Development of Community Policing In the US
In the United States, individuals partner with the police force while working for the safety of the communities as well as minimization of prevalent crimes in communities thereof. The US justice department refers to community policing to as a philosophical action, aimed at fostering strategic organization in communities. These strategies are meant to reduce the rates of crimes and other potential problems that might jeopardize the safety of the communities and the residents. The community is dominated with criminal issues that cause public safety concerns such as social unrest, crimes and fear which community policing tries to address to ensure safety reigns. This paper explores the development of community policing in the United States of America.
Historical Perspective
Communities partner with municipal agencies, companies of different businesses, the media, NGOs and citizens to develop methods and strategies vital in governing, running and protecting communities. The collaboration Is essential in helping the different bodies work together to reduce criminal incidences in communities as well as addressing matters related to crime. Traditionally, all criminal matters are often left to the police force to solve them; however, community policing allows the entire community to take the initiative in helping the police solve such matters. Community policing started as a result of police involvement in community issues like detecting crimes and reducing criminal-related activities in the communities thereof. It started way back in the 1960s due to the prevalence of gang violence and city riots. Initially, the police would respond to criminal offences and activities in a negative way full of brutality. Such actions from the police led to the damage of police reputation (Mackenzie & Henry, 2009).
Before 1960, citizens had no trust in the police force; therefore, it was ideal for the police force and the entire criminal justice department to do all it could to regain their trust among the citizens. Thus, they decided to develop the community policing policy to involve the community in criminal justice practice and increased police presence in the activities thereof. Therefore, by 1970s and 1980s, community policing took a path in the police force and became a new norm. This allowed many police officers to work with communities to sanitize communities. The police started to engage with other stakeholders in society to solve crime problems in societies. Since the]n, almost all the regions in the United States are having policing strategies, and it is rare to find any region that has failed to practice such policies (Mackenzie & Henry, 2009). That is to imply that community policing has evolved over the years, starting from the commencement of the civil rights movement during the 1960s. The movement was used as a tool to expose the weaknesses that were dominant in the police force and the entire criminal justice department. Thus, many people can say that community policing was developed as a result of the consistent crisis between citizens and the police force. However, its development in the contemporary world and era is attributed to a variety of factors.
A major crisis that required reformations was the hostility between the police and the minority groups and communities. In the 1960s and 1970s, the criminal justice system tried to impose a team policing policy in an attempt to address the underlying concern. Team policing was a vital entity because it acted as a manifestation towards community policing. The policy required that for the police to strike a closer relationship with the community, there was a need for a geographical-based community reconstruction. Furthermore, line officers in team policing were granted opportunities to make decisions crucial in making them responsive towards community problems. However, even though team policing was innovative, police managers and other staunch persons who opposed the policy hindered successful implementation of the same. That is how team policing failed, attracting various research concerns on the same (Mackenzie & Henry, 2009).
A coherent community policing approach came into effect in the 1980s. Its acceleration came about in 1982 after an article Broken Windows was published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine. It was a significant and strategic magazine that found favour in the public domain. Integrating with other works from Goldstein, Kelling and Wilson, there was a widespread spark of the need to solve problems associated with police-community relationship, foot patrol as well as resolutions to other issues. Therefore, in 1986, policing programs aimed at solving police-community problems were implemented. Baltimore was in the forefront to implement such measures by grouping the police officers into small units with each of them assigned a specific issue, with a responsibility to ensure that the issue is resolved. That is why, beyond the 1990s, community policing have been used as a movement to reform the relationship between the police and the community residents as well as the entire criminal justice department. The federal government is encouraging continuity of the same policies by funding their operations through the COPS, making the police officers shift their attentions towards community policing reforms.
Community Policing Program Standards
The roots of community policing are police-community relationship, team policing, prevention of crimes and foot patrol rediscovery. By the 1990s, the policy had expanded and dominated policing department. This was beneficial, especially to police officers who engage in the same; the Crime Bill funded such officers in 1994. Many people misunderstand the community policing policy. Therefore, it is vital to understand the four principles that govern it. The first principle is that community policing is not a panacea (Mackenzie & Henry, 2009). That is an illustration that even though community policing tries to solve police-community relationship issues, it does not resolve and give answers to all the questions facing the entire department. It is god to note that it does solve some of the problems thereof. Another aspect is that community policing is not a new phenomenon. Many police officers and policing departments have reportedly indicated that they are aware of the policy and practising it all the same. Even if some of the aspects of community policing might not have adopted, most agencies and COP departments have adopted it.
