Community Policing Essay Example

Introduction

In the recent past, much rhetoric about getting tough on delinquents or establishing workable policing initiatives lack the understanding of the causes of crime. As a result, majority of policy makers are short-sighted in terms of the possible impacts of the proposed community policing policies. In most countries around the world, these tenets are ideologically driven, and if they have any perceptible merit, there is an eclectic gap between what these policies propose and how they are being implemented. Community policing is one such example. Recently touted by city officials as a step in the right direction, community policing has either been misconstrued or not entirely or well implemented (Friedmann, 1996, sec. 1). Recent research findings suggest that a mutual community-police relationship is a unique component of a modern police department of law, order and Justice. Findings further imply that a perfect mix of communal elements and police culture is an excellent remedy that can prevent community conflicts and tensions.
Defined as a "perceived divergence of interest", conflicts crop up from actions, programs, and practices that are seen to be discriminatory (Anand, 2013, para. 3). These discriminatory practices arise from dissimilarity on the basis of race, religion, color, or national origin. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, community policing is a phrase firmly ensconced in the lexicon of modern policing (2009, sec. 1). Granting a phrase commonly used both within the public domain and the criminal justice system, community policing remains many things to many people. This paper examines the central tenets of community policing and identifies pertinent issues for contemplation regarding the implementation of community policing as a mechanism for crime control.

Community policing defined

In its mundane meaning, community policing is about the police department’s engagements with the local community in its day-to-day operations (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009, sec. 3). However, the implementation of community policing on the ground has resulted in community policing being "several things to many people" (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009, sec. 3). As such, a universally accepted definition remains elusive. In its purest form, Community policing is simultaneously defined as a philosophical policy and an organizational strategy geared towards creating a more effective and efficient crime control. It is also constructed to lessen the fear of crime, enrich societal quality of life, and improve police services and police legitimacy. It is an initiative that proactively uses community resources to change crime-causing conditions (Friedmann, 1996, sec. 2). For this assignment, the operational definition will define community policing as bringing the police and the local citizens together. The partnership aims at preventing crime and solving problems. The definition emphasizes the prevention of crime rather than the customary policing method of responding to crime after it happens.

Why Community Policing?

There are numerous compelling reasons to explain why public officials have looked at community policing as a way forward. These reasons, though mostly grounded in the history of policing, are vested in the mutable nature of communities. These changes in the societal design cause the shifting characteristics of communal crime, violence, and disorder. (Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, sec. 2). Practitioners approve that there is, and has been, a need for groundbreaking practices within policing to curb what the majority would consider a “crisis of violence” within several communities. As a result, it has been documented that controlling chaos, creating feelings of personal safety, and fighting delinquency needs input from both the public and the police.
Fundamental to the philosophy of community policing is its emphasis on active police working partnerships with the local community. In spite of the varied manifestations of community policing, the underlying hypothesis is that the police force and the community it serves must agree on the values that guide that police force. Those values must embrace as clearly as possible the protection of individual life and liberty, and, at the same time, prove necessary to maintain a peaceful and stable society. A community-policing initiative must be familiar with both its police culture and community culture in order to accomplish a peaceful state. Familiarization with communal culture, however, is no easy task in neighborhoods with significant demographic changes. This difficulty arises because perceptions shape human vision of the world and respond to it, specifically in the state of conflicts. In the post- 9/11 era, for example, several organizations, government agencies, religious groups, and police organs reached out to Muslims to develop a reciprocated understanding and to foster a collaborative relationships. The Stockton Police Department best echoes the sentiments above. The police department realizes that it is part of the greater community and that neither the police force nor the community can fight crime alone (StocktonGov.com, 2014, para. 2). The relationship between the Muslim public and law enforcement, predominantly its violent nature, has been under incessant re-examination. As a result, police-citizen violence and related concerns are prime topics of conversation that need to be addressed. The heights of this issue are also reflected in the amount of investigation and examination devoted to it by the criminal justice researchers and scholarly journals. In addition, even a casual reading of the Nation’s newspapers habitually yields versions of confrontations between the police and Muslim citizens. The papers reveal excessive use of deadly force in circumstances where cultural and ethnic tensions already create difficulties and complications. Furthermore, mass media such as televisions sometimes provide dramatic supporting clips, graphically depicting the resulting tensions in a community.
The aftermath of the September 11 incident became an opportunity for police departments to deepen their relationships with Arab-Americans, the Sikhs, and the Muslim communities. The following elements of community policing can help further the positive relations between law enforcement agencies and the Muslim communities they serve. Firstly, prompt and sensitive attention by the government (state and federal) law enforcement officials to racial and ethnic attacks and incidents can help create trust and confidence in public officials and institutions. Secondly, community outreach by police departments to Muslim communities can provide police and communal leaders an opportunity to develop cooperative working relationships. Community outreach underlines effective policing by police officials. The awareness activities can involve deliberate efforts by police chiefs to extend their connections to these communities by personal visits, calls, and public forums. The connection enables public officials to listen, learn of concerns, and reassure community members of their concerns. Lastly, intensive training by police officers in Arab and Muslim socio-cultural issues is vital in heading off cross-cultural conflicts, misunderstandings, and tensions
Why has the interaction between law enforcement and the Muslim citizens come under such scrutiny? One reason is the significant number of arrests and killings by and of police officers in recent years. Still another reason is the increasing preeminence given to the preservation of life as a value underlying the community policing concept. There is also the need modernize and improve police work from within the profession itself as a general response to the larger changes in the U.S. society (U.S. Department of Justice - Community Relations Service, 2003, sec. 2).

