Community Policing There are many different ways of policing in the 21st century and all address and apply different theories and ideas to try and control the crime this day in age. One of these methods is called community policing and many law enforcement agencies around our country and the world use it as a model for policing and interacting with communities. Community policing is based on the belief that policing agencies should partner with communities with the goals to prevent or reduce the amount of crime in those areas (Pollock, 2012 p. 99). There are 3 main aspects of community policing that I will talk about in this paper and they are community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. After hearing about the …show more content…
The SARA model consists of 4 pieces and they are as follows scanning, analysis, responding, and assessing the results. Scanning refers to identifying the problem and describing it in detail and is usually prefaced by the CHEERS test used for defining if the problem is large enough to entail police man power and resources. Analysis refers to identifying persons involved, documenting the scope of the problem, determining different causes, and describing physical settings and social context. Responding refers to collaborating on solutions, community involvement, and making and action plan. Assessing the results refers process evaluation, impact evaluation, and if a new problem arises from the actions assessing that new problem (“SARA” n.d). The CHEERS test consists of 6 pieces they are community, harmful, expectation, events, recurring, and similarity. Community in the cheers test means that members of the public must experience or be affected by the harmful event. Harmful means that people or institutions must suffer some form of harm. Expectation means that members of the community must expect the police to respond and address the cause of the harm. Events mean that you must be able to describe the events that make …show more content…
For my interview I attended a ride along with the Goodyear Police Department with Officer Bengt Erickson and we patrolled the streets of Goodyear Arizona for the better part of my whole Friday night. Some of the things that I learned while attending this ride along and asking Officer Erickson questions are that most of the Phoenix area police department’s computer systems do not actually talk or sync up with each other to provide better coverage and information sharing. There is a for profit company called Cop Link that department’s across Phoenix can pay a monthly amount and join that allows for better information sharing but Goodyear PD does not pay to use this system. To me especially after analyzing community policing policies this seems like it is counterproductive and I feel like in a city as large as Phoenix that information sharing between department’s would be an invaluable resource. I also learned that the city of Goodyear is broken down into 3 different districts of patrol and they do not use the term beat anymore. The most interesting fact from conversation was that the officers of Goodyear PD are allotted money and allowed to buy their own firearms with only restrictions on the weapon having to be a Glock and of the .40 and .45 caliber and they get to keep them. Another thing that I learned is
The objective of this essay is to examine one of the six pillars of the President’s Task Force on 21st century policing. Of the six pillars, pillar four’s target is the importance of community policing and crime reduction. The definition of community policing is the use of partnership and problem-solving methods to address public safety issues, such as crime, fear of crime and social disorders. The highlight of community policing is that it partners with residents in the community to implement public safety. Some background into how community policing came to be was in the 1960s and 70s, civil rights protest were in effect. For example San Diego’s police department conducted a study with community policing. “Officers were expected to become
Policing is a very difficult, complex and dynamic field of endeavor that is always evolves as hard lessons teach us what we need to know about what works and what don’t work. There are three different Era’s in America’s policing: The Political Era, The Reform Era, and The Community Problem Solving Era. A lot has changed in the way that policing works over the years in the United States.
According to Peak, Gaines, and Glensor (2010), “Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving is a concept whose time has come. This movement holds tremendous promise for creating police-community partnerships to reclaim our communities and keep our streets safe” (p. 84). Community-oriented policing has helped criminal justice managers and community leaders’ work together to solve various types of issues.
The police are usually charged with the great responsibility of ensuring that citizens are living quality lives that are free of crime and fear. In order to perform this duty effectively, the police need accurate and deeper knowledge of the citizens and issues they encounter in their daily lives. This knowledge will not be easy to come by if the police work independently from the citizens. Over the last several decades, police agencies have been working to gain the respect and the cooperation of the communities they serve. Community Oriented Policing was introduced to bring a closer working relationship between the citizens and the police.
Community-oriented policing is commonly by used by law enforcement agencies (Kerley and Benson 2000, 46). Community-oriented policing was designed to enhance police service and solve problems through an interactive process with members of the community. This included, preventative measures, problem solving and community partnership (Sciarabba 2009, Kerley and Benson 2000; Mirsky 2009). By including community partnership, it creates open communication between the police and members of the community which in turn, allows the police to be more efficient in developing peace and security in the community (Sciarabba 2009; Kerley and Benson 2000; Mirsky 2009).
