Community Policing in Australia - Term Paper Example

Social Policy Analysis Project - Community Policing Student’s Name: Course: Tutor’s Name: Date: Introduction to the policy The community policing policy is entrenched in the Australian psyche much due to its perceived advantages to the communities. The policy combines philosophical, organisational, tactical and strategic dimensions to form a policing concept that is effective in keeping law and order among communities and also improving the relationships that exist between police officers and the communities. Existing literature lacks a precise definition of what community policing is. One thing that is obvious however is the fact that community policing relies less on the input of trained law enforcement officers, and instead seeks input from communities in order to advance law and order. In Australia, the community policing policy was embraced as a means of improving relationships between the community and the police; increasing the community’s capacity to handle social problems; changing how police officers relate and behave towards the public; decreasing the fear of crime and increasing perceived safety; and reducing anti-social behaviour and crime rates (Coquilhat, 2008, p. 7). Ideally, the participants of community policing initiatives come from diverse sectors in the communities. Such include individuals, business groups, and non-government and government agencies. The policy formulators envisaged a situation where mainstream police officers would work together with the different participants in order to address the diverse crime-related risk factors in their respective communities (Putt, 2010, p. 55). As Putt (2010, p. 55) observes, community policing entrusts members of the society outside the mainstream police force with the responsibility of playing part in enhancing law and order in their immediate environment. Unlike what one would tend to believe however, such immense responsibility does not take away the burden of policing from police officers; in fact, it places increased demands on them since they have to collaborate with individuals, groups, or agencies that are civilian in nature for the community policing policy to take effect. Police officer’s involvement in community policing includes the fact that the officers usually provide a strong presence, which is easily recognisable to most Australians. Additionally, they provide an essential link between the primary prevention efforts of local communities and the criminal justice system. With their careers revolving around maintaining law and order, police officers are also more adept at handling complex crime cases that communities would be unable to handle. Additionally, police agencies have a workforce that is highly trained, skilled, experienced and with the proper knowledge needed in solving problems that arise in the society. Despite the hype that community policing has received since its inception and entrenchment in policing, Putt (2010, p. 56) notes that it remains a secondary activity to mainstream policing. Reasons for its current position include the fact that there are no clearly defined roles given to police officers in the design or implementation of crime-prevention programs that are specific to the community policing concept. Second, Putt (2010, p. 56) observes that the organisational culture and structure in Australia supports an authoritarian approach to problem solving, hence making it hard to upset traditional ways of preventing or addressing crime. The formulators of the community policing policy were evidently relying on police officers’ goodwill to engage in the concept especially considering that their policing duties would be much easier with the communities’ involvement. However, Putt notes that ideologies within police agencies themselves have posed some major setbacks in such beliefs. For example, not all officers are committed to engaging in partnerships with communities. Others lose confidence in community policing initiatives when they fail to see little or no evidence regarding the effectiveness of the concept. Considering that the recruitment and training of police does not instil networking, problem-solving and interpersonal skills among officers, some find it extremely hard to pick such skills when they have already started their policing duties. In relation to the training the police receive on recruitment, it is also worth noting that they are mostly imparted with reactionary skills, which include responding to crisis and investigating the same in view of apprehending the lawbreakers. The community policing policy however proposes a shift from such a culture, and recommends that police officers should engage the community more as a way of devising crisis management and crime-preventative strategies. Ideological perspectives evident in the community policing policy i. Citizen input The rationale behind the citizen input ideology is that in addition to law abiding citizens contributing to police processes, they would also support and participate in community policing. According to Skogan (2006), citizens would need to define priority problems in their respective communities, while police officers would need to respond and show concern to the issues raised by the citizenry. Ideally, police strategies for maintaining law and order in such communities would prioritise the problems identified by the citizenry. Skogan (2006) argues that extensive input from members of a target community makes it easier for police officers to identify problems, prioritise them, and find solutions to the same. Additionally, when citizens participate actively in problem identification, police officers can draw the idealised solutions from the needs, wants and expectations expressed by the same citizens. Considering that most communities (especially in the indigenous communities) perceive police officers with some degree of apprehension, mechanisms that will help in achieving meaningful engagement with them would need to be devised. Tuffin et al. (2006) for example suggest that the public would willingly tell the police what bothers them if provided with the right platforms to do so. The police could for example establish periodic public forums, surveys, meetings or advisory groups to get the public to open up. ii. Broad function