Citizens on Patrol

Today, many police officers are out performing patrols on foot and on bike, interacting with the public through meet and greets, and participating in community service projects to help make the city a great place to live (Roufta, n.d.). Furthermore, this method of policing also allows the community to get involved with their local law enforcement. Through initiatives such as block watches, police officers can now answer calls from the neighborhood. Overall, today’s policing has created a method of policing known as Community Oriented Policing. Community Oriented Policing is a style of policing that involves police officers partnering with their communities to help solve problems and to attack the core problems that lead to crime in the first place (“Law Enforcement and Community Relations,” (n.d.), para. 24).

Police officers must also work with the communities to form relationships. Community policing is defined as a contemporary approach to policing that actively involves the community in a working partnership to control and reduce crime (Bohm & Haley, 2014). Basically, community policing is a method in which police officers work directly with the people of the community to try and create a positive relationship to find a common ground which in return, would hopefully decrease the amount of criminal activity altogether. Community policing not only helps prevent and reduce crime, but it also helps citizens to see police officers in a different light. Sometimes the only encounter an individual has with an officer is when receiving a ticket or when an arrest is made, which can carry a negative connotation.

This study tested the impact of increased foot patrol on crime in Newark between February 1978 and January 1979. The program included several requirements stipulated by its use of Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program funds. Foot patrol officers were required to remain in uniform and on foot, except when traveling to and from their posts, or when assisting a motor patrol officer in an emergency or arrest situation. All officers were required to be visible on

Community Policing took a different perspective on crime than August Vollmer. It shows that even though police officers are trained and respond to crimes on time, it doesn’t effect the crime rates. In the past foot-patrol was in place but it quickly failed due to poor management and not enough funds for the program (Bohm & Haley, 2014, Pg. 147). Community Policing was an idea to form a bond between the police and the citizens. If the police paid more attention to the minor problems in

Community policing has evolved to be the most used strategy for policing. “It is an approach to crime detection and prevention that provides police officers and supervisors with new tools for addressing recurrent problems that plague communities and consume a majority of police agency time and resources” (Peak, 2012, 65). It has been defined by various people differently. But all the definitions have similar principles (Chappell, 2009). They focus on proactive problem solving and create relationships with the community to address any issue that may arise. Community policing is a combination of client-oriented and problem-oriented policing.

Law Enforcement within the United States is limited as many people may feel that it is a dangerous job. With law enforcement being so limited there is one way the community can and has assisted throughout the years. Community policing is the system of allocating police officers to particular areas so that they become familiar with the local inhabitants. In other words community policing allows law enforcement to be at high profile areas while the community who chooses to be involved is the eyes and ears for law enforcement. In other words were there is crime the community will

In the past, as a move to try and improve police—community relations, police departments all over the country implemented citizen police academies, or CPAs. These were initially implemented during the beginning of the community-oriented policing era, and the first department in the US to have one was the Orlando Police Department in 1985 (Lee, 2016). Since then, CPAs popularity has grown nationally, and police departments all over the country have them. Somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of agencies have CPAs, and they are far more common among those who serve larger, metropolitan areas (Lee, 2016). CPAs teach participants the details of the various functions of the police, including law, patrol techniques, use of force, self-defense, firearms, SWAT, and crime prevention (Brewster, Stoloff, & Sanders, 2005). These CPAs have the possibility to improve relationships between the police and the community given these current issues.

Ted Nugent said people looking out for suspicious behavior are “The purest form of Americans watching out for each other and being good neighbors” (Cover). I agree that people watching the neighborhood is a good thing because they are making sure it is safe for themselves and their children. If someone sees something suspicious they can tell another person so they can call the police while the other person tries to alleviate the problem before it blows out of proportion. If you see someone breaking into another person house, you could call them or the police to notify them showing you are a good

They also are responsible for covering a busy interstate highway, three municipalities, and they work with other law enforcement agencies to protect the lives and property of each resident. They interact with the community frequently through programs that were created like: Citizens Police Academy, which is a for our residents that is taught by “certified Richmond County Sheriff’s Instructors, that allows the citizens to participate by getting involved in actual training sessions so that they can gain a broader understanding of the police function” (“Richmond County Sheriff’s”,

The Philadelphia foot patrol experiment: a randomized controlled trial of police patrol effectiveness in violent crime hotspots is an experiment that had over 200 foot patrol officers during the summer of 2009, in the Philadelphia area (Ratcliffe, 2011). This research covered 60 violent crime hotspots in twelve weeks (Ratcliffe, 2001). There was a noticeable reduction in the violent crimes within those area hotspots. Furthermore, 53% of violent crimes were prevented during the twelve weeks of the experiment (Ratcliffe, 2011). In conjunction the type of patrol that was utilized, was foot patrol in the hotspot areas, which was the independent variable. The dependent variable was the reduction

Community Policing is a value system which infuses a police department, in which the main organizational goal is working helpfully with individual citizens, groups of citizens, and both public and private organizations to identify and resolve issues which possibly effect the livability of specific neighborhoods, areas, or the city as a whole. Community policing can be beneficial to communities. Community policing can help prevent crimes from occurring. As officers get to know a community, they also get to know what is right and wrong with it. Typically, officers remain entitled to an area where crime happens often and as such they are left with fighting it as it is going or after it happened. In community policing neighborhoods, the officers are able to tell what might happen and as

citizens in the United States . Community policing involves people within the community to help

They also, of course, respond to dispatch calls of crimes in progress. Crime prevention is achieved through mere police presence. Negative interaction between the community and police is generally the norm. In communities policing, on the other hand, police officers are typically assigned to specific geographic areas in their jurisdiction and establish ties with the various community groups. These groups may include ministerial (church) associations, neighborhood associations, youth groups, etc. The idea is that when police are involved with the community they are not viewed as outsiders who are there simply to enforce the law. Crime prevention is achieved through positive interaction with police and the community. The goals of community policing are to reduce crime and disorder, promote citizens’ quality of life in communities, reduce fear of crime, and improve police–citizen relations. These goals are achieved through three essential efforts: community engagement, problem solving, and organizational transformation. In other words, the police are the public and the public are the police.

In essence, Neighborhood Watch is a crime prevention program that stresses education and common sense. It teaches citizens how to help themselves by identifying and reporting suspicious activity in their neighborhoods. In addition, it provides citizens with the opportunity to make their neighborhoods safer and improve the quality of life. Neighborhood Watch groups typically focus on observation and awareness as a means of preventing crime and employ strategies that range from simply promoting social interaction and "watching out for each other" to active patrols by groups of citizens.

Many citizens have become annoyed with the crime in their neighborhoods. They have organized block watches, citizen patrols, along with neighborhood cleanups, and started harassing slumlords that allow drug dealers to use their properties. (Brown Art. 122). Among many of the crime fighting tools, the involvement of