This concept, however, is not new. Problem-solving justice programs can trace their roots to several innovations in policing including community and problem-oriented policing. This was the basis for replacing law enforcement’s traditional role of responding, identifying patterns of crime, mitigating the underlying conditions, and engaging the community (Wolf, Prinicples of Problem-Solving Justice, 2007). New p...
Problem-oriented policing presents an alternative approach to policing that has gained attention in recent years among many police agencies. Problem-oriented policing grew out of twenty years of research into police practices, and differs from traditional policing strategies in four significant ways.
There has always been a love-hate relationship between the public and the police. When called upon to help, they can be something sent from God, but when they are writing tickets, or taking a friend to jail, the view changes from a savior to a presence that is unwanted and often hated. An effort to improve the public view of law enforcement is being attempted by many departments. Using different styles of policing techniques, mainly community based policing, has proved to be the best way to improve the image of law enforcement.
Community oriented policing has been around for over 30 years, and promotes and supports organizational strategies to address the causes, and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem solving tactics. The way community policing works is it requires the police and citizens to work together to increase safety for the public. Each community policing program is different depending on the needs of the community. There have been five consistent key elements of an effective community oriented policing program: Adopting community service as the overarching philosophy of the organization, making an institutional commitment to community policing that is internalized throughout the command structure, emphasizing geographically decentralized models of policing that stress services tailored to the needs of individual communities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire jurisdiction, empowering citizens to act in partnership with the police on issues of crime and more broadly defined social problems, for example, quality-of-life issues, and using problem-oriented or problem-solving approaches involving police personnel working with community members. Community oriented policing has improved the public’s perception of the police in a huge way. Community policing builds more relationships with the
The community era of policing is based on problem-solving and conflict resolutions. This is needed with the changing demographics, building rapport and trust with individuals is now more important than ever. There is no longer a one-size model, policing now takes a multi-dimensional approach. The political and reform models are not ideal for demographic changes because in the political era police were observed to have abused individuals who were not part of the community. In the reform era, public accusations against police for brutality were large in number. Community policing is the best model to address demographic changes based on the importance of community
Community policing is a strategy used by various departments in order to create and maintain a relationship between the law enforcement agency and the community being patrolled. Community policing is composed of three critical components, community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving (Gardiner, 154, 2016). Community partnerships are pivotal in community policing since they increase public trust and create am improved relationship in law enforcement agencies better serving the community (Gardiner, 87, 2016). These partnerships not only offer public input but also encourage the public to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in order to minimize crime within the community (Gardiner, 88, 2016). Unlike, the traditional strategies of policing, community orientated policing has been adopted by two-thirds of agencies in order to improve public safety and control crime. (Gardiner, 148, 2016).
To conclude, Community policing represents a major development in the history of American law enforcement, but the extent to which this approach is a success and dominates contemporary policing remains a source of debate. In my point of view, community policing is good for communities. It has challenged the traditional concept of the police as crime-fighters by drawing attention to the complexities of the police role and function. In addition to the police officer hard work; citizens can also make a difference and contribute to make neighborhoods a better place to live. For instance, citizens can hold community meetings to talk about concerns and agree on solutions help organize healthy activities for children in your neighborhood, join or starting a neighborhood crime watch program, and talk to your community police officers and share information and concerns.
Community crime prevention programs play a vital role across the world in regards to the “community” style of police service. These types of programs heavily involve participating members of the community along with the police to achieve community and police oriented goals to improve the quality of life for all members of the community.
The key aspects to community policing involve having officers working in permanent neighborhoods, the involvement of citizens to identify problems and have potential solutions, and the reliance on agencies to help locate issues. The cornerstone of the program is the citizen interaction with the police. It is reported that communities that receive community policing funds have reduced levels of violent and property crimes, also has a greater number of arrests. Successful partnership helps with the reduction of gang and drug activities, area crime rate, and the improvement of the relationship between law enforcement and
(Berlin, Michael M. "Encyclopedia of Community Policing and Problem Solving.") At the same time, aggressive patrol tactics adopted in response to rising crime and civil disobedience increased the likelihood of hostile confrontations between police and citizens and contributed to increasing complaints against the police (Berlin, Michael M. "Encyclopedia of Community Policing and Problem Solving.") The community policing literature strongly suggests that community policing could improve communication and trust between police and citizens, reverse the growing distance and isolation of the police from the public, and reduce citizen complaints of brutality and indifference (Berlin, Michael M. "Encyclopedia of Community Policing and Problem