Malfunction: Police and Traditional Thinking

Community policing is explained as a collaboration of community and the police working together to help identify and solve criminal activities. Additionally, the whole concept behind it is to promote public safety and to enhance the quality of life within the neighborhoods in which we reside in. Community policing is composed of two major components which are community partnership and problem solving. Community policing is a program that was initially started in the 1940’s. All of the support that was released for this program was materialized actually in the 1980’s. One of the main goals if not the most important goal was to bring in the law enforcement closer to their local public to help

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).

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.

Community oriented policing is a policing strategy based on the notion that community interaction and support can help control crime and reduce fear, with community members helping to identify suspects, detain vandals and bring problems to the attention of police. It is a philosophy that combines traditional aspects of law enforcement with prevention measures, problem-solving, community engagement, and community partnerships (Ref. 1).

The agency, instituted by the council 63 years back, has done considerably well given the circumstances and challenges it is facing. With 155 sworn police officers and 70 civilian employees, the agency is becoming a fully-fledged unit. It has a low tenure force with over 30% of its officers having less than five years’ experience. The members of the council hired their friends which in a way may lower the qualification level of unit at large. With its inception, the agency has experienced and is still experiencing a couple of problems. Foremost is the rising population which is not in synch with the expansion of agency. Worse still the rising population is majorly composed of a poor population.

It is the organization's operation through the values that will be the superior alternative management tool (Wasserman & Moore,1988). A police department that supplies a mission statement that is encouraged by its goals that are made up of intentions that contain the processes are on the right track no matter the time of origination. It is critical that execution of the objectives is the consequence of effective and efficient management of the processes which transpire within the department. It is the work of operations that are important to the sequence of steps that will direct the attainment of the Memphis Police Department's presented ambitions (Nassar, 2007). The mission of the department depends on the workforce that implementing the standards on the citizens within the community. It is not unusual for the influence concerning a department's mission to come from and change by way of city officials, politicians, interest groups, and stakeholders. However, as an officer sworn to be a public servant has a commitment to the citizens and upholding the

Community- Oriented Policing (COP) is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which 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. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Community-Oriented+Policing). Community based policing is comprised of three key components;

Community policing is a philosophy. It uses organizational strategies that support the use of partnerships and problem solving techniques to address issues of public safety.Community-oriented policing is collaboration between the community, organizations within the community, and the police that identify and solve community problems. Police officers work with the community to help solve problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood conditions. They do this to enhance the safety and quality of neighborhoods. Officers spend time in these neighborhoods getting to know the residents and business owners by talking to them about the problems that the community is facing or individuals who are causing problems. They are responsible for reducing crime in their beats.

The movement from the former systems of policing to community policing system calls for major changes. These changes may be in terms of goals, aims, policies and activities of police units, as well as the general image portrayed by police force. Consequently, this movement bears an eminent amount of disagreements as well as resistance within the police force. The police officers and their managers are the major parties involved in the matter of resistance. The managers fear loss of power and authority to control their officers when they become community police, on the other hand the police officer do not welcome the new role of solving community problems (Rohe, Adams and Arcury, 2001). This is because they are used to the normal role of enforcing laws. The implementation process therefore demands training of police officers on their new roles.

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

The success of implementing a program like this requires that both parties be well informed and well educated on the changes that will take place. One of the first steps is to market the concept of community policing both internally (within the department), as well as externally(within the community).  Marketing community policing internally often involves collapsing the existing structures of authority that are in place as well as the specialization within the department.  The case study mentioned that although the senior administrators in the department played a critical role in the reform, it was also necessary that line level officers be active participants in the process.  After all, two important components of community policing are empowerment and ownership.  Officers were given ownership of certain areas that were

When police departments and crime rates of the past are examined there are some apologist who believe that America would be in a better law enforcement situation provide the policies of the past we put back into use. With the public becoming more technologically advanced and criminal’s awareness of prosecution avoidance, community policing is the best solution for the modern community. The introduction of the different models of community policing and the problem solving policing tactics employed will be covered in this essay as well as the changing needs of communities

Since the surface of Community policing in the 1970’s and making the mark of influence on the strategies of policing throughout the United States, community policing has slowly become the direction of police interaction (Sozer and Merlo, 2013). Originally, having a breakthrough of helping reduce crime in the larger cities of America, smaller cities took the initiative and began the tactic of using community policing in the same efforts to reduce crime in local communities (Sozer and Merlo, 2013). With help from Federal funding agencies throughout the states such as, The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the peak of utilization of community policing was on the right path for effectiveness in the areas (Sozer and Merlo, 20132013). The size of the communities became factors that were not up for discretion, it became rudiments for change in American communities. State Chief Police officers (CPO) and Lieutenants are the first line commanders when dealing with community policing. They are the main leaders and the key to the process of change (Sozer and Merlo, 2013).

Community policing is considered to be one answer of how to maintain social area. It is considered as collaboration between the police and the community in which it seeks to identify and solve community problems. Community policing has a mission to enhance the quality of police services. Community policing has evolved over the years encountering several benefits as well as criticism, developing initiatives and a host of programs. Community policing focuses on crime and social disorder through the delivery of police services that includes: traits of traditional law enforcement, as well as problem solving, prevention, partnerships, and community engagement.

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.