some save for their children’s education, some save to buy things such as houses or even cars. There are some who still save to go on holiday. Whichever the reason for saving is a plan must be put in place so that one can ascertain the amount to save and the duration and even the interval. Some may require regular saving, while others annually. Some reasons for saving such as holiday may require a short duration and the plan might come to an end once the holiday is complete, others like a child’s education might take several years until the child is through with education. It should however be noted that many people do always come up with very good ideas on how to save or invest when faced with a crisis, on the other hand while the problem is over the plan is shelved. There are some other people who however initiate the plans but do not make any follow up to ascertain whether the ideas are working or not. There are still some other people or organizations that might have excellent plans that might solve the problems facing them but are too afraid of implementing the plans as they are not sure of the success. In such a scenario the organization or the person may continue to wallow in problems, this is because they are afraid of trying new ideas.
Setbacks
The writer notes that every plan might have a set back but it should not be a barrier in achieving the desired goals. Dealing with the setbacks in the right manner and with positive attitude one might eventually succeed. The writer tries to bring out the fact that even the right plans will always have difficulties and when faced with such challenges one need to rise up and take the problems head on instead of feeling sorry for their condition. Most people when faced with set backs in implementing a plan tend to look at it as another failure instead of looking at them as challenges. Just as the writer some problems might be life threatening but when dealt with in the right way they can be easily be dealt with.
Problems once dealt with do necessarily not mean that they might not arise in the future; they might recur over and over again, when such incidences take place most people loose hope of ever solving the problem once and for good. Set backs should be viewed as the every day challenges that face people on a day to day life just like health problems. A person might suffer from a cold, go to a doctor and get treated months later the same person might suffer from a cold again months later. The doctor can not be blamed for not doing a splendored job, what can be done is prescription of another type of medication.
Conclusion
The article clearly brings out the connection between saving, planning, and investing. Financial issues have and still are a very significant issue to each and every person, thus making the best decision is very vital. However plans without follow up might not bear any fruits, in that respect it is important that every plan is backed up with action. Financial security for future generations is very vital; parents investing for the future of their children should look for the appropriate plan in order to avoid costly mistakes. The article is very vital to international business at it helps one make the best decisions. Life is full of challenges so is the financial world, every form of investment, and saving. At times some of the challenges faced when implementing a certain plans are meat to make the plan more successful.
Dominos Organizational Culture, Leadership and Motivation
Dominos: Organizational Culture, Leadership and Motivation
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Executive Summary
Development and implementation of organizational culture, the right leadership and motivational techniques in a company are essential in enhancing the productivity and profitability of an organization. This paper reviews the organization culture, leadership, and motivational techniques of Dominos as it is demonstrated in the Undercover Boss documentary of 2015 where Don Meij, the CEO of the company went to work as a frontline employee to learn and understand his workers. The review also offers insights into the problems of the company and how they can be resolved. It highlights the strengths of the company and provides recommendations to ensure that it improves. In this view, it is concluded that the greatest challenge of the company is the lack of effective communication channels. At the same time, its most significant strength is the story of Don Meij, the CEO who started as a delivery guy but later became the CEO. It is recommended that the company should develop better communication strategies and provide adequate training to its workers.
Dominos: Organizational Culture, Leadership and Motivation
Human resource management is the most crucial aspect of the success story of any organization. The ability to develop and implement effective organizational culture, leadership, and motivational techniques is integral to the profitability of any company. Domino’s Pizza, a franchise, is one of the companies that have effectively and successfully implemented organizational culture, appropriate leadership skills, and motivational techniques to ensure that its employees succeed. Based on the Undercover Boss film, season 1 episode 1 that features Don Meij as an undercover and the initiatives that he took to ensure that the workers remain motivated demonstrates the culture and leadership of the organization. Dominos has a well established organizational culture that is not only written but observable in most of the workers of the organization. The leadership of Don Meij is exceptional since he focuses on the motivation and inspiration of his workers to achieve their interests and company goals.
