CRMJ512-Research Paper

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1 The Down and Dirty of COPS: Community Oriented Policing Services Alexis R. Sutherland American Military University, American Public University System CRMJ 512: Police Administration Dr. Stephanie Myers-Hunziker November 26, 2022

2 Abstract This paper serves to describe the intentions of community policing and the ways that community policing has been utilized so far in the United States to improve and build the relationships between communities and law enforcement agencies. The roles of both the law enforcement officials and the community members are taken a look at and correlated to their positions within community policing procedures while explaining how the different roles incorporate and feed off of one another for a successful relationship. The effects of the relationships are then explained to show how community policing benefits both parties and what other possible positive outcomes could come out of the new age policing structure. Possible issues that may come into question are addressed and the relation of community policing compared to police reformation are evaluated. Keywords : community policing, reformation, law enforcement agency, community members, relationships

3 The Down and Dirty of COPS: Community Oriented Policing Services When society thinks of cops, they think of the slang term used to describe the individual officers who conduct their duties to keep the peace by enforcing laws and keeping criminals at bay. However, in the present day in age the word cop stands for something much more significant than just being a slang term for law enforcement. It stands for Community Oriented Policing otherwise known as just community policing and, in the last 30 years, it has been the most utilized innovation across police agencies ( Community Policing and Procedural Justice, 2020), being supported heavily by political advocates such as the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration took action to promote community policing by creating the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) through the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, to create a department within the Justice Department ( Community Policing Consortium , 1994) for citizens to be able to address their concerns with law enforcement about their communities and issues they may have within it while also providing the money that was necessary to be able to support implementing community policing more thoroughly ( Community Policing Consortium , 1994). By doing so, it was the Clinton administration’s hope to make law enforcement much more available throughout the communities within the United States for citizens to be able to have access to police officers whenever they may have an issue arise, criminal or not. It was through the noncriminal interactions with the communities that the police officers were able to promote the healthy relationships that would shape the way that the police and the public would be able to interact with each other on a daily basis, allowing for the ease of cooperation in cases as long as those relationships were maintained to be healthy and happy.

4 Establishing the Purpose So many people in the history of the United States felt that putting their faith into community policing was the right call for the country to be able to move in the right direction in terms of the criminal justice system working together with the citizens of the country to eliminate conflict and criminal activity that police training academies have taken to training new officers under community policing curriculum rather than traditional policing. This is because community policing is all about being proactive and building rapport with the citizens that the officers will be engaging with every day on the job. Society is attempting to move away from the cause and reaction methods of policing and engage in preventative policing so as to avoid as many crimes, injuries, and deaths as possible rather than settle for those outcomes and be forced to deal with the consequences and grief that corresponds with them when it is possible to try and prevent the events altogether before having to deal with the negative aftershocks. Community policing provides the answer by creating an organized method of prevention that becomes the routine (Chapman & Scheider, 2012) for communities so that public safety concerns are dealt with before it is necessary to act in response to a safety situation happening, allowing the public to be at ease, knowing that they are safer and go about their lives without as many worries as they would have to if community policing were not an established system. This is also important because, by establishing a positive and effective community policing system within the neighborhoods, the police are capable of accomplishing critical components of their duties. These duties include the detection of dangers and violent behaviors, teaching the community members how to respond to such events, especially the public officials, and if the police are unable to prevent a situation, dilute it the best they can while ensuring the

5 communities are able to heal from the experience to the best of their abilities and recover as quickly as possible (Straub, 2020). Community Policing Generations What is interesting about the development of community policing is that the entire policing platform has moved through three different generations while law enforcement has been attempting to get the entire procedure down to the most effective practice (Oliver, 2000). The first generation was the innovation stage. This stage was from 1979 to 1986 and began when law enforcement practices were being sought to be improved after coming under scrutiny ( Community-Oriented Policing: Rationale , n.d.). Throughout this first generation of community policing, there were trials conducted throughout different law enforcement agencies to test just how effective the new community policing practices could be. These trials were limited to larger law enforcement areas that had more crime populations in order to really focus on being able to study the different core components of community policing. Once these experiments were finished being conducted and the results were satisfactory, the second generation of community policing was introduced, called diffusion. Diffusion lasted from 1987 to 1994 ( Community-Oriented Policing: Rationale , n.d.) and was exactly how it sounded. It was the time period of expanding the community policing practices throughout the country to law enforcement agencies to begin implementing so as to spread community policing to as many cities as possible in order to get a better understanding of the outcomes of the use of the procedures. The diffusion generation was crucial to the development of community policing because it identified many of the benefits and problems that came with the new system of police work.

6 After the identifying the good and the bad during the diffusion generation, the last generation that was implemented for community policing was the institutionalization generation that started in 1995 ( Community-Oriented Policing: Rationale , n.d.). This generation continues on today and is the increase in law enforcement agencies using the community policing methods over traditional policing even directly from the police academy. The Components – Community Partnerships When referring to community policing, there are three main components that, when utilized properly, lead to the successful implementation of the policing method and those are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem-solving (Chapman & Scheider, 2012). Taking a look at community partnerships, this element is all about the relationship between the partner and the police agency working together in order to find the best solution to find solutions to problems that will appease both parties while establishing more trust within the police force out in the public, leading to a stronger relationship (Chapman & Scheider, 2012) and creating a cycle that keeps building until one of the parties breaks the cycle by breaking that trust. The police are a force that are given the authority to act on the behalf of the government to take action against issues that negatively impact the communities within the United States and to aid where they can in the positive ongoings of the communities. However, the police officers very rarely are capable of completing their responsibilities on their own without the outside help of the citizens that they are bound by duty to serve (Chapman & Scheider, 2012) so they must be able to step out, ask for help from the public, and trust that the public will be trustworthy enough to do their part in aiding law enforcement carry

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