Finally, many cities have reduced crime rates by restructuring and reorganizing their police departments. In contrast, the Washington D.C. , police department ignored most of these lessons for problem structuring With problems similar to those of Washington, NewYork City decentralized accountability and authority to its seventy-six precinct commanders and now holds them accountable for results. Boston targets gang crime by including unarmed probation officers on police patrols this is significant because the officers need no "probable cause" to stop juvenile offenders suspected of violating their terms of probation. And, as part of its community policing program, Chicago's computerized mapping system generates maps of crime to allow police to share information with communities (Harlan 1997).
As suggested by Dunn (2008, 106), policymakers may produce at least four types of analogies to aid in structuring policy problems. First, one can use personal analogies by putting oneself in the position of a stakeholder or client in order to uncover political dimensions. Being in the position of a bus rider who is dependent on public transportation, for example, can reveal the intensity of political opposition to major cuts in bus-rail service and elimination of routes. These were dilemmas faced by policymakers in Miami and Washington DC, Miami (Metro-Dade County) wanted to eliminate at least ten of its seventy-eight routes and reduce service on fifty-six others, as well as reduce rail service, as part of its FY 1998 budget plan (Vigliucci and Epstein 1997). Despite any technical arguments for fiscal savings, poorer riders were trapped by constraints of distance and time and could not afford cars; therefore, by failing to use personal analogies to reveal the unintended consequence of rutting such bus lines, policymakers risked reducing overall ridership and increasing incentives for car ownership that would further clog already overcrowded roads. In fiscal terms, the short-term savings might lead to longer-term transit system losses, because public funds would then have to be spent for more roads and additional subsidies to cover operating losses of transit systems.