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The relationship between the police and the community
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Community Based Policing
In March of 2013 an incident in Omaha, Nebraska lead to local outcry and controversy. This incident involved a total of 21 Omaha Police Department Officers and two command officers. What began as an expired license tag check became something much more. From the second floor window of the home across the street a camera turns on and begins to film the incident. Three police officers are seen and two civilian men are seen. The officers and men stand in the middle of the street and seem to be having a conversation. When suddenly one officer stands behind one of the men and pushes him towards a parked pick-up truck. The officer then hooks the man by his neck and slams him on the street, this occurs although the man was
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Community based policing offers a different approach to modern policing. It allows for police officers to have more power in the communities they police, it allows members of the community to work with police officers to help prevent crime, and lastly focuses on causes of crime rather than “symptoms” of crime. Community Policing can be defined as, “… a balance between reactive responses and proactive problem solving specifically on the causes of crime and disorder, community policing is essentially about partnership between the police and citizens”. …show more content…
They get to know the members of the community and the people in that community get to know them, making them a member of said community. After some time this small community will have gotten used to and have accepted this officer. Giving the officer more control and assistance. Empowerment of the police officer is vital to community based policing as Kim Pemberton wrote while quote Justice Wally Opal, “Police forces should decentralize and give individual officers more authority to work with communities”. The officer is in charge of making sure that area does not attract any crime, by making sure all broken windows are fixed, lawns are mowed, drunks are off of the street, and so on.
Through community based policing, the opening paragraph of this paper could have been drastically different. The officer would have known who he was dealing whether or not that individual deserved to be arrested. All without the hostile attacks on the man and his family. When you get know a person, you understand who they are and what they are about. When officers get to know and become a part of that community they can help eliminate the root causes of crime. (Wilson,
Policing is a very difficult, complex and dynamic field of endeavor that is always evolves as hard lessons teach us what we need to know about what works and what don’t work. There are three different Era’s in America’s policing: The Political Era, The Reform Era, and The Community Problem Solving Era. A lot has changed in the way that policing works over the years in the United States.
“community policing is a philosophy of full service personalized policing, where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems.”
Yero, A., Othman, J., Samah, B., D'Silva, J., & Sulaiman, A. (2012). Re-visiting concept and theories of community policing. International Journal Of Academic Research, 4(4), 51-55. doi:10.7813/2075-4124.2012/4-4/B.7
President’s Task Force on 21 Century(2015), states community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime. In my opinion, successful community policing initiatives involve transformational changes within the organizational structure and how day to day operations are handled. Furthermore, things such as a change in management policies, command structure, and training can help officers adjust to the community they have been sworn to protect.
Along with gaining the support of law enforcement officers in the community policing effort, members of the community must also take a stake and become an integral part of the movement. A study noted by Lord, Kuhns and Friday (2009), researchers found that more than 45 million people over the age of 15 encountered the police in some fashion. Of those encounters, one quarter involved members making first contact with police officers. Unfortunately, citizen encounters with law enforcement with negative connotations were more influential to decrease satisfaction with the police than were positive encounters to increase satisfaction (Lord, Kuhns, & Friday, 2009).
Community policing stresses the entire cooperation between members of the police force and the community. It necessitates that everyone in the police force, including both civilian officers and sworn personnel, understands that the focus is on resolving community problems, and in doing so, may challenge the everyday policing norms.
Oliver, William. (1998). Community-Oriented Policing: A Systemic Approach to Policing (Second edition 2001). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
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).
There are many different ways of policing in the 21st century and all address and apply different theories and ideas to try and control the crime this day in age. One of these methods is called community policing and many law enforcement agencies around our country and the world use it as a model for policing and interacting with communities. Community policing is based on the belief that policing agencies should partner with communities with the goals to prevent or reduce the amount of crime in those areas (Pollock, 2012 p. 99). There are 3 main aspects of community policing that I will talk about in this paper and they are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. After hearing about the
Community based policing can best be defined as, 'a collaborative effort between the police and the community that identifies problems of crime and disorder and involves all elements of the community in the search for solutions to these problems' (Sykes). Community based policing is the idea that the role of the police is not that of catching 'bad guys,' but more that of serving the public. In order for community based policing to have an effect, the presence of crime isn?t needed, in fact it?s often more effective without the involvement of crime, ?Modern police departments are frequently called upon to help citizens resolve a vast array of personal problems--many of which involve no law-breaking activity? (Schmalleger). The role of the police officer in community based policing, is to have an active part in the community. This can be something as simple as stopping in at a school just to talk to the kids, or...
Community oriented policing has been around for over 30 years, and promotes and supports organizational strategies to address the causes, and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem solving tactics. The way community policing works is it requires the police and citizens to work together to increase safety for the public. Each community policing program is different depending on the needs of the community. There have been five consistent key elements of an effective community oriented policing program: Adopting community service as the overarching philosophy of the organization, making an institutional commitment to community policing that is internalized throughout the command structure, emphasizing geographically decentralized models of policing that stress services tailored to the needs of individual communities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire jurisdiction, empowering citizens to act in partnership with the police on issues of crime and more broadly defined social problems, for example, quality-of-life issues, and using problem-oriented or problem-solving approaches involving police personnel working with community members. Community oriented policing has improved the public’s perception of the police in a huge way. Community policing builds more relationships with the
From this Community Police Consortium, the BJA put together a report titled Understanding Community Policing, A Framework for Action, which focused on developing a conceptual framework for community policing and assisting agencies in implementing community policing. The basis for this consortium was much more direct than the previous efforts set forth by Presidential Commissions during the 1960’s and 1970’s, and led to what became known as the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS, Title 1 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994). The core components outlined in the BJA report listed the two complementary core components to community policing: community partnership and problem solving. The report further stated that effective community policing depends on positive contact between patrol officers and community members, establishing and maintaining mutual trust as the primary goal of a community partnership, and police and community must join together to encourage and preserve peace and prosperity. While these are just a few of the recommendations listed in the report, there were many more that set forth the framework for community policing, but these were the core components.
Community policing is the philosophy that promotes strategies that support the use of partnerships and problem- solving techniques that are proactively address conditions to rise public safety issues like fear of crime, social disorder, and crime. There are three components to community policing, they are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. The four elements of community policing are community involvement, problem solving, a community base, and redefined goals for the police.
Community policing is a policy and a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, improved police services and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions. This assumes a need for greater accountability of police, greater public share in decision-making and greater concern for civil rights and liberties.
Community policing is a law enforcement strategy that encourages interactive partnerships between law enforcement agencies and the people they serve (Berlin, Michael M. "Encyclopedia of Community Policing and Problem Solving.") These partnerships help communities find solutions to problems with collaborative problem solving and improved public trust. Through this model, the public plays a role in prioritizing public safety problems (Berlin, Michael M. "Encyclopedia of Community Policing and Problem Solving.")