Philosophy of Policing - Essay Example

Community police officers can greatly improve their effectiveness within a specific community by improving their roles as trusted and responsible police officers who are willing to help people. This would encourage citizens to develop trust in the police officers and they would report crimes to them without any fear. Other strategies include citizen contact patrol which is focused on developing sound relations between the citizens and the officers by their door-to-door visits. Also, improving the image of police officers in the minds of the citizens, focusing more on community meetings, disseminating crime control newsletters, establishing storefronts and substations to make people feel protected, organizing neighborhood watch programs to monitor and control suspicious activities, specialized patrols and hosting community meetings where the citizens can freely discuss their problems and fears to police officers.

Citizen contact patrol is a way to develop interaction between the citizens and the police officers which includes door-to-door police visits. During their visits, police officers provide general information on all the possibilities to control crime within the community, give out tips to protect oneself from any possible danger, and collect information on who is carrying a gun in the house. In my opinion, citizen contact patrol is an effective way to develop greater interaction with the citizens, and at the same time, it helps in lowering the rate of victimization.

It improves the image of a police officers, enables them to collect sensitive information from the citizens, and last but not least, it provides awareness to the citizens on how to protect themselves in case of emergency and to report police. Police in schools is another technique to control crimes and to protect minors who are at greater risk of danger. These police officers are often known as school resource officers (John L. Worrall). The presence of police officers at schools would preserve a safe learning environment for the children.

I personally believe that the presence of police in schools is highly important to prevent the little ones from all the threats and other criminal activities.