The broad function ideological perspective is evident in community policing since as Flynn (2004, p. 25) notes, the concept broadens the mandate of the police “to maintain the idea of community”. This means that community policing is expected to go beyond the traditional narrow goals of enforcing the law, and develop, and maintain the concept of a more-inclusive society. Hence, in the community policing perspective, police officers have a more detailed role to plan, solve problems and organise communities. As planners, police officers have a role to partner with community representatives in identifying the main problem or crime areas faced, analyse them, prioritise them and develop strategies to be used in dealing with such social disorders efficiently and in the most-effective manner. In their role as problem solvers, police officers would ideally (and in conjunction with the community), implement the strategies devised in the planning phase in order to address existing social disorders in the community. In their organising role, it is expected that police officers would engage the community for purposes of heightening awareness concerning people’s individual and collective responsibility towards making their respective communities safer, orderly and law-abiding. In their submission, Segrave and Ratcliffe (2004) argue that the broad functions of the community policing concept also include the fact that police and communities must work together to resolve existing conflict, help victims of social ills, and reduce the fear of crime among the people. Additionally, community policing is an ideal way of challenging police officers to go beyond their traditional law-enforcement roles, and into more proactive roles that will make them engage with communities, follow-up on activities, and provide people with personalised assistance whenever the need arises. iii. Personal service In most communities, police officers are perceived as insensitive and uncaring as regards the quality of service they offer to the public (Cordner, 1999, p. 140). Yet, as policing becomes of age and the need for quality service delivery becomes more apparent to the police force itself, it has become obvious that order cannot be imposed on communities without their approval and consent. It is for this reason that Coquilhat (2008, p. 24) proposes that “people must be encouraged to think of the police as a resource” capable of offering personalised services rather than a stranger-approach to policing. The community policing concept draws a scenario where police officers jointly work with local communities in enhancing law and order. For such a thing to happen, the officers have to interact with the communities and this would create knowledge, trust and appreciation among the officers and the civilian population. Having spent time with communities, Coquilhat (2008) observes that the officers are more likely to know and appreciate the local needs and wants. Hence, the officers are likely to develop responses or solutions that are customised to the needs and wants of the same communities. Segrave and Ratcliffe (2004) propose that such a scenario would also generate a sense of responsibility and accountability since the communities would voice their dissent if they are not satisfied with the services offered by the officers. As communities place more demands to the police force to provide them with more satisfying services, so do the importance of community policing and the ideology of personal service become more important. Some commentators like Segrave and Ratcliffe (2004) opine that partnering with communities gives police officers a deeper understanding of their needs, hence enabling them to be better service providers. Values that the ideological perspectives encourage or discourage Seeing that community policing requires the community and police officers to work together, one of the obvious values that the concept encourages is that of partnership. Historically, tensions exist between the civilian population and the police force. As Mazerolle, Marchetti and Lindsay (2003, p. 96) observe, such tensions are especially evident in indigenous communities where the relations between police officers and the indigenous Australians have always been strained due to mistrust on either side. The strained relations are a result of decades of an intolerant type of policing that used oppression, violence and terror on indigenous communities. As a result Mazerolle et al. (2003, p. 96) observes that the predominantly Anglo-Saxon officers used “racist and violent police practices” to victimise the indigenous Australians in a manner that would have been intolerable if practiced on non-indigenous communities. Such observations are also made by Cunneen (2001, p.107), who observes that “terror and violence today remain an important relationship between the criminal justice system and the indigenous people in Australia. With community policing taking centre stage however, one would expect partnership between the Aboriginal people and the police to cover areas such as the identification and production of priority problem areas that need addressing. One would also expect that police departments would decentralise the locus of power to consider input from local communities. Another value that ideological perspectives in community policing seem to encourage is the need to have cultural sensitivity while dealing with communities. Mazerolle et al. (2003) holds the opinion that police would have been more lenient while dealing with indigenous communities if they had an understanding that alcohol drinking was deeply entrenched within the cultural psyche of the community. Instead of dealing so harshly with indigenous people who disrupted public peace upon drinking, the police would have perhaps indicated to the government the need to sensitize such people regarding disadvantages of excessive consumption of alcohol. A culture-sensitive force would also have arrested fewer indigenous people with drunkenness-related offences. As Mazerolle et al. (2003, p.87) note, “drunkenness in a public place was the most overwhelming reason for detention” of the Aboriginal people. The need for trust among communities and the police is also another value that has received much coverage in the community policing debate. Flynn (2004) for