Zero-Tolerance Policing Strategy

Introduction

Zero-tolerance policing (ZTP) is a controversial policing strategy that has taken several forms over time and has been implemented in a variety of institutional settings. There are disagreements regarding the historical origin and the theoretical basis for ZTP. It is related to other similar policies designated by other terms, such as broken windows, hot spots, order-maintenance policing, and quality of life policing. A more descriptive, or neutral, term for these types of strict enforcement in the criminal justice system is intensive enforcement.

Although early instances of ZTP can be found in the areas of domestic violence and neighborhood improvement, many agree that the policing style and terminology of ZTP has an origin in the federal policies launched during the 1980s in the War on Drugs lead by the Reagan administration, and as is more commonly cited, with strategic innovations in the policing of the subways and streets of New York City during the 1990s. With these historical points in mind, police authorities and consultants, including moral entrepreneurs who were engaged in the War on Drugs and the ZTP initiatives in New York, have contributed to the diffusion of intensive-enforcement policies across the United States and to other countries, especially the United Kingdom, most often under the rubric of zero tolerance.

Even though proponents of zero-tolerance approaches tend to attach ZTP to criminological theories of rational choice and social disorganization, there is debate regarding the rational basis of ZTP. Another critique of zero tolerance is that it is often a political slogan, rather than a concrete policy (Bratton, P. 45-53).

Purpose and Outcomes

Regarding the purpose and outcomes of zero tolerance, there are a number of issues to consider when analyzing ZTP as a viable program of law enforcement. For example, the dramatic drop in crime in New York City was credited in media discourse and elsewhere to zero tolerance policies, but in the research, other causes and factors are considered more influential in the reduction of crime. Many observers point out that San Diego experienced identical drops in crime during the same time period as New York, but San Diego, under police chief Jerry Sanders, was implementing community-oriented policing, not ZTP.

Practices and Institutional Settings

ZTP can be a policy used to clean up neighborhoods, by removing all graffiti and litter, for example. It can also be used in workplace settings to eliminate sexual harassment and bullying, and as a type of policy put ...