The policing profession had to change its focus to policing in partnership with the community versus apart from the community. This was a long, difficult process for those agencies that embarked on this journey based on changing the police culture, and the real engagement of the community in the policing practice. With all the progress made in the area of community-based policing, has any law enforcement agency left some segments of their community behind as a partner in public safety?
The mission of policing is ultimately community order maintenance with three strategic objectives: safety/service, conflict management and law enforcement. Public safety and crime prevention are also the responsibility of the community. Police are hired to give full-time attention to a responsibility shared by every citizen. Therefore, police officers must engage the community in a partnership to prevent, reduce and solve crime.
Police are most effective when they work in partnership with the community versus working apart from the community. The leadership of a law enforcement agency should organize its policies, procedures and programs to enhance a community’s quality of life. As a result of these police activities, the people of the community are safer and have a perception of community safety. Policing should be an interactive, results-oriented process between the police and the community.
The recent high profile police use of force incidents in places like Ferguson, Missouri; New York City and Cleveland have highlighted the relationship between police and some of its minority community members. These precipitating incidents have allowed some individuals a media platform to criticize the respective police departments involved, for not only their lack of diversity within the police agency ranks (line and management personnel), but for a poor relationship with a segment of the minority community.
How should these allegations be addressed? This question can be answered, in part, by ensuring that a law enforcement agency is fully implementing the principles of community-based policing. Police strategies, tactics and equipment, however useful, do not improve community relationships. Policing is a service performed with — not imposed on — the community. It is a focus more on service rather than enforcement through community collaboration, since at least 80 percent of the calls for police service are in response to helping and serving the community and not taking enforcement actions. However, community-based policing is not soft on crime; the distinction is that it considers arrests as the tool of last resort, and not the primary measure of success or failure.
The community-based policing philosophy rests on the belief that contemporary challenges require the police to provide full-service policing, proactive and reactive, by involving the community directly as partners in the process of identifying, prioritizing and solving problems including crime, fear of crime, illicit drugs, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay. This department-wide commitment requires changes in policies, procedures and practices. Community-based policing is a commitment to community empowerment that allows new ways to solve the problems of crime and disorder.
Community policing requires assigning community policing officers permanently to defined beats, so that they have the time, opportunity and continuity to develop the new partnership. Permanence means that community policing officers should not be rotated in and out of their beats, and they should not be used as “fill-ins” for absences and vacations of other personnel. Police should work to establish a long-term relationship with community members.
All jurisdictions, no matter how large, ultimately break down into distinct neighborhoods. Community policing decentralizes police officers, often including investigators, so that community policing officers can benefit from “owning” their neighborhood beats in which they can act as a “mini-chief,” developing community relationships and tailoring their responses to the needs and resources of the beat area. Additionally, it allows members of the community to become involved as partners in preventing, reducing and solving crime. Moreover, community policing decentralizes decision-making, not only by allowing community policing officers the autonomy and freedom to act, but also by empowering all officers to participate in community-based problem-solving.
Once again, crime is a community problem; therefore, every member of the community should give time and attention to public safety. Community-based policing encourages a real partnership between people and their police, which rests on mutual respect, civility and support. When this partnership with police occurs within a community, there is a positive impact on crime prevention and crime reduction.
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