NCJ Number
217092
Date Published
October 2006
Length
60 pages
Annotation
After describing the problem of disorder at day-laborer sites, this guide presents questions designed to help police agencies analyze this problem locally, followed by descriptions of responses to the problem based on evaluative research and practice.
Abstract
This guide proposes 11 strategies likely to be effective in dealing with disorder at day-laborer sites. They include improving the organization at current day laborer sites, imposing time restrictions on day-labor activities, establishing new day labor centers, and creating and enforcing rules and procedures at day-labor sites. Day laborers are those who congregate in public places seeking manual-labor jobs such as construction, gardening, landscaping, and farming. These laborers work daily for predetermined wages. Problems at sites where laborers wait to be hired relate to parking and traffic problems, loitering, litter, destruction and defacing of property, injuries, and harassment of pedestrians. Crimes linked to such sites include assaults, robbing of the laborers, and the consumption and selling of alcohol/drugs. Questions police agencies should consider in analyzing day-laborer problems in their jurisdictions pertain to the prevalence and hiring patterns of day laborers, the concentration of day laborers at particular sites, characteristics of employers who use day laborers, the presence of smuggling networks that exploit day laborers, and current responses to the problem. An assessment of the problem should be followed by the development of measures for an effective response. These measures might include a reduced number of citizen complaints, reduced reports of crime at day-laborer sites, reduced traffic congestion, less evidence of trash at sites, and reductions in alcohol/drug problems at sites. 27 references and 17 annotated recommended readings