In order to best serve their communities, law enforcement agencies have now begun to focus on the strategy of community policing. This strategy is a philosophy which involves a permanent commitment to the community. Community policing broadens the law enforcement agency beyond crime control. It provides full-service, personalized, and decentralized policing that focuses on problem solving. Community policing attempts to build trust between police officers and citizens and changes each one’s perception of the other. In order to accomplish this trust, police officers need to be fair and responsive through personal contacts on a continuous, prolonged basis. Different law enforcement executives utilize different styles of leadership and
The key point of this leadership style is that every member of the organization becomes a leader and trained as a leader. (Thibault et al,. 2011). From the patrol person and dispatcher to the upper echelon of the agency, dispersed leadership requires all to make decisions, take actions and be held accountable for their actions. Everyone in the organization understands and shares what goals need to be accomplished. Additionally, this style recognizes that everyone has different leadership styles and appropriate training is afforded for all based on the rank, job category, and situation (Thibault et al., 2011). In delegating this leadership to all in the organization, dispersed leadership enhances the communications of the organization in way that is useful in implementing community policing. In community policing, leadership is required throughout the organization and the community. The police officer on the street in the community must make decision to solve problems in the community and must have the leadership to implement the solutions. A good example is the Leadership in Police (LOP) Organization course sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Subjects that are provided in LOP are motivation, organizational culture, ethics, problem solving, critical skills and assessment (Thibault et al.,
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.
In order for the police to successfully prevent crimes, public cooperation is needed. Various community policing programs have been implemented and it is important to discuss the benefits and limitations of these programs. Community policing allows the community to be actively involved and become a partner in promoting safety. This partnership increases trust of police officers and helps citizens understand that the police are on their side and want to improve their quality of life (Ferreira, 1996). The role of the police officers goes beyond that of a “crime fighter” and expands to multiple roles including that of a victim-centered
Toxic leadership, likely found in all agencies at some point, and the general awareness of toxic leaders with whom individual officers have worked, makes this a real problem for law enforcement agencies. Knowing the root and cause of this type of leadership helps develop understanding on the part of those that can effect a change in leadership within an agency. Comprehending the methods by which such environments develop and their negative impact on the agency as a whole - via individual officers’ experiences, opens the doors on hidden collusion that destroy morale.
Lastly, the community policing theory of “broken windows” was researched and applied to the DPD. Broken windows theory, as conjectured by Wilson and Kellings, holds that when “discourteous and deviant behaviors are not controlled, an atmosphere is created in which more serious crime will be committed” (Yero, Othman, Samah, D'Silva, & Sulaiman, 2012) and a potential breakdown/ decline of the community is generated (Yili, Fiedler, & Flaming, 2005). Previous models of policing focused on police compartmentalization and isolation to guard against perceived prejudice and political corruption (Peaslee, 2009). At present, the models of policing now reflect community-orientated and problem-oriented goals. Among the countless theories of community policing, broken windows theory re-envisions how police should look to serve their community.
The leadership approaches of David Harman and Frank Viturello, have greatly affected their organization as a whole as they lead and demonstrate by example. Chief Harman and Viturello are both strong advocates of organizational leadership. What made these men stood out is their exceptional working relationship and partnership with each other regarding leadership and problem solving (Haberfeld, 2013). Both chiefs’ came from different ethnic backgrounds and experienced discrimination early in their careers and wanted to make a difference with new generations of police officers. The Chiefs’ had powerful envisions of innovative changes within their organization, and had revamped the recruitment policy in order to create ethnic diversification (Haberfeld, 2013). A criminal justice manager must select a style of leadership that will accomplish his or her mission, and most importantly, selecting a style of management that will attract qualified Asian-American applicants towards a career in law enforcement (Shusta et al.,
This concept has been around for decades and is believed to be an important aspect of law enforcement and the foundation of communicating with the people a law enforcement agency serves. There is such a strong belief in community policing in 2004 the Department of Justice (DOJ) dedicated an entire division to it. The DOJ calls this division the Community Oriented Policing Service also known as COPS. The Department of Justice states “Community policing begins with a commitment to building trust and mutual respect between police and communities. It is critical to public safety, ensuring that all stakeholders work together to address our nation's crime challenges. When police and communities collaborate, they more effectively address underlying issues, change negative behavioral patterns, and allocate
This innovative strategy allows law enforcement officers to achieve a level of respect and cooperation of the community through close working relationships between the citizens and the agency. “The key to infusing community policing throughout the department is by restructuring agency management, in particular making changes
Community oriented policing involves many different ideas, all of which are aimed at uniting a police agency with the citizens it serves. The common goal
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
A common style of police leadership is a more bureaucratic style where the leader manages “by the book”, everything must be done in accordance with pre-written policies and procedures (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010). When a certain problem or concern isn’t covered by the book the leader refers to the next level for a decision. This style removes the ability of the leader to manage and forces a strict accordance to the “book”. This style can be very effective when dealing with dangerous situations which can be a common occurrence in police work.
As Lopez and Ensari (2014) claim “… autocratic leadership style is more associated with the military, and seen as old-fashioned” (p. 20). As society continues to evolve, expand, and question the interactions law enforcement professionals have with their communities the old fashioned autocratic leadership style is no longer effective. Government agencies are now reevaluating the way in which they operate within changing societal standards, and leaders within these agencies must evolve and change to accommodate their followers, the agency changes, and the communities they
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 policing allows officers to be actively involved on the streets alongside the community. Their focus is not only to solve crimes but to interact with the people in their neighborhood, establish a rapport with them. This initiative has gained popularity within recent years as the police and leaders of the community pursue more significant ways to promote public safety and to enrich the quality of life of their community members. The police and the citizens often come in contact with each other for a multitude of reasons other than criminal purposes. Police officers often engage in community service by providing an abundance of information for those in need, and they offer educational services at schools and outreach
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.
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