The Use of the Police and Dealing With Problems in the Community - Research Paper Example

 Community safety has three major components. It has a tendency to be limited to a small area, to have a wide focus on social issues outside mere crime and disorder and to be conveyed through partnership. Crawford (1998), in his theory of partnership, differentiates between ‘inter-agency’ and ‘multi-agency’ relations. Multi-agency relations refer to agencies coalescing with regard to a specific issue without this overly influencing the manner in which they operate. On the contrary, inter-agency relations “interpenetrate and thus affect normal internal working practices of the agencies involved”. The tasks in inter-agency relations are more difficult for the police than they are in multi-agency relations. Due to the outcome-oriented quality of the 1998 Act the police are pressured to take part not just in concerted but in mutually dependent activity. Nevertheless, this will once more emphasise several of the conflicts and problems in this work. It is important to reassess several of these issues because the repercussion of the 1998 Act is that the police will be obliged to tackle them and to try to find out ways to mitigate or resolve them. Above all, there is the issue of inter-organisational disagreement. It may occur over interests, objectives, principles and, regardless of the planning procedure specified by the 1998 Act, priorities. It is also likely that disagreements over priorities and objectives may be worsened by several attributes of managerialism presently governing a large part of the public service sector. The dilemma with New Public Management is that it could promote an intra-organisational emphasis instead of creating processes for the supervision of inter-organisational systems. Moreover, there is the problem of unbalanced power distribution between the partners. This could be revealed in legal powers, access to knowledge and information, and human and material resources. In addition, there is the issue of unclear distinctions between the responsibilities of partners with a potential loss of independence. And ultimately, there is the risk of uncertainty over accountability and responsibility. Specifically, responsibility could become disjointed and hence accountability vague. This could be especially severe with regard to the core objective of this activity, namely, alleviation in the prevalence of crime and disorder. The 1998 Act gives much importance to partnership working and community consultation. It would seem that one of the suggestions of the Act is that the role of the police should be the core of public discourse and scrutiny, thereby modifying the basic role of the police. What appears apparent is that the public police will generally be shoved towards ‘community policing’. Even though hard to characterise or identify, ‘community policing’ depends on reorganisation of policing and organizational decentralisation so as to enable joint communication between the citizens and the police. It requires engagement in a comprehensively guided, problem-focused policing, and obliges the police to be sensitive to the needs and demands of citizens when they determine what the local issues are and establish their priorities. Moreover, it requires engagement in training neighbourhoods in resolving crime issues on their own, through crime prevention activities and community associations. However, as numerous scholars have emphasised, it is quite obvious that this not a perfect approach to policing. Smith (1987) identified several difficulties related to the model of community policing that are as relevant to policing after the 1998 Act as they were at that time. Primarily, police-oriented action is largely adversarial. It is in reaction to urgent needs that most consensus-based actions by the police take place. Consensus-based actions are difficult to formulate. Police actions that are most readily formulated are largely adversarial. Hence, how can the police equip itself for further participation in consensus-building actions? Also, policing influences various parts of the community, or various communities, in different ways and this could be a major cause of disagreement and tension. Persuading the community does not automatically resolve the issue. As claimed by Crawford (1997), “An assertion of community at a local level can be beautifully conciliatory, socially nuanced and constructive but it can also be parochial, intolerant, oppressive and unjust.” This poses the issue of how the opposing expectations of the police are to be reconciled in a fair, peaceful, and democratic way. Ultimately, decentralisation goes against the general principle of law. The subject of police judgment surfaces in community policy approaches and ways towards appropriate democratic administration of policing become increasingly essential. Community safety partnership in England and Wales is apparently moving towards consensus building. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is an autonomous, expertly governed strategic policing unit. Senior police, such as commanders, assistant chief constables, and chief constables, are its members. Its objective is to serve the interest of the public and build dynamic partnership with the Association of Police Authorities (APA) and the government; to guide and coordinate the course and progress of policing in Northern Ireland, Wales, and England. During national exigencies, the purposes of ACPO comprise administering “strong and visible leadership [and] inspiring confidence in those we lead, our partners and the diverse communities we serve”. ACPO aims “to ensure, with [its] partners, that the development of doctrine for the service is conducted in a professional and coordinated manner, supporting the continuous improvement of policing for the benefit of the communities that [it serves]”. In essence, ACPO guides the nation towards a citizen-oriented police service. In a similar vein, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) are responsible for partnership working and community consultation. Specifically, these authorities are tasked to consult with strategic partners and communities in London. The MPS is specifically tasked to enhance their knowledge of communities in London, to counsel and educate them about security concerns, and to observe any conflicts within London’s communities. On the other hand, MPA is specifically tasked to engage in local strategic partnerships, to vigorously take part in Crime and Disorder Partnerships, and to strongly support police and community involvement. These duties ensure that police service within the framework of community safety partnership is oriented towards consensus building. In order to facilitate consensus building, these authorities are obliged—ACPO, MPS, MPA—to obtain public opinion about issues in relation to their policing and encouraging community involvement in crime prevention and reduction; to make sure that the opinion of local people on the priorities of crime and disorder are integrated into the formulation and implementation of the crime and disorder partnership scheme; and to collaborate in establishing objectives for local community development and relate these objectives to the crime reduction and prevention efforts that they carry out in boroughs. Community safety partnership may be better understood and justified within the framework of key criminological theories. The revival of social disorganisation theory in the latter part of the 20th century co-existed with a growing concern for community-based policing. Since both concepts place emphasis on communities, they were usually combined in a way that encourages community members to become involved in the implementation of informal social control. Although police contribute significantly to the implementation of social control, the degree to which the role of the police is the primary against secondary or tertiary degree of control in communities seems to have an implication for both theoretical knowledge of community practices associated with crime control and consequently for frameworks of justice. The principles of social disorganisation theory by Shaw and McKay can be definitely discerned in the components of the policies and initiatives they formulated based on their perception of crime and can be considered as an initial stage in distinguishing between established models of justice and what are currently known as community models of justice. The role of social communication and community relations, although less relevant in established justice models, are mandatory for community models of justice. Therefore, from a theoretical perspective, community relations are an important component in social disorganisation’s account of the formation of community crime prevention and social control, and this framework is obviously distinct from deterrence approaches that depend on formal social control. Unfortunately, current policies related to modern theory of social disorganisation have placed emphasis on informal surveillance as a form of social control. Although this form of supervision is definitely essential, especially as regards major crimes, it is certainly distinct from the primary emphasis in social disorganisation theory. These activities are hard to effectively implement in communities where there is weak confidence in the police or weak commitment in the community to strengthen this form of social control. This form of supervision, which depends largely on the police, is also impractical for improper actions or behaviours that, although not unlawful, may ultimately result in riskier conflicts among community members. Making the police the most important form of social control could also have unfavourable implications for the community. According to Christie (1977) and other scholars, the use of the police to deal with problems in the community may eventually destabilise the community. Christie (1977) has observed that when members of the community hand over their problems to the police, they lose the chance to participate and interact within the community. Likewise, as pointed out by DeLeon-Granados (1999), “Official crime prevention can swallow up informal community-based responses, can alienate segments of the population, and can chew up police resources by focusing on arrest instead of strategies that can potentially stabilise a community’s social ecology”. Therefore, the form of justice models applied by communities seems likely to be somewhat reliant on the level of social interaction and relations within the community. In fact, few initiatives have been formulated to promote social interaction. (i’m planning to use social disorganization theory to analyze a community safety partnership program in one London borough) Read More