People should also understand that COP is not a policy aimed at enforcing the law to lawbreakers or an anti-crime fighting policy. Community policing does not turn police officers into social workers; it is a policy that seriously fights criminal activities in societies; it works more than the 911 policing that is incident-oriented. More so, COP is not precisely defined. Even though its principles are universally applicable, every jurisdiction has a unique way of executing them as well as implementing them. Furthermore, community policing has 3Ps; people, policies and processes. The first P engages people in policymaking. That is to imply that the policy practices should be explained to the departmental persons as well as the community so that they fully understand what is needed for them and the service required. Therefore, leveraging the experience and departmental perspectives for police personnel and the citizens is vital. This is because it helps in fostering an essential policing strategy as well as problem-solving outcomes.
Community policing is strengthened through transformational leadership. No COP organization can transform if the leadership has not completely invested in the building of a closer relationship with communities and citizens. Therefore, COP requires leaders to model their behaviours to incline towards the changes; with those with the vision about the community-police relationship in the higher ranks of the police toll. Transformation can only succeed through a transformed leadership. More so, the community and the police officers ought to define success when deciding on adopting COP (Zhao et al. 1995). This can be done through setting and understanding of the set goals and objectives through the available resources. Thus, departments should set goals and communicate them to the relevant stakeholders to create awareness of the expectations and general outcomes of the policy. Cultural immersion is also a consideration under COP implementation.
Policy implementation and creation of a sustainable process is a vital standard under COP. Effective communication and training the personnel responsible for the implementation and execution of the COP tasks is essential. Transparency, voice, impartiality and updated policies are some of the major elements under policy implementation. Sustainability is fostered through planning, proper execution and effective communication. Being accountable and complying with the required procedures is also crucial in community policing.
Agency Profiles in Community Policing
Many police departments have reinforced community policing policies. For instance, the Middletown Police Department entails a full-service police agency with 24hr law enforcement professionalism. It entails major divisions such as the operation division and administration/investigation division. The operations division is under the guidance of the captain, who is in charge of patrols and platoons. Lieutenants and sergeants supervise the platoons within the patrol districts. The administration/investigation division has the captain and the lieutenant responsible for detecting and investigating community policing accreditations and fleet operations among other operations. The complimented personnel authorization under the Middletown police department entails 39 police officers with six civilians that work on both full time and part-time basis.
Efficacy of Community Policing
Recently, it has been noted that the rate of crimes in societies has declined in most of the American societies. This is because many police departments have shifted from the traditional reactive forms of policing to community-based policing programs. Even though there so clear evidence of whether community policing policies are the ones behind the reduced or controlled rates of crime in American communities, proactive community-policing strategies like arrests have an effect on the rates of crime in communities thereof. More so, there has been a considerable reduction in fear among Americans (Zhao et al. 1995). This is because initially, the police force was seen as a force of authority that terrorized people and caused inhumane force among them. However, with the current community-oriented policing approach, the police officers are more prevalent in the communities making people feel secure. Presence of the police force is an indication that there were reduced rates of crime in society when community residents feel secure, it a positive image to the police force since the police will earn their trust in the long-run.
Challenges of Community Policing
Even though community policing plays a vital role in fostering community-police relationship, there are many challenges the policy faces in terms of implementation. According to research studies, four significant barriers hinder community policing implementation in American societies. Police officers, the community, the culture of the community and specialized unit details are the key barriers to the implementation of a successful community policing program. Problems that arise during implementation should be addressed; otherwise, they are prone to negatively impacting the success of the entire initiative (Rosenbaum, 1994). Poor implementation is consequential in several ways. Some of the way through which improper implementation can affect community policing can be lacking the control, flexibility and task tailoring at the community level. Regarding police officers, they are reluctant to share crucial information with the community. This has been a challenge since the community-policing approach requires the policing department to work jointly with the communities in reducing the rates of crimes as well as maintaining law and order.
It is also essential to note that the community policing approach have become a popular policing approach used in reforming the police department in America. Even with the popularity given to it, little attention has been given to the challenges associated with the implementation of the approach. Another challenge is choosing a solution for policing crisis. Police legitimacy is significant; that is why reformers have focused more on police training. Another challenge is a lack of trust in the police force by Americans. Traditionally, Americans had a negative perception of the police. This is especially the minority groups (Rosenbaum, 1994).