Community Policing: Principles and Practice

Community policing concept is broad in both its interpretation and implementation across the globe. As a consequence, the various definitions epitomize the difficulty in understanding and interpreting the term. However, most practitioners concur that there are a number of theoretical principles and elements that encompass the community policing framework (Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, sec. 3).
In enhancing community policing initiatives, several theoretical elements are required to develop better relations and collaboration with the Muslim community in the city. These components fall into three general categories identified as the most common features of the law enforcement agency services that have adopted community policing frameworks. They include community partnership and engagement, problem-solving orientation and administrative decentralization (Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, sec. 4). These features and their implications for implementation are discussed at length in the paragraphs that follow.
The first step in community policing is absolute community engagement. Developing and maintaining the societal trust is pivotal to the success of any community policing initiative around the world. For instance, the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Relations Service (CRS) has an extensive history of working impartially with cultural and religious groups across the nation. The CRS-community working relations help support their efforts to cultivate working partnerships with existing leadership and support service agencies, including law enforcement (The United States Department of Justice, 2014, para. 1). The communal engagement practice of community policing requires a policing stance that goes beyond the typical law enforcement emphasis. The widened outlook of societal involvement recognizes the value of police activities that contribute to order and well-being in a community. With reference to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services in Ontario, such activities could include door-to-door visits to Muslim residents to increase perceptions of personal safety (2010, sec. 4). Studies reveal that such activities help develop trust in the local police force and the community. The improved confidence in turn allows the police to gain access to critical information from the public that can lead to the deterrence of crimes and increase the support for crime control measures. Such mutual trust can also provide an avenue through which the police develop a working relationship with the community (Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, sec.4). However, developing trust and mobilizing citizens has proven in numerous cases to be quite problematic. Consequently, to build trust, the police must treat citizens with dignity and respect. Whereas arrogance, rudeness, and unnecessary use of force lessen the willingness of the community to engage with and provide information to the police.
The second step of the community policing is problem-solving otherwise referred to as problem-oriented policing. The problem-solving effort differs from traditional policing in that it is proactive rather than reactive. As revealed earlier, the act of the police racing to crime scenes to gather reports from victims and witnesses is traditionally branded as policing. Thus, the police equated crime prevention and police efficacy with arrest and incapacitation. On the other hand, problem-solving stems from the notion that “crime and disorder can be reduced by carefully studying the characteristics of the problems, and then applying the appropriate resources”. It also relies on the assumption that “individual citizens make choices based on the opportunities presented by the immediate physical and societal physiognomies of an area” (Eck and Sherman, 1987 as cited in Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, sec.4 ). According to Eck and Sherman, the underlying conditions in a community can create problems. These conditions include the characteristics of the people, the social settings in which they interact, and the surrounding physical environments. However, the way the public deals with these conditions is of paramount importance. Consequently, the police department uses a range of tactics other than responding to individual crime incidences (Casady, n.d. sec. 10).
Employing the problem-solving approach requires the involvement of the public in the identification and prioritization of a vast array of community problems. The conceptual model of problem-solving, SARA, charts the following four steps:
Scan: Is the initial step in the SARA approach. It requires the police force to identify problems and prioritize them while incorporating community input.

