Effects Of Community Policing

Community policing has drawn attention from all across the United States with the recent tragic deaths of four individuals from police officers in New York, Baltimore, Cleveland and Ferguson, Mo. The economic implications from the financial downturn which the United States has experienced since 2007, has had significant impacts on community relations and policing. State, city and local municipalities all across the United States have faced severe reductions to budgets to support policing activities. Furthermore, cuts in social programs to care for the homeless, mentally ill and the less fortunate in these communities, were slashed in budgets since the start of the Great Recession. Locally, Pinellas County 's Health and Human Services Department

So theoretically, the department could have to make do with $13-million less next year than this year (Abel, 2008). Fiscal policy is primary driver for programs to help failing neighborhoods and urban city poor, police departments and social services have taken the brunt when cuts were made during the recession of 2007/2008.

Community policing was created to build relationships with the community and have a positive effect on the neighborhoods they served. To reduce tensions between the police and the public, especially in minority communities, law enforcement agencies had to develop ways to mediate the problems between the police and the communities they served. A survey conducted in 1999 concluded that more than one-third of United States citizens held positive attitudes toward their local police department. However, 85% of whites felt favorable toward the police and only 58% of African Americans felt the same way. Community oriented policing originated from this problem or need (Mirsky, 2009). Police aggression fuels tensions in minority communities, fuels resentment, increases racial conflicts and has attributed to community riots and civil unrest. Ferguson, Missouri – where Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed black man named Michael

Community policing service is an example of non-excludability and jointness of consumption. All residents in the community enjoy the benefit of community policing without reducing the benefits for others (Feiock, R. C., p. 8). The commitment or contract is established by police departments and city administrators with the responsibility or promise to protect and serve the community. Generally, a good or service is nonexcludable when it is impossible or impractical to exclude others from the consumption of the service (Feiock, R. C., p. 9).The behavior of an agent not conforming to the wishes or expectations of the principal in a principal agent relationship becomes the transaction cost to the constituents. The transaction cost impedes the specification, monitoring and enforcement in the communities and does not meet the expectations of the citizens. In this instance it remains plausible to privately contract such services; however, failure in policy implementation makes it difficult to proceed. Certain classes of polices entail considerable monitoring and measurement costs that make contracting with private agents