Organizational Culture
The organizational culture of the Dominos can be explained using the three level s of organizational culture. There are numerous observational artefacts which refer to the physical dimensions like awards, myths, stories and dress code of the company (Anitha, 2016). Dominos has a dress code whereby the frontline workers are expected to wear company branded polo shirts. The dress code represents the brand of the company. One of the most notable observable facts about Dominos is its story of success. Through the story of the CEO, Don Meij, it is evident that the company offers people an opportunity to grow and succeed. Don Meij started working as a Pizza delivery guy and grew to become the head of the company (Undercover Boss, 2015). Such a story gives the workers hope for success since they can expect to work at the junior levels and rise to management both as franchisers and at the corporate level.
The organization culture of Dominos is also explained using espoused and enacted values. The espoused values are explicitly stated values and norms defined by the organization, while the enacted values are those that are exhibited in the company (Kinicki et al., 2018). Some of the Dominos’ espoused values include hard work, creation of opportunities, honesty, inspiring, and winning together. The espoused values are enacted values in the case of Dominos. The company allows its staff to grow as it was the case with Charlie (Undercover Boss, 2015). It is characterized by hard work as illustrated by Don, who works as an undercover. It features inspiring solutions as it was the case with Raj, who introduced a new type of Pizza (Anitha, 2016). The employees express togetherness and work to win together not only for the company but every individual in it. Lastly, there are underlying assumptions that are evident in Dominos. The company takes time to do small but essential things to its employees. For instance, the CEO, Don Meij, gave Raj $1500 as a token for introducing new Pizza brand and also paid for a baseball game for him and his children (Undercover Boss, 2015). These values and norms form a critical part of the organizational culture of Dominos.
Leadership
The path-goal leadership model characterizes dominos leadership. The model indicates that an effective leader increases the motivation of employees by clarifying behaviour or paths that will help them attain goals and offer them support. The action of the leader is defined by the clarification of the path goals and is achievement-oriented, work facilitation, interaction facilitation, supportive and group-oriented decision making (Kinicki et al., 2018). Dominos CEO exhibits work facilitation, supportive, path-goal clarifying, and interaction facilitation behaviours. While working as an undercover, he noticed some of the challenges and weaknesses of the employees such as wastage of resources, wrong way of making Seventh Level pizza, but he did not fire the employee. Instead, he committed to offering the frontline staff more training to ensure that they understand the products of the company and how to make them. The CEO facilitated and supported the workers to ensure that they achieve efficiency and their goals (Undercover Boss, 2015).
Transformational leadership is also evident at the Dominos. Transformational leadership focus on reforms and transforms employees to pursue the goals of the organization over self-interests (Kinicki et al., 2018). Transformational leaders encourage their staff to do extraordinary things. Don Meij, the CEO of Dominos, encouraged the employees to do extraordinary things. The CEO during undercover established the challenges of his workers but encouraged them to do more and better. He paid Raj $1500 as it is the company policy to give an employee who comes up with a new Pizza brand recipe (Undercover Boss, 2015). The incentive is to ensure that the employee is creative and innovative in their daily duties. Transformational leadership entails the creation of a vision and guide change by inspiring others in the company (Kinicki et al., 2018). Don Meij, the CEO of Dominos, learned the challenges and weaknesses of his employees and committed to providing more support to ensure that they can realize the developed vision of the company.