Analyze: Analysis is the study of information about delinquents, victims, and crime locations.

Respond: Is the third phase of the problem-solving community-policing approach. It requires the police taskforce to implement strategies that address the chronic character of priority problems.
Assess: This is the evaluation of the effectiveness of the approach. It usually includes self-assessments to determine how well the plan was carried out and what good has been accomplished (United States Department of Justice, n.d. para. 3)
In determining the underlying causes of crime and criminality in the community, an in-depth knowledge of the community and its issues is required. It is here where community engagement and information sharing between the police and citizens become predominantly imperative. The police, therefore, need to listen acutely to the communal concerns and foster cooperation to identify and address the problems.
The final component in the implementation of the community policing initiatives is administrative decentralization. It is closely linked to organizational transformation in community policing. Organizational change is significant in community policing because it helps in building effective community partnerships. Organization decentralization is a new flexible style of policing management. Decentralization is important in community policing because it enables the police to become more proactive and more preventative. The strategy also allows the police officers to respond to communal issues of varying importance and severity with greater effectiveness. Studies also reveal that flattening the structure of a police department sheds layers of bureaucracy, resulting in faster communication and decision-making processes (Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2010, sec. 4).

Conclusion

The principles of policing as discussed above are offered in recognition that the level of the police-citizen violence is a solemn problem that requires attention. In addition, citizens bear a part of the responsibility for the drift of relations with the police force. However, it is the police role that is key because of their unique power in maintaining law and order in the society.

References

Anand, K. (2013, January 8). Argument over Perceptions: the Hindu-Muslim World Relationship - Peace and Collaborative Development Network. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/profiles/blogs/argument-over-perceptions-the-hindu-muslim-world-relationship#.VORYwkD4KSp
Australian Institute of Criminology. (2009, July 13). Australian Institute of Criminology - Community policing: a descriptive overview. Retrieved from http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/other/61-80/community%20policing%20%20a%20descriptive%20overview/view%20paper.html
Casady, T. (n.d.). Community Based Policing. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.lincoln.ne.gov/city/police/cbp.htm
Friedmann, R. R. (1996). Community Policing. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www2.gsu.edu/~crirxf/considerations.htm
Ontario - Ministry of Children and Youth Services. (2010, April 27). Community Policing Strategies. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/youthandthelaw/roots/volume5/preventing03_community_polcing.aspx
StocktonGov.com. (2014, July 17). Community Policing - City of Stockton, CA. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.stocktongov.com/government/departments/police/abComPol.html
The United States Department of Justice. (2014, December 12). Religious Groups | CRS | Department of Justice. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.justice.gov/crs/who-we-work-with/religious-groups
U.S. Department of Justice - Community Relations Service. (2003, September). Principles of Good Policing: Avoiding Violence Between Police and Citizens. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.justice.gov/archive/crs/pubs/principlesofgoodpolicingfinal092003.pdf
United States Department of Justice. (n.d.). COPS Office: Problem-Oriented Policing. Retrieved February 16, 2015, from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=2559