some detrimental outcomes. One of the most important changes Javier noticed was the breakdown in the community policing model that the department had worked so hard to establish. Focusing more on counterterrorism efforts than on building relationships with community members damages the relationships between police and members of the community in serious ways. Police officers are expected to become keen observers of human behavior, to the point where they revert to the antagonistic role in the community. Instead of interacting positively with members of the community, police were being viewed increasingly with suspicion. Javier and his fellow officers had also been responding more to hate crimes… Continue Reading...
The idea of community policing is guided by a philosophy grounded in certain principles (Coquilhat, 2008). The principles are anchored on the thought that if there are positive changes now, communities will be guaranteed safety in the future. It is about cooperation and agreeing to work so that specific objectives that are commonly agreed on can be achieved. The concept of community policing is meant to move policing services closer to the people; with the people contributing towards the strategies employed in achieving the policing objectives. According to Palmitto, community policing is a… Continue Reading...
turn undermines the authority and legitimacy of the police and prevents cooperative measures of stopping crime like community policing models. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2015), 44 million people on average each year in the United States have some kind of face-to-face contact with police and of those 44 million, just under two percent experience use of threatening or nonfatal force. While this number may seem small, on the ground the high rate of police brutality does hurt the objectives of the criminal justice system. Moreover, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2015) shows that the incidence rates of police brutality are far higher for non-whites… Continue Reading...
21st century policing is building trust and legitimacy (The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015). Community policing models are one way of building trust and legitimacy. Building trust and legitimacy means remaining responsive to community concerns. It also means improving the ethical standards of police behavior, improving accountability, and ensuring that officers are held to a higher standard. A possible means of achieving this all-important goal of building trust and legitimacy would be to professionalize the police force through a set of national standards for officer training. Instead of the fragmented and unreliable approaches used now, officers around the nation could be engaged in rigorous… Continue Reading...
or "perceive law enforcement as agents of brutality," (Chaney and Robertson 480). Community policing models cannot take root or hope to mitigate or reverse the effects of these results unless there is a nationwide policy change to law enforcement organizational culture and training.
Fatalities at the hands of police have been estimated to be higher than they are for the general public, which should be grave cause for concern (Chaney and Robertson 480). Also alarming is the fact that police killings of civilians are not kept track of in any systematic way. The Department of Justice, the most natural agency that would… Continue Reading...
Community Policing
Describe the different views of communities utilized within "traditional" police-community relations and "contemporary" police-community relations.
When it comes to the proper scope, method, depth and breadth of community policing and how it should be done, there are a number of answers that should be provided and defined. The first question to be answered is the difference between "traditional" police/community relations and what is different about this relationship when it is modernized and made more current. The former is probably best defined by a laser focus on "catching the… Continue Reading...
hands and apologizing.
Critical Analysis and Reflection
As Hosner and Gomila (2008) point out, “Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime” (p. 17). The officer I interviewed said that community policing was a top priority in his department because the city had experienced racial issues in the past and community policing was meant to help alleviate the symptoms of racial tension. The police officer was able to build trust among… Continue Reading...
impact over the police. Moreover, combating of crime and the prevailing community policing model have been prevalent abuses by politicians (Law Library, 2017). Needless and pointless political wrangling over criminal justice aspects and issues that can take place when winning political skirmishes comes to be more significant to public officials than taking control of crime and attaining justice, can damage the justice process. Moreover, severe issues for the general public together with the criminal justice system can emanate from involving politics in criminal justice, a process in which political leaders seize prospects to employ criminal justice issues to augment their individual… Continue Reading...
in increasing the effectiveness of the police department. For instance, the department’s community policing initiative has succeeded largely because of extensive involvement of the community it serves. The department has strove to work closely with community leaders and members in developing and implementing its community policing strategy. This approach has led the department to discover critical perspectives it might have left out without involving stakeholders within the community. Involving stakeholders in strategic planning has also helped the police department improve its relations with the public. In most cases, police-public relations are not cordial, particularly due to the public’s distrust of the police… Continue Reading...