Community Relations
Improving the effectiveness of the policy requires the police force to focus on the underlying principles of modern policing. That is to imply that instead of the police reacting to crime incidents, they are supposed to improve their relationship with the community to foster trust as well as preventing the occurrence of crime. Law enforcement requires accomplishing four essential goals as far as community policing is concerned. These are to improve the support allocated towards policing, equipping the police fraternity with tools effective in executing their tasks, focus on public interests and fostering a direct engagement of the community in policing work (Zhao et al. 1995). When there is a strong community-police tie, police officers can effectively do their job and protect the communities. There have been cases of increased shootings dominating news headlines. Such incidences have affected the relationship between the police and minority groups or communities.
It is a fact that many of the shootings and incarnations occur among minority groups. However, this group of people report fewer incidences of crimes and sometimes, they do not provide enough information to the police force to help in solving the crime thereof. That is to imply that the more the police professionals pressure individuals to give information over a given crime, the more they create tension between their profession and the community. It is this tension that creates doubts and mistrust from community dwellers towards the police. That is why community policing focuses on restoring the tensed relationship into trust by involving and engaging the community into the efforts to keep the community safe and prevent crimes (Zhao et al. 1995).
Technology in Community Policing
Community policing has advanced due to advancements in policing technology. Today, police officers have leveraged technology in policing and other tools vital in enhancing safety in communities. The current police officers and the entire policing department have evolved significantly. If anyone present in the 1906s got a chance to travel to today and see the modern policing, they would be shocked with the current enhancements made in the police force. Today, the police officers dress in a different style and also have adorned gadgets that were never there during the development and implementation of community policing (Williams et al. 2018). The current police force has evolved to entail technological know-how. Police officers are using or adapting to the use for Google glasses, fingerprint scanners as well as using translation devices while executing their duties. Slim smartphones have dominated the police force to replace the ancient bulky PDAs making it easier for the officers to get information vital for the protection of communities and reduction or prevention of criminal occurrences in communities. Safe alerts are also results of the use of smartphone technology that offers alerts to the community against a given incident about to occur or already occurred.
There are various ways through which technology is being used in the community policing approach. Smartphones are vital in helping police officers to better engage with the communities. Law reinforcement depends on intelligence gathered; therefore, police officers use smartphones to gather information about a given case. There are many cases where police officers have used information from Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to prevent the occurrence of certain crimes. Even though there is a lot of ‘noise’ in social media, it has been an essential tool to gather information regarding criminal plans; thus helping the police to mitigate the crimes before they happen (Williams et al. 2018). More so, Google Glasses were dominantly used in the US criminal Justice department; however, due to the cost and privacy concerns, communication management platform has been the best substitute towards the same. Gathering better information is essential in keeping communities safer. The communication management platform was integrated with the smart911 system, which provides detailed information about emergency callers. Such information is then forwarded to community officers during a response.
Future Outlook of Community Policing
Today, COP is touted as a cure for all the issues to the problems in and out of the police force and criminal justice system. It is essential to understand that COP is not a panacea. Many obstacles emerge along the way of changing community policing into what is expected in the near future. The future of COP entails the past and the present. The past is vital in helping the law enforcers to learn from past mistakes and the strengths thereof. More so, people should focus on the common interest of the police-community relationship to ensure that the future is what it is expected to be (Zhao et al. 1999). Currently, there are still increased incidents of incarnation and shootings to civilians. Such issues should be looked at in the present to improve the future. Generally, the future of community policing will be better than it is today if reforms are made in the criminal justice system.
In conclusion, community policing is a philosophy that fosters a positive relationship between the community and citizens. It ensures that the community trusts in the police force because they are involved in the prevention of crimes in the society and safety of the people. With reforms, the future of community policing will be brighter than it is today.
References
Mackenzie, S., & Henry, A. (2009). Community policing: A review of the evidence. Scottish Government.
Rosenbaum, D. P. (1994). The challenge of community policing. Sage.
Williams, C. B., Fedorowicz, J., Kavanaugh, A., Mentzer, K., Thatcher, J. B., & Xu, J. (2018). Leveraging social media to achieve a community policing agenda. Government Information Quarterly, 35(2), 210-222.
Zhao, J., Lovrich, N. P., & Thurman, Q. (1999). The status of community policing in American cities. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.
Zhao, J., Thurman, Q. C., & Lovrich, N. P. (1995). Community-oriented policing across the US: Facilitators and impediment to implementation. Am. J. Police, 14, 11.