The Pros And Cons Of Community Policing

The first con for community policing is some departments are using the term as an aggressive law enforcement tactic in certain areas. Cops could use for showing their presence among the people where there is no need for them. The community does not know what is going on and the cops are keeping the people in the dark that cerate distrust among everyone. Now you have resentment among both police and the local people. Might be seen as harassment by police when show aggressive.

Policing as we know it today has developed from various political, economic, and social forces. To better understand the role of police in society, one has to know the history of how policing became what it is today. Policing has been categorized into three basic eras, which include the Political Era, Reform Era, and lastly the Community Problem-Solving Era that is the present form of policing.

The reform from the political era transitioned into the professional era. This era is focused on crime control and was a centralized organization. The main focus was to stay professional, including with the community, therefore the relationship with the community was very distant. Police were to follow the “3 R’s”. The first R is the rapid response to service calls, police must respond to calls quickly. The second R is random patrol, which helped keep crime rates down from a police officer being around at random times. The last R is reactive investigation, investigators must investigate crimes with the intent to solve them. The pitfalls of the professional era were the attitudes of the police were extremely unfriendly and cold toward the citizens. They were basically an enemy to anyone who were not one of them or their family. This attitude did not go well with the people of the

Policing today consists of three eras. These three eras have adapted and built off one another through history (Parr, 2014). The first era started around 1840 to 1930, and is known as the Political Era. The second Era is known as the Reform Era and lasted from 1930 to 1970. The last era is called the Community-Problem Solving Era and is still being adapted and used today. The Political Era emphasizes on meeting the needs of politicians. The police were given power through the local government and the community had very little say in what happened. The police and politicians worked together to control the city and neighborhoods (Palmiotto, 2000). This was often referred to as a ward. The ward politician controlled all the police in their neighborhood. The police officers tasks included not only crime prevention and order but a lot of social service activities that involved their neighborhoods. The officers resembled the ethnic backgrounds of the neighborhoods they lived and worked in and performed their patrols gaining trust from their community (Palmiotto, 2000). This allowed positive integration of police officers leading to more public service, and the trust of the officers to stop crime when is starts.

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 Oriented Policing was born in the late 1960’s. Between the 1930’s and the 1960’s law enforcement used a professional policing model that was based on hierarchical structures, efficient response times, standardization, and the

A major impetus of the COPS grant program was the enhancement of officer safety. Not

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.

LOS ANGELES — Twenty years after the videotaped Rodney King beating exposed racial wounds and ignited passions that eventually sparked a devastating riot, Police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday he's confident a similar police beating couldn't happen again.

In the article “Community Policing” by the author Jeffrey Patterson he talks about the history of community policing. In the begging of the article he talks about how back in the 1800’s community policing was neither mandatory nor essential to the community. Patterson states, “ before 1829, the police--whether military or civilian--only responded after a crime had been reported”, essentially stating that the police acted after the event had happened. Later on in the article he goes on to talk about how that in this day in age community policing is limited by stating, “as with police-community relations and team policing, cities often attempt to implement community policing through small, specialized units in well-defined neighborhoods”,

     Law enforcement is divided into three major eras throughout history. These eras are the political era, the reform era and the community era. The political era that took place between 1840-1930 was characterized by five points, which was the authority was coming from politicians and the law, a broad social service function, decentralized organization, an intimate relationship with the

While the Reform Era worked to professionalize police, as society became more complex, so did the role of the police officer. The Community Policing Era was developed as a result of the need to develop cooperation and positive relationships between the police and public. What developed out of this era was an essential element of community policing – public accountability. Police officers became accountable to their supervisors who in turn became accountable to the community. Accountability can be seen as an honest evaluation of achievement based on clearly defined objectives. Many of these objectives are defined by complex community and social problems; as such police officers require the capacity and flexibility to work on them in a variety of styles and employing a variety of strategies.

When it comes to policing and the hot spot techniques used by law enforcement usually focus on smaller areas usually in urban areas where crime is to be higher. Researchers have found that most urban police departments use computers to map crime verses manpower of actually police monitoring. Alone with some critics, I agree that this approach is unethical resulting in discriminatory practices with law enforcement which simply targets black communities (Rosenfeld, n.d.). But we have to look at a different side to the method; some feel that it is very effective in terms of making a community safer, and also creating better education and recreational services with the neighborhood,. Some researchers believe that the hot spot method is a good

Introduction Through the examination of future trends, it was identified that community policing is the best route to take. With the ever-growing population and expanding values and beliefs, the police need to be able to adapt and respond to issues that may arise. Part of the training needs to come in the form of help from the community, which can be obtained using community policing. Our belief is that the best way to prepare for the future trends is through community policing. This paper will give examples of future trends and how we believe the police will have to handle future issues within Alberta.

Approaches of both community policing and traditional policing models differ in a variety of ways. The characteristics of the policing models are quite different from each other, and community based policing was considered laughable when suggested for the new approach in the early 1970s. Due to community policing’s new operating beliefs, new and unfamiliar expected officer behaviors, and that officers were being held legally responsible for their actions and inactions; the idea and implementation wasn’t widely accepted until 1980’s. Traditional policing was primarily dominated by rampant corruption and lawlessness that affected all levels of the police administration; therefore citizens had little trust if any, in the police officers of the time.