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). This innovative strategy allows law enforcement officers to achieve a level of respect and cooperation of the community through close working relationships between the citizens and the agency. “The key to infusing community policing throughout the department is by restructuring agency management, in particular making changes …show more content…
They went further to add that young officers want to get out there chase suspects, makec arrest, and move from call to call, “do the adredaline stuff.” Community policing allows the officers to get together with other officers of other shifts to workout a plan to address the issues of certain neighborhoods (Gardiner, 96, 2016). It’s a strategy that allows officers to be more proactive among the community, instead of just responding to calls. Furthermore, it provides officers with the ability to meet the citizens needs and what they view as important (Gardiner, 110,
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.
In order for the police to successfully prevent crimes, public cooperation is needed. Various community policing programs have been implemented and it is important to discuss the benefits and limitations of these programs. Community policing allows the community to be actively involved and become a partner in promoting safety. This partnership increases trust of police officers and helps citizens understand that the police are on their side and want to improve their quality of life (Ferreira, 1996). The role of the police officers goes beyond that of a “crime fighter” and expands to multiple roles including that of a victim-centered
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.
This concept has been around for decades and is believed to be an important aspect of law enforcement and the foundation of communicating with the people a law enforcement agency serves. There is such a strong belief in community policing in 2004 the Department of Justice (DOJ) dedicated an entire division to it. The DOJ calls this division the Community Oriented Policing Service also known as COPS. The Department of Justice states “Community policing begins with a commitment to building trust and mutual respect between police and communities. It is critical to public safety, ensuring that all stakeholders work together to address our nation's crime challenges. When police and communities collaborate, they more effectively address underlying issues, change negative behavioral patterns, and allocate
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.
The key aspects to community policing involve having officers working in permanent neighborhoods, the involvement of citizens to identify problems and have potential solutions, and the reliance on agencies to help locate issues. The cornerstone of the program is the citizen interaction with the police. It is reported that communities that receive community policing funds have reduced levels of violent and property crimes, also has a greater number of arrests. Successful partnership helps with the reduction of gang and drug activities, area crime rate, and the improvement of the relationship between law enforcement and
Community policing is justly important as it creates a positive relationship between the community and the police. This relationship is important because it allows for there to be a certain amount of respect between the police force and the community. Being a police officer gives a person authority and then have the opportunity to make a difference and help build the community they are in. For example, when faced with the situation between pursuing a juvenile for marijuana possession and giving them a second chance to realize their mistake, an officer can use his discretion to lead the juvenile in the right direction, as opposed to potentially ending the rest of their life. This opportunity allows a juvenile to get a second chance and to fix their wrongs to potentially have a better
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.
This is where the officer actually gets to interact with the community at a time and place where he or she may not necessarily be there on a call but rather is there to develop the relationship with the community. I have seen numerous videos lately of police officers actually getting out of the patrol car and playing a game of basketball with the children or jumping rope, all of these efforts go along way into making the police officer seem to be a member of the community and not just someone who is there to lock them up or to hurt
Community policing is a collaboration between the police and the community that identifies and solve community problems, all members of the community are active allies in the effort to enhance public safety, hence, the police is not solely responsible for keeping the peace. Within this relationship, community members voice their concerns, contribute advice, and take action to address these concerns. Creating a constructive union with the police will require the creativity, energy, patience, and understanding of all persons involved (Maguire, E. et al., 2009). With the advent of community policing specialist who engage in structured community contact, mostly neighborhood watch support, school liaison, and very occasionally solving problems. They spend a great deal of their time providing direct aid to patrol services, with these in place, community policing specialist are evolving (Hoover, L.T, 2014).
But first the organization needs to be transformed into collectivist, non-patriarchal, and non-hierarchical organizations (Corsianos, 2011). Because teamwork needs to be promoted throughout community policing organizations, the organization must clear their head of identifiers for people. The organization must treat everyone equally, some the identifiers that separate people would be race, gender, beliefs and also sexual orientation (Corsianos, 2011). When you do not have this divide between the police officers and within the administration, this allows for police accountability. Once that problem has been over came, then the agency can focus upon team work with their community to help solve crimes along with getting focused on other community concerns (Corsianos, 2011). Although this change is necessary in order to work efficiently together, the police officers will still continue to be proactive and aggressive on crime control but unlike in the past it will allow for the community to have an input. With the communities input, this lets them choose or help guide the department in where they believe the city and the organization needs to put its main effuses at. An example of this would be teen drug use and abuse in the schools. The department could go and set up a program with the school, unless they have a school resource