Motivation
Dominos management has different measures to keep its employees motivated and committed to working for it. Essentially, the theory that applies to the case of Dominos is the Alderfer’s (1960) ERG theory that focuses on existence, relatedness and growth of individuals. Existence is about the basic needs of human survival (Lăzăroiu, 2015). The wages provided by the company offer Dominos’ workers the ability to satisfy their basic needs of durability, such as food, clothing, and shelter. Indeed, a worker cannot be motivated unless the psychological needs such as shelter, food, sleep, and clothing are achieved (Nagar & Sharma, 2015). Relatedness needs entail human desires to satisfy social and interpersonal relationships. It involves the need for friendship and love among other interpersonal relationships that guarantee the workers a sense of belonging. Dominos offers a friendly environment to all its workers. The workers are expected to be warm and loving to one another, just like a family. The actions of Don Meij, the CEO, to offer holiday and other incentives to their workers shows love (Undercover Boss, 2015). The interaction with the employees on a personal level and understanding their needs motivates them because it is based on the interpersonal relationship between the junior staff members and senior management of the company.
Growth needs to focus on the desire for development and progress. Employees feel motivated when they see the consequences of their efforts (Lăzăroiu, 2015). The Dominos ensures that its employees are appreciated, and their efforts are recognized. Don Meij, the CEO, gave Charlie and his wife, one of the stores’ managers, the assurance that for every dollar they saved, the company would match it with a dollar. Besides, the CEO provided a new car and air conditioning to one of the store managers in recognition of his efforts. Additionally, the manager was given a holiday that includes her family (Undercover Boss, 2015). In this view, the workers are motivated to work hard and achieve the goals of Dominos.
Problem
One problem that is evident in Dominos and should be addressed is communication. The company lacked effective communication structure based on the film. According to the CEO, Don Meij, the company does adopt new recipe for Pizza brands, and if approved, the employee that developed gets $1500 as an incentive. Raj one of the Pizza delivery experts had a Pizza recipe that he felt the company should adopt and introduce in its products, but did not know the correct channel to use. He believed that only the owners and franchise managers could develop a new product (Undercover Boss, 2015). Such incidences indicate a lack of effective communication which may inhibit the creativity of the employees. The policies of the company ought to be known by all the workers, including the junior staff. Therefore, Dominos need to develop an efficient communication structure to ensure that their employees are aware of the policies and culture of the company.
Strength
One of the greatest strengths of Dominos is its story of success and opportunity for workers. The organizational culture of the company is observed on the rising of the CEO, Don Meij, from a delivery guy to the CEO (Undercover Boss, 2015). According to the Three Levels of Organizational Culture model, observational artefacts such as stories form part of the organizational culture. The story of the company and individuals within it can influence other workers to behave in a given way (Anitha, 2016). In this case, the story of Don Meij motivates the workers at Dominos to work hard to ensure that they can also rise and realize their personal goals and the objectives of the company. It illustrates that there is a growth opportunity for every person who works hard in the company. The story of Don Meij is well known among the employees of Dominos and proudly speaks of it at all times.
Recommendation
It is highly recommended that Dominos work on its communication and training of the workers in the stores. The company has the best workforce that is motivated and dedicated to the company based on the stories in the Undercover Boss. However, the most significant challenge that is observable in the film is insufficient training, particularly on new products and communication is the most significant challenges of the company. In this view, Dominos management needs to ensure that there are communication structures to ensure that the policies and initiatives of the company can reach the junior workers in the stores. The use of email to send messages can effectively help in addressing the issue. Again, it is essential to train all the front staff on new products to ensure that they can make them in the most accurate way to give the customers the expected taste and feel.
References
Anitha, J. (2016). Role of Organizational Culture and Employee Commitment in Employee Retention. ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1).
Kinicki, A., Scott-Ladd, B., Perry, M., Williams, B. (2018). Management a practical introduction (2nd ed.). Sydney, NSW: McGraw-Hill
Lăzăroiu, G. (2015). Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, (14), 97-102.
Nagar, J. G., & Sharma, S. (2016). Relevance of theories of Motivation in retail business: A study on Retailer’s decision making process. Research Journal of Management Sciences E-ISSN, 2319, 1171.
Undercover Boss. (Jan 28, 2015). Undercover Boss Australia Season 1 Episode 01, UB AU SO1E01. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blyShPVTOh0&t=2397s