Community Policing : One Of The Newer Looks On Law Enforcement

This report gives a comprehensive understanding of the implementation of community policing in 12 police departments throughout the United States. The researchers observe, measures and draw conclusion of community policing.

Community policing broadens the nature and number of police functions compared with traditional policing. It emphasizes organizational change, active problem solving, and external partnerships to address issues that concern both the police and citizens. Community policing shifts the focus of policing by placing equal emphasis on crime control, order maintenance, and service. By providing better training for police officers with the issues of police profiling will make the police officers more aware of police profiling.

The Community Policing era has been one of the contemporary police activities in the last 30 years. It is more of a decentralized approach to reducing crime by involving the same officer in the same community on a long term basis, so residents will develop trust and then provide information and assistance to the officer. Community Policing does not replace motorized patrol or other police tactics but instead compliments them with community partnership and problem solving (Bailey, 2011).

I define community policing as a chance to involve the community in activities that would help them spot crime and report it promptly. With that level of involvement, it would give communities the sense and want of changing their neighborhoods for the better making their home a safer place. A citizen with that kind of empowerment could potentially carry a torch for others. The empowerment could spread and create a more caring community.

Community policing was first recognized after the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement act of 1991 which authorized 100,000 community policing officers. Community policing is defined as a philosophy that empowers the community in the solution of the problem rather than the dictation of the solution by law enforcement. It is also seen as a belief that by working together, people and police will be able to improve the quality of life in the community. The police living in the community will see themselves as a part of the community instead of the watchdog for that community. Community policing consists of two primary components; the first being community partnerships, which involves engagement by the police with the community to resolve community problems cooperatively. The second being problem solving, which is an attempt to deal with the conditions that cause crime and negatively affect the quality of life in the community. The core concepts of community policing are: Board police functions and community focus, Community input, Concern for the people, developing trust, Sharing power,

Some police even go off their shift and do community policing. “Community policing is a strategy that centers on the involvement of citizens in the design, implementation and evaluation of law-enforcement programs.” (Maximino). Community police is

Community policing is “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” (Schmalleger, Frank). Basically, it says that that police and the community join together on solving crime and disorder it also informs the public about crime to get citizens to not fear it as much. Community policing came from George Kelling and Robert Tronjanowicz. They made studies that

I would define community policing as a philosophy that provides tools for both law enforcement and the residents to work together for the greater good. I know that on paper the theory makes perfect sense. Officers go into the urban areas, mainly neighborhoods that struggle with socio-economic issues. However, the deployment of these officers needs to be specific and intentional. By this I mean that as Community Officer, I know that the position is not for everyone. When I was promoted to my current position my supervisors could not define my duties. All they told me was to go out and bridge the gap between community and the sheriff’s office. My first few weeks, I told myself, “One more day like today and I will ask to be transferred back to patrol.” The community was not very welcoming to my new face or my

Community policing is a partnership between a community and local law enforcement working together to help find a solution to crime and community disorder. This strategy also makes it so neither the police or the community feel alone when preventing crime. The four main goals of community policing are; to increase the number of law enforcement interacting with the people in a community directly, to provide more effective training to officers’ so they can interact with the community better, create new programs that allow community members to help officers prevent crime, and to encourage the development of new technologies to help offers’ prevent crime not react to crime. Community policing provides a real opportunity to improve services in

Community policing is also a chance for the officers to join the neighborhoods. For example, when a police officer works in a particular neighborhood and knows everyone, the officer is more likely to live in that neighborhood. Another example, is seeing someone grow up in that neighborhood to become a police officer and patrolling the streets he played around in as a kid. Knowing you live or you are from the neighborhood you work in, is an added bonus to keeping the community safe.

Over the past few decades community policing has become a new trend in law enforcement. A majority of contemporary police departments now claim to use community policing. Community policing builds on basic policing practices with an emphasis on crime prevention and lasting solutions to problems. Community policing was established in the 1970s, but did not become popular until the 1990s. The goal of community policing is to rebuild the bond between citizens and police officers, while at the same time reducing crime and fear. This then restores a sense of order within the community.

Community policing is a model of policing that stresses a two-way working relationship between the community and the police, in which the police become more integrated into the local community and citizens assume an active role in crime control and prevention, as stated in the book The Police in America. This concept of policing style involves

     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

Bureau of Justice Statistics defines community policing as, “A philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques between the police and the community. These situations address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.”

Nigel Fielding (2005) stated that community policing has three definitions: it can stand for an alternative to a rapid response, neighborhood watching, or communicating with the public local citizens. The broad definition of what community policing is, is when officers are have built healthy relationships within the community, they know the concerns of active citizens, and they take action in order to fulfill community needs (Fielding, 2005). Fielding