example argues that communities need to trust police officers enough to disclose any criminals amongst them without the fear of inaction by the police. Additionally, trust lays the foundation for meaningful relations between the police and the community since both sides will understand that they are working together for the benefit of the larger society. In an ideal situation, communities would point out locations, conditions, concerns and even fears that trouble them most, while the police would give them the tactical information or advice needed to reduce or prevent crime and abate crime-related fears (Flynn, 2004). Beneficiaries of the community policing policy Community policing directly benefits the communities who have to deal with less crimes or law-breaking incidences. Such communities consist of individuals and organisations. The benefits of community policing may also extend to central governments, who have to spend less on curative measures employed whenever major crimes occur. For example, if community policing succeeds in rooting out potential terrorists from the community, it saves governments from the probability of rebuilding the infrastructure which would otherwise have been bombed or vandalised. Considering that most governments rely on the tax payer to get revenue, such acts of community policing would be beneficial to an entire society. It is worth noting that the policy is not without possible negative effects. For example, police officers’ neutrality would undergo serious challenges when individual officers engage in crime prevention, community relations and creative problem solving. Mirsky (2009) notes that officers engaged in community policing have the discretion to use tactics outside their training to resolve issue faced by communities. This then presents the probability that such officers would ignore the rule of law. Another possible problem area is the probability of officers becoming overwhelmed by the demands of community policing (Mirsky, 2009, p. 8). Police officers receive standardised training and may therefore be unprepared for customising solutions to specific communities. The burden of service delivery Considering that community policing policy is portrayed as a partnership between the police and communities, one would expect that the burden of service delivery would be shouldered by the two sides. Reading through literature however, one gets the impression that the police is charged with the responsibility of advancing the policy, implementing it and ensuring that community members accept and participate in the same. As noted elsewhere in this paper, police officers are expected to be the planners, problem-solvers, and organisers of community policing initiatives. Considering that the policy has a partnership approach, input from the government, the private sector, individuals or groups is also expected, especially because the ultimate focus of community policing is the attainment of a safer, orderly and just society. Suggestions/ recommendations The suggestions made in this section are drawn from Cunneen (2001) who notes that Australia lacks a clear definition of community policing, and the term has different meanings in different locations. In some communities, community policing is seen as a neighbourhood watch, while in others it perceived as a guarantee for officers (regardless of their ranks) to speak freely to the media. Hence, it would be proper for policy formulators to clearly define the term, and indicate what it does not represent. Secondly, policy formulators need to recommend specific training to the police officers in order to impart them with the knowledge needed to make distinctions between public relation practices and community policing. While public relations is about creating a good image of the police force, community policing is more result- oriented and should target creating practical and effective solutions for communities. Failure to distinguish the two can lead to a situation where the public regard community policing as a showy kind of window-dressing for the police force. Overall, it is worth noting that community policing is far from a panacea for the law and order challenges facing the Australian society today. Each community has its fair share of unique challenges, which call for appropriate and feasible policing efforts. While community policing as identified by Putt (2010) may not have all the answers to contemporary crime and social order challenges, there is no doubt that it has enhanced police capacity to protect life and property through law enforcement. References Coquilhat, J. (2008) ‘Community policing: an international literature review’, New Zealand Government, pp. 1-52. Cordner, G. (1999) ‘Elements of community policing’ in Gaines, L. & Cordner, G., (eds), Policing Perspectives: An Anthology, Los Angeles, Roxbury Publishing Company, pp 137-149 Cunneen, C. (2001) Conflict, politics and crime: Aboriginal communities and police, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia. Flynn, E. (2004) ‘Community policing is good policing, both today and tomorrow’ in Fridell, L. & Wycoff. M., (eds), Community Policing: The past, present, and future, Washington, D.C., Police Executive Research Forum, pp 25-38. Mazerolle, L., Marchetti, E., & Lindsay, A. (2003) ‘Policing the plight of indigenous Australians: Past conflicts and present challenges’, Police and Society, no.7, pp. 77-104. Mirsky, I. (2009) ‘Community oriented policing’, Internet Journal of Criminology, pp. 1-14, viewed 06 October 2011, Putt, J. (2010) ‘Community policing in Australia’, Australian Institute of Criminology, Research and Public Policy Series, no. 111, pp. 1-79, viewed 05 October 2011, Segrave, M. & Ratcliffe, J. (2004) Community Policing: A descriptive overview, Sydney, Australian Institute of Criminology. Skogan, W. (2006) ‘Advocate - The Promise of community policing’ in Weisburd, D. & Braga, A., (eds), Police Innovations: Contrasting Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp 27-43. Tuffin, R., Morris, J. & Poole, A. (2006) ‘An evaluation of the impact of the National Reassurance Policing Programme,’ Home Office Research Study 296: United Kingdom, viewed 07 October 2011, < http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/police-research/hors296/hors296?view=Binary> Read More