Pilosophy of Community Policing - Essay Example

Philosophy of Community Policing 2007 Community Policing is an absolute break from the traditional approaches to policing. It requires much work to be introduced and learnt by both police and communities. Everything depends on the ability of the top-management to properly organize the process, recruit and prepare the right people, communicating the mission and serving as an example. For this, first of all, it is necessary that top managers of the police learnt to work in team and were able to choose the people who can be of use, providing them with opportunities for creativeness, development and promotion.

The notions of team work and leadership management are those to be learnt by the police of today and future (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 2004). Community policing officers are “to be particularly thoughtful, creative problem solvers”, and preferably to be of the local residents (Carter 1997). After you’ve got the people you need, it is necessary to provide training, fair working conditions, permanent evaluation, appraisals, professional development, and always be ready for changes. Community policing requires unique strategies and decision in each locality, ability to build strong and lasting relations, based on co-operation and trust.

It is a long-term, on-going, iterative process, demanding constant attention and flexibility. This all requires funding and governmental support. These features and requirements of the philosophy make it not that easy to implement the community policing everywhere and simultaneously. 2. Brock University Campus Security Services (2007) describes five generally accepted and interrelated components of Community policing, including: Enforcement, Continuous learning, Community development, Security Service re-engineering, Community/Security partnerships.

Enforcement is an active component responding to the safety concerns. Each platoon is responsible for the community involvement into objectives determining and enforcement priorities. Continuous Learning is an imperative for both the police of all ranks and community members. It is key for revealing the commitment to the philosophy. Community Development suggests the full partnership of community and police in developing crime prevention program and public education, development of communication and cooperation.

Security Service Re-engineering presupposes on-going, iterative, adaptable strategy in developing programs addressing the needs of the community. Community/Security Partnerships means “a full and equal partnership and meaningful dialogue with internal and external stakeholders in addressing community concerns” based on mutual trust (pp.4-5). 3. Whereas the major purpose of the community policing approach is to improve the quality of life of the community, and whereas traditional indicators “fail to capture many important contributions” to it made by the police, it is preferable to use multiple performance measures.

Professor David H. Bayley (1994) proposed to distinguish between “direct” (“what police have achieved over time”) and “indirect” (“actions, not necessarily related to improvements in citizens’ quality of life”) measures. Further, performance measures can be divided into “hard” (“objective changes”) and “soft” (subjective perceptions of changes”). Thus we get four types of measures for success: hard direct (crime rates, victimization rates, real estate values, substantiated complaints about police behavior), hard indirect (number of police, response time, arrests, clearance rates), soft direct (satisfaction with police, fear of crime, perceptions of safety, perceptions of disorder), soft indirect (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, self esteem, perceived significance of work) (In Reisig 1997).4. Whereas the work of the law enforcement agency should be based on team and leadership approach, the outcomes of community policing depend on all the members of organization.

It is vital if top and middle management are committed to the philosophy and its major principles, if they serve as an example for the officers, if they are able to communicate the mission and properly and timely evaluate the performance of the officers, and so on. On the other hand, it is fairly noted that if only one officer has done something wrong regarding any member of the community, the community may stop cooperating with the law enforcement agency (See file at http://www.jus.state.nc.

us/NCJA/w-vr-bg-art.pdf.). However, such problems can be avoided through careful background investigation during hiring. It is difficult to say exactly who the most influential person is in this case, while in teamwork a mistake of one person may spoil the hard work of the rest. References:Brock University Campus Security Services (2007). Community Policing Plan. (February). Retrieved October 25, 2007 from http://www.brocku.ca/campussecurity/files/communitypolicingplanweb.pdf.Carter, David L. (1997).

Human Resource Issues for Community Policing. School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University. Retrieved October 25, 2007 fromwww.cj.msu.edu/~people/cp/humres.html - 11kReisig, Michael D. (1997). Measuring Performance in the Era of Community Policing. School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University. Retrieved October 25, 2007 from www1.cj.msu.edu/~outreach/cp/measperf2.html - 27kTrojanowicz, Robert C. & Bucqueroux, Bonnie (2004). Community Policing – How to get Started. Retrieved October 25, 2007 from Policing. Com. Community Policing Checklist.

URL: http://www.policing.com/articles/pdf/COMMUNITY%20POLICING%20CHECKLIST.pdf References: