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Community policing issues
The consequences of cultural assimilation
Community policing issues
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Cultural Considerations
Community policing is a daunting task. Each culture, diverse in its own right, may believe in a separate religion, have their own language, may have new immigrants, yet all are to be governed by the same set of rules society has set forth. The police strive for equality, yet many times fall short because of human interaction. Immigrants coming from foreign countries are attempting to escape oppression, and obtain the “American Dream.” For all their efforts of escaping, they mistakenly bring the oppression with them.
Earning trust is a difficult task for the police when those in the community have had prior experiences in their previous country. Lysakowski, Pearsall, and Pope state in their report, “Local police departments often feel blindsided by the rapidly growing pace of diversity in their communities and, therefore, have little comfort dealing with this environment,” (Lysakowski, Pearsall III, & Pope, 2009, p. 1). Immigrants are usually the victim of many crimes, however, because of their mistrust of local police they are hesitant to call or even talk with local officers. Hasisi, states in his report, “The immigrants are generally unfamiliar with the culture of the host country, and their vulnerability may make them targets for abuse by criminals in the community,” (Hasisi, 2008, p. 1127).
Challenges to Policing
The difficulty of speaking the language, and knowing the customs of the community are paramount to being able to assist residents and business owners. The immigrant does not always learn the language when they come to, and live within the borders of the United States. Inability to communicate makes responding to the phone calls more difficult, however, there have been strides in ...
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...l Taker. Retrieved from Dispatcher Magazine On-Line: http://www.911dispatch.com/training/train_call.html
Hasisi, B. (2008). CRIMINOLOGY: POLICE, POLITICS, AND CULTURE IN A DEEPLY DIVIDED SOCIETY. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 1119-1145.
Lysakowski, M., Pearsall III, A. A., & Pope , J. (2009, June). Policing in New Immigrant Communities. Retrieved April 26, 2014, from Community Oriented Policing Services: http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Publications/e060924209-NewImmigrantCommunities.pdf
Nazemi, S. (2009). Sir Robert Peel's Nine Principles of Policing. Retrieved from Los Angeles Community Policing: http://lacp.org/2009-Articles-Main/062609-Peels9Principals-SandyNazemi.htm
Walker, S., & Katz, C. M. (2011). Chapter 12: Police-Community Relations. In S. Walker, & C. M. Katz, The Police in America: An Introduction (Seventh ed., pp. 370-423). McGraw-Hill.
Bucerius, Sandra and Tonry, Michael. The Oxford Handbook of Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print.
Research from Hanser and Gomila (2015) revealed that most minority groups “live in lower-class neighborhoods in large urban centers where the greatest concentration of law enforcement officers exists” (p. 340). Racial disparity and discrimination are common among juveniles who are born in the United States from immigrant parents, particularly those residing in lower-class neighborhoods where crime is prevalent. Minority juveniles will also find themselves facing various difficulties and challenges
The factor of racial profiling comes into play as federal grant programs award police for rounding up as many people as possible. This very tactic was demonstrated by the CompStat system in New York City and further expounded by Victor M. Rios’s analysis of the themes over-policing and under-policing. These themes focus on how officers, police certain kinds of deviance and crime such as, loitering, or disturbing the peace, while neglecting other instances when their help is needed . Rios also stresses how the accumulation of minor citations like the ones previously mentioned, play a crucial role in pipelining Black and Latino young males deeper into the criminal justice system. Rios implies that in order to decrease the chances with police interaction one must not physically appear in a way that catches the attention of a police or do anything behavior wise that would lead to someone labeling you as deviant . Unfortunately, over-policing has made it difficult even for those who actually do abide by social norms because even then, they have been victims of criminalization . However, since structural incentives like those that mimic CompStat are in place, police simply ignore constitutional rules and are able to get away with racial profiling, and thus interrogate, and search whomever they please. Since these targeted minorities acknowledge the fact that the police are not always present to enforce the law, they in turn learn strategies in order to protect themselves from violence that surrounds them. Young African American Americans and Latino youth thus become socialized in the “code of the street”, as the criminal justice system possesses no value in their
law enforcement agencies. The underrepresentation of Asian-American officers will affect how the Asian community view law enforcement in terms of building credibility and improving community relations (Dempsey & Frost, 2015). As previously stated, the cause of such underrepresentation is due to the fact that law enforcement agencies do not understand the cultural and historical distrust, which Asian immigrants have with law enforcement back in their native countries and here in the United States (Zhao et al., 2013). Underrepresentation of Asian police officers will create conflicts between police and Asian communities (White et al., 2010). The lack of diversity in police departments will also show Asian communities that a police organization does not reflect its community racial
The author focuses on the U.S. Task Force on 21st Century Policing and Police Data Initiative or PDI to determine if it helps to restore trust and the broken relationship between and communities and police officers. The Task Force made by Barack Obama recommended the analysis of department policies, incidents of misconduct, recent stops and arrests, and demographics of the officers. The PDI has tasked 21 cities to comprehend the police behavior and find out what to do to change it. Also PDI was said to have data and information on vehicle stops and shootings by police officers. The use of statistics has a purpose to help rebuild trust and the relationship between and communities and police officers.
