COMMUNITY POLICING MODEL
A community policing model is a framework designed to guide the collaboration between the police and the community to best identify and solve the problems faced in the community. This community policing model would, in essence, be composed of three key components. This model is vital for the success of police-community engagement in society (Murray, J., 2005). This extract will formulate a simple policing model based on the three pillars; organizational transformation, community partnership, and shared problem sharing.
The first component of the community policing model is organizational transformation. Organizational transformation is mainly geared towards coming up with strategies to best serve the community and change the rules governing the police-community interaction; this also increases the accountability of the officers to the community (Lumb, R. C., & Breazeale, R., 2002).
The second component of the community policing model is community partnership. This explains the kind of relationship between the police and the community members. This partnership is essential because the members of the community are always in a position to approach the police officers in case they have an issue at hand to discuss. The police officers, on the other hand, can engage with the community members to share with them some of the crime prevention tips (Sims, B., Hooper, M., & Peterson, S. A., 2002).
The last component of this community policing model is, shared problem-solving. With shared problem solving, the police officers, with help from the community members, are in a position to react to the crimes and problems reported by the community members rather than always responding to crimes as their norm has been (Bazemore, G., & Griffiths, C., 2003).
Students would deploy their road patrol personnel by following three main processes. The first process is the development of a recruitment plan as Johnston, L. (2006) advices. In the recruitment process, the students advertise the post of the road patrol officer stating the qualifications needed from the officers. This process attracts a pool of applicants. After receiving the applications from different applicants who expressed their interest in becoming road patrol officers, the students will then make a selection of the officer/s who seems to best handle the task of a road patrol officer (Johnston, L., 2006).
Lastly, the selected road patrol officers would then get trained. Training is fundamental because it is during training that the officers are informed on how they are expected to perform their duties as well as how to respond to various incidents they encounter in their work stations. Training will equip the officers on how to best serve the student by solving the problems they face rather than always attending to crimes as well as how the students and the officers will partner to make the roads a better place for the students.
Citizens- police interaction or engagement would be the best thing to help make the community a better place. This kind of interaction creates an interface for community-police engagement. I would, therefore, instruct the road patrol officers to engage the citizens in the following ways. One of them being, the officers could attend the community gathering, and it is in these meetings that the community members air out their views to the officers on the problems they face. Consequently, the officers would give their opinions on how to help solve their problems (Trojanowicz, R. C., & Bucqueroux, B., 1998).
Secondly, citizens could be encouraged to form neighborhood watch groups where the officers would engage with the citizens, like Rao, B. R. (2013) affirms. Through these groups, the citizens interact with the officers to identify and implement possible solutions to the problems faced by the community members. Also, law enforcement officers could create websites. It is on this website that the citizens are encouraged to interact with the officers by submitting their complaints, commending the officers for the good community service and getting advice on how to deal with specific issues that are facing the community.
Moreover, the officers could create a citizen advisory board to assist in the facilitation of positive and helpful engagements between them and the citizens (Chadwick, A., & May, C., 2003). Last but not least, the police could form an academy where they could interact with the citizens by teaching them some of the laws that govern the conduct of the police officers. In these academies, the officers explain to the citizens why at times, they tend to act the way they do towards the citizens as well as the aspects of the officers’ job.
In summary, all these steps will go a long way in ensuring a stronger collaboration between the citizens and the police department, which will work positively towards ensuring the success of the implementation of any community policing model. The agents also accorded the privilege of serving the citizens should play up their game and follow the model closely so that optimal results are achieved. After all, the better the model, and the more the team stick to it entirely, the more the community will enjoy the services offered by the team being guided by the community policing model to serve the citizens.
REFERENCES
Bazemore, G., & Griffiths, C. (2003). Police reform, restorative justice, and restorative policing. Police Practice and Research, 4(4), 335-346.
Chadwick, A., & May, C. (2003). Interaction between States and Citizens in the Age of the Internet: “e‐Government” in the United States, Britain, and the European Union. Governance, 16(2), 271-300.
Johnston, L. (2006). Diversifying police recruitment? The deployment of police community support officers in London. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 45(4), 388-402.
Lumb, R. C., & Breazeale, R. (2002). Police officer attitudes and community policing implementation: Developing strategies for durable organizational change. Policing & Society, 13(1), 91-106.
Murray, J. (2005). Policing terrorism: A threat to community policing or just a shift in priorities?. Police Practice and Research, 6(4), 347-361.
Prokos, A., & Padavic, I. (2002). ‘There oughtta be a law against bitches’: masculinity lessons in police academy training. Gender, work & organization, 9(4), 439-459.
Rao, B. R. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,548,423. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Sims, B., Hooper, M., & Peterson, S. A. (2002). Determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward police. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.
Trojanowicz, R. C., & Bucqueroux, B. (1998). Community policing: How to get started. Routledge.