Community Policing Research Paper

Crime in the United States has been an important debate and continues to increase from year to year. Television show such as America’s Most Wanted, First 48, and CSI are a few that show Americans that crime is real and running ramped. The fear of crime has become a noticeable characteristic of today’s society and has led to government officials, practitioners, and the community to search for ways to effectively prevent and reduce the problems identified. So how do we attack crime and lower the fear of crime in our communities when traditional policing efforts aren’t working? How do we do this with a financial budget? Community-oriented policing is the answer that many cities across the United States and in other countries have turned to.

Community policing is explained as a collaboration of community and the police working together to help identify and solve criminal activities. Additionally, the whole concept behind it is to promote public safety and to enhance the quality of life within the neighborhoods in which we reside in. Community policing is composed of two major components which are community partnership and problem solving. Community policing is a program that was initially started in the 1940’s. All of the support that was released for this program was materialized actually in the 1980’s. One of the main goals if not the most important goal was to bring in the law enforcement closer to their local public to help

In the article “Community Policing” by the author Jeffrey Patterson he talks about the history of community policing. In the begging of the article he talks about how back in the 1800’s community policing was neither mandatory nor essential to the community. Patterson states, “ before 1829, the police--whether military or civilian--only responded after a crime had been reported”, essentially stating that the police acted after the event had happened. Later on in the article he goes on to talk about how that in this day in age community policing is limited by stating, “as with police-community relations and team policing, cities often attempt to implement community policing through small, specialized units in well-defined neighborhoods”,

Policing in the United States has evolved throughout history. The best way to understand it is by becoming familiar with its history. There have been three policing eras in the United States and they were the Political Era, the Reform Era, and the Community Policing Era. The Community Policing Era is the form that is presently used in the United States.

more with less. Many police departments have had to lay off officers, and some have eliminated

Law-abiding citizens of the United States follow the rule of law and respect one another. Unfortunately, confrontations between minority groups and the police departments have turned deadly. The proven irresponsibility of publishing misinformation by the media without first verifying their sources has caused rioting and destruction in these communities. The current murderous assaults of law-enforcement personnel throughout the United States and the criminal actions of some law-enforcement personnel against minorities, and others, created a gulf between the police and the communities they serve. The communities, government, and police have an agenda that they believe is a pathway to establish a respectful, lawful, understanding between law-enforcement and the communities they serve. Empathy requires the understanding and respect of the problems, feelings, and conditions endured by others. The proposed agenda may begin the process of understanding.

Different officers may have different ways to contribute to partnerships. For example, patrol officers have a unique position to help monitor and supervise supervisees (Parent and Snyder, 1999). Patrolling gives officers access to the supervisee and their social networks which can help provide knowledge of their activity (La Vigne, N. G., Solomon, A. L., Beckman, K. A., Dedel, K., & Center, J. P., 2006), this can be very valuable especially in cases which community corrections officers are mostly in their office and not in the field (Thornton et al. 2006). This can help with intervening before recidivism occurs due to being able to foresee issues that the supervisee may be having. This may help law enforcement officers prevent certain crime

So far, there is no agreed-upon term to describe the precipitous drop in low-level policing by New York law enforcement, a two-week undeclared protest against a mayor many cops believe does not show them due respect. Much coverage has called it a “virtual work stoppage,” a label assigned by the New York Post, where data about the decline in arrests and ticketing was first published – though the term, when deployed in other publications, tends to remain in quotes. Police Commissioner William Bratton has quibbled about terminology, too: “I haven’t used the word ‘slowdown,’” he said. “If that’s what it is, we’ll call it that and deal with it accordingly. We’re not in a public-safety crisis in any shape of the word,” he said.

My vison for positive social change within my professional goal is to improve community policing in our society to reflect the evolving changes of the 21st Century. My academic goal is to gain the knowledge to use critical thinking skills and communicate my finding in a scholarly format for criminal justice policy-makers.

Auxiliary Policing was formed in 1989 and Peel Auxiliary Police has over 100 active volunteers. The duty of an Auxiliary Police officer is to supplement the police force with additional manpower. Although they do not perform duties that require force, they take part in other police work that preserves peace and order, prevents crime and protects life and property, as instructed by their department. Auxiliary members support Peel Regional Police by attending special community events, assisting with RIDE programs, patrol escorts and emergency callouts. PEEL Auxiliary Police has done many things for their community such as, Santa Claus and Remembrance Day parades, local community events like the Streetsville Bread and Honey Festival, Khalsa Day Parade, and Canada Day celebrations in Brampton and Mississauga. They also provide assistance in the Training Bureau at Recruit Graduations and they are involved daily with Canada Immigration to be on hand for Citizenship Court swearing in ceremonies. The volunteers put in countless hours to support the police force in certain events for their community. Community service and volunteerism are an investment in our community and the people who live in it.

For the police to achieve positive goals within the community they must know the three main components of community policing. The three main components of community policing are community partnership, problem-solving, and change management (Bohm & Haley, 2014, p. 227). Chapter six states that community partnership is the first and main component that must be installed because officers want mutual trust between them and the community. Problem-solving is stated in chapter six to be the community and officers working together to point out an issue and implement a solution. The last component listed, change management, is trying to find something that will work a flexible style of management.

This Capstone Final Project is based on research related to the implementation of 21st century policing within the Westborough Police Department. The research will begin by evaluating the history of policing in America, the demographics of the Town of Westborough and the police department, the president’s task force on 21st century policing report, and finally, which recommendations would be useful in Westborough and what has worked in other communities across the country. This paper will provide a summary of the research findings.

Although many may find community policing and problem-oriented policing to fall in the same category, there is (surprisingly) a difference between the two. For one, community policing has many definitions. For some, it means instituting foot and bicycle patrols and doing acts pertaining to the ideal bond between police officers and their community. While for others it means maintaining order and cleaning up neighborhoods in desperate need of repair (Dunham & Alpert, 2005). However, an idyllic definition of community policing is altering the traditional definition of crime control to community problem-solving and promising to transform the way police do their job. Within the past two decades, there has been much research on community

Proactive in policing is the best way to reduce crime. By maintaining a visible proactive police in a community will deter crime and criminal behavior, as well as to reduce the public fear of crime. These goals are equally important and also contribute to enhancing trust between citizens and police. These police officers must actively enforce laws even for low-level crimes and violations before a call for service. This will prevent more serious crimes in the future. Law enforces officers have to shift away from using only reactive policing tactics and also responding to calls after a crime occurs.

Community policing is a policy and a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, improved police services and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions. This assumes a need for greater accountability of police, greater public share in decision-making and greater concern for civil rights and liberties.