& Forst, L.S. (2016). An Introduction to Policing (8th Edition). Boston, MA USA: Cengage Learning. p.243 (245). Retrieved June 6, 2017, from https://www.betheluniversityonline.net
Walker, S., & Katz, C. (2012). Police in America: An Introduction (8th Edition ed.). New York:
Both of these articles were focused on the Strategy of Policing, but the author’s approaches to the ‘hot topics,’ couldn’t be more difficult. Williams and Murphy focused on the different eras of policing, and how the racial conflicts have overlapped policing efforts. Whereas, Kelling and Moore focused on how police have evolved with the eras. The articles were dramatically different, however, the policing eras: Political, Reform, and Community Orientated eras were influenced largely as the main focuses for each academic article.
Peak, K. J. (2006). Views. In K. J. Peak, Policing America: Methods/Issues/Challenges (p. 263). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
...T., Reiner, R. (2012) ‘Policing the Police’ in The Official Handbook of Criminology. Ed. By Maguire, M., Morgan, R., Reiner, R. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 806- 838
This argument focuses on the relationship with illegal residents; unauthorized migrants living within the U.S. may not report crimes to the police for fear of deportation, effectively decreasing the recorded rate of crime within high immigrant concentration neighborhoods – creating artificially low crime rates for affected populations. Despite these claims, there is little to no evidence to suggest that these reporting biases exist and have a serious effect on crime rates – chiefly, homicide rates. A second argument is that foreigners – both authorized and unauthorized alike – are apt to be deported in the case of their committing a violent crime, suggesting that the incarceration rates for immigrants may be artificially low as well. The data in Sampson’s research is designed to circumvent these issues by relying on testimony from neighborhood residents – both legal and illegal – rather than police statistics. Sampson concludes that “police arrest biases or undercounts can’t explain the fact that first generation immigrants self-report lower violence than the second generation, which in turn reports less than the third generation.”
Community policing is a strategy used by various departments in order to create and maintain a relationship between the law enforcement agency and the community being patrolled. Community policing is composed of three critical components, community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving (Gardiner, 154, 2016). Community partnerships are pivotal in community policing since they increase public trust and create am improved relationship in law enforcement agencies better serving the community (Gardiner, 87, 2016). These partnerships not only offer public input but also encourage the public to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in order to minimize crime within the community (Gardiner, 88, 2016). Unlike, the traditional strategies of policing, community orientated policing has been adopted by two-thirds of agencies in order to improve public safety and control crime. (Gardiner, 148, 2016).
The thought of arriving immigrants in any host country has been accompanied by reactions of exclusion, and continues to expand throughout the years. During any social illness, immigrants tend to be the first to be held responsible by their recipient societies. Most crimes are associated with immigrants due to the fact that they may not posses the same socio-economics status as natives. Another contributing factor is the media that conducts numerous stories that highlight the image of immigrant crimes to recall the alleged difference between native and foreign born. Undoubtedly, the correlation between immigration and crime has become one of the most controversial discussions in current society. As we enter a new era, immigrants will have more impact on society than ever before (Feldmeyer, 2009).
Cordner, G. W., & Scarborough, K. E. (2010). Police administration (7th ed.). Albany, N.Y.: LexisNexis/Anderson Pub.
To conclude, Community policing represents a major development in the history of American law enforcement, but the extent to which this approach is a success and dominates contemporary policing remains a source of debate. In my point of view, community policing is good for communities. It has challenged the traditional concept of the police as crime-fighters by drawing attention to the complexities of the police role and function. In addition to the police officer hard work; citizens can also make a difference and contribute to make neighborhoods a better place to live. For instance, citizens can hold community meetings to talk about concerns and agree on solutions help organize healthy activities for children in your neighborhood, join or starting a neighborhood crime watch program, and talk to your community police officers and share information and concerns.