The Three Components of Community Policing - Literature review Example

Established in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton and created as a component under the US Department of Justice, COPS made available billions of federal funds to law enforcement agencies throughout the US to fund programs aimed at the eradication of violent crimes. More importantly, COPS serves as the vehicle for the shift of law enforcement from its traditional form to a more proactive form known as community policing, which focuses more on crime prevention by putting police officers on beats where they can mingle and interact more with the members of the communities (Myers, 19).

The community partnership component of community policing is an acknowledgment that law enforcers alone cannot prevent crimes, but need the involvement of the community and other stakeholders. Thus, community partnership aims at the “collaborative partnerships” between the law enforcement agents and members of the community such as the community members and groups, other government agencies, providers of services and non-profit organizations, private businesses and the media. Other government agencies may refer to federal and state legislatures and other law-making bodies, prosecutors, probation and parole boards and officers, public works departments, law enforcement agencies of neighboring communities, health, and human services, child support services, ordinance enforcement schools.

Community members and groups, on the other hand, refer to the residents within the law enforcer’s area as well as visitors or tourists to that area and commuters, which law enforcers can meet during town hall meetings, neighborhood association meetings and beat assignments. Nonprofit/service providers are those who provide services to the residents and other persons in the area for free, while businesses are those engaged in profit-earning enterprises in the area such as the members of the local chamber of commerce (COPS 2009, pp. 5-6).Partnerships appreciate that the police cannot be able to face crime without the involvement of the public, and it encourages relationships among the different stakeholders to fight crime.

Collaborative partnerships between law enforcement agencies, organizations and individuals will increase the levels of trust that people will have on the police. This implies that catching up with criminals will be easy since information is voluntarily available and there is mutual trust between the police and people.Organizational transformation refers to the changes to be made to the structure of law enforcement agencies, including the adoption of sound management philosophies to make them more adapted to and supportive of the principles of community policing.

The goal is a structure that is both efficient and effective while institutionalizing the principles of community policing. Included in this concept are changes in agency management, strategic assignment of police officers, personnel handling from recruitment, selection to training and the use of technology to assist law enforcement in deterring, preventing and solving crimes (COPS 2009, pp. 7-11).The organizational transformation will incorporate the necessary infrastructure required to make the partnerships of people, organizations, and policy effective.

The police agencies will change their culture, leadership, labor relations, and policies so that they can be able to manage the partnerships with the community effectively. The change to community policing will need police management to be altered to support the shift from the normal procedures to community policing. It will include the changes that will have to be made on the management and personnel so that the policy is effectual. Personnel training will have to be included so that the police are able to relate to the community in ways that increase the efficiency of the process.

The organizational transformation will require the police to change the way they carry out their activities because they will now be in partnership with the community, and they will require a means for supporting the community-oriented policies.The last core component of community policing is problem-solving. This refers to the ability and capability of law enforcement to effectively respond to crime. The underlying principle here is pro-activity, which means the development of various solutions for various situations involving crimes even before they actually occur.

Moreover, COPS encourages police agencies to use the SARA problem-solving model. SARA stands for Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment. Scanning refers to the identification of specific problems such as type of person, a certain area, an event, time or any of their combinations and classifying the nature, severity, scope and possible responses to that problem. Analysis entails thorough research of the problem identified while Response evidently means the use of an effective solution to eliminate or reduce the problem and Assessment to the evaluation of its success (COPS 2009, pp. 12-13).The community will be beneficial in this process since they will provide police with the information required to carry out SARA problem-solving.

Scanning will enable police to prioritize their operations since they get information from the public on time. The analysis will be crucial in helping the police to know what they are likely to face when responding to situations from information from the community, and this will enable them to be prepared. A response will make the police solve the problem efficiently after they have gotten the information they need from the public. The public will be instrumental in assessment since they will inform the police if a crime has been stopped or not.

Therefore, information from the community will be crucial in fighting crime since the police will be able to gather all the data they require and fight crime efficiently.