|
| |
COMMUNITY POLICING.
Term Paper ID:28483
|
|
|
Essay Subject:
History of the reform model approach. Initial police resistance. How community policing should operate & what it can achieve.... More...
|
9 Pages / 2025 Words
3 sources, 10 Citations,
APA Format
$36.00
Return to List of Papers
|
Paper Abstract:
History of the reform model approach. Initial police resistance. How community policing should operate & what it can achieve.
Paper Introduction:
Community Policing
Introduction
Community policing is a philosophy based on the recognition that nothing can outperform dedicated people working together to make their communities better and safer places in which to live and work and raise children. Community Policing gathered momentum in the early 1980s, when a group of progressive police executives and visionary academics began working together out of concern that the prevailing system was failing (Bucqueroux, 1).
The system at the time, what we now call traditional policing, was based on the reform model of "modern" or "professional" policing launched in the 1930s, an approach that stressed the efficiency of rapid response as the primary means of addressing serious crime. At the time, the logic seemed irrefutable: the soluti
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
Now I ask you, how is aperson like that supposed to work with us to straighten things out? Whether homeowners orrenters, most respondents registered positive attitudes toward the police.African-American and white residents perceived a significant increase inpolice responsiveness to public concerns (Skogan, 4). When Iidentified myself as a police officer and offered to be a witness for theemployee, the mother started calling me a traitor. Modernpolicing also offered the bureaucratic advantages of upgrading theeducation, training, and pay of police officers, at the same time ituprooted the tangled web of political and personal corruption associatedwith old-fashioned beat cops (Bucqueroux, 2). There are guys I knew when I was akid who are spending the rest of their lives in the state prison system. What Community Policing Can Do In April 1993, following a year of planning, Chicago's AlternativePolicing Strategy (CAPS) was field-tested in five selected districts beforebeing implemented on a citywide basis. To enable beat officers to work with residents and communityorganizations to identify and address neighborhood problems, some of theburden of responding to 911 calls was shifted to rapid response teams.Tactical units and youth officers worked more closely in support of beatofficers and shared responsibility for working with members of thecommunity at beat meetings. The system at the time, what we now call traditional policing, wasbased on the reform model of "modern" or "professional" policing launchedin the 193 s, an approach that stressed the efficiency of rapid response asthe primary means of addressing serious crime. I saw him take things myself. Community Policing gathered momentum in the early 198 s, when agroup of progressive police executives and visionary academics beganworking together out of concern that the prevailing system was failing(Bucqueroux, 1). The public skepticism and cynicism that result act as barriers tothe creation of community-policing partnerships. Skogan, Wesley G.: "Community Policing in Chicago: Year Two;" NIJResearch Preview; October 1995.----------------------- 11 Isometimes wonder what it is that made me different from them, but I know weall had similar experiences in school and on the streets growing up."Officer A believes the fact that his parents maintained the family unit iswhat makes him different from his youthful cohorts. At the district level, advisory committeescomposed of citizens and police personnel were formed to review and discussstrategic issues with district commanders on a monthly basis (Skogan, 2). Without pushing the analogy too far, patrol officers providerapid response serve as society's emergency room physicians, whileCommunity Policing Officers act as the family physicians, who have thetime, opportunity, and continuity to not only treat illness but to preventdisease and promote good health. You don'tbecause you never know when you're going to be in trouble and who theclosest officers will be to save you. The temptation is to seek special funding and form a task force.But task forces can deal with only a fraction of the cases, and the dangeris that the commitment lasts only as long as the money holds out. Research conducted by the National Center for CommunityPolicing, in conjunction with the FBI's Behavioral Science Section, showedthat only one out of four police agencies that claimed to be doingcommunity policing also identified themselves as involving the community inidentifying, prioritizing, and solving problems(Bucqueroux, 5). Police must alsoeducate themselves about new issues such as stalking that have too longbeen ignored. The police fear being burdened with too many problemsand unreasonable demands and as wary about the blurring of boundariesbetween police and citizen authority (Crew, 3-5). There are both historical and present-day realities for somecommunities' mistrust of law enforcement. Solutions can mean collaborating with legislators to produce lawsthat provide police the tools that they need to intervene. "Unfortunately, thatfederal lawsuit is what it took for Parks to sit up and smell the coffee." References Bucqueroux, Bonnie: "Community Policing and Community Justice;"Policing, 1999. The police must alwayshave the capacity to respond immediately to a crisis, but a holisticcommunity criminal justice approach would recognize the contribution ofboth prevention and intervention (Bucqueroux, 6). There remains significant police resistance to the establishment ofindependent, civilian review mechanisms designed to provide directaccountability to the public. A department that has done the hard work of implementing communitypolicing department-wide should have the flexibility and capacity forcreativity that allows them to turn their concerted attention to theproblem. Experience shows that sick communitiesdefinitely require the services of both kinds of officers to recover and toheal (Bucqueroux, 7). Some have philosophical disagreements with a problem-solvingapproach that assesses success and failure on the basis of communitysatisfaction. Interviews with Members of the LAPD Because of the current problems that have beset the Los AngelesPolice Department as a result of the Rampart scandal and the Department ofJustice threat to sue the police department over a "pattern and practice"of discriminatory law enforcement, the department is skittish aboutoutsiders interviewing officers regarding department policies. Others resist -- andresent -- being asked to do a job different than the one for which theywere hired. Officer A is notpersonally in favor of "community policing." He says that he doesn'tbelieve it works because too many parents are in denial about what theirchildren are doing, and believe the child when he or she says they werewrongly accused by the police. "Look, the Rampartcommunity came out and demonstrated in favor of the police when the scandalbroke, and that was those people supporting some guys who I don't thinkshould ever have become officers in the first place. And nobody said anything about it. Citizenand police effectiveness in mobilizing city services corresponded clearlyto improvements in the physical environment. They askedhim to empty his pockets and he had something in every one of them. Officer A is a male, 29 years old, a patrol officer and veteran ofsix years with the department. If we look at the parallel of the medical model, we see thattraditional law enforcement mirrors similar changes -- moving from an erawhen we expected the experts to save us to one where we recognize the rolethat patients must play in their own well-being. For some officers, so massive achange implies a total rejection of their life's work. -- almost guarantees that their use will generatecontroversy from time-to-time. Policing the Community;"The Police Practices Project of the American Civil Liberties Union ofNorthern California, 1999; www.aclu.org. Thehallmark of community policing is that the response can be tailored tolocal wants and needs. The study documented the forging of partnership links among thepolice, citizens, private organizations, and public agencies to solve localproblems. At the time, the logicseemed irrefutable: the solution to serious crime simply requiredidentifying, arresting, and then locking up all the bad guys. Until both are fully confrontedand the deeply corrosive effect of this mistrust is addressed, communitypolicing partnerships with the very groups who would benefit most willremain elusive. True power-sharing is a foreign concept to many police commanders and represents athreat to various institutional prerogatives currently protected fromoutside influences. She feels that the problems the LAPD faces noware the result of not being involved in the community. Andhis mother is standing there screaming that her boy's not a thief and thatit's the white girl who caught him who's causing the trouble. "We were in the gift shop, and theycaught this little boy stealing. Officer K is also a patrol officer, in her mid-3 s, with ten years'experience in the department. The development and implementation of solutions were mostsuccessful when citizens were organized, developed strong leadership, andinitiated problem identification. Community Policing Introduction Community policing is a philosophy based on the recognition thatnothing can outperform dedicated people working together to make theircommunities better and safer places in which to live and work and raisechildren. If the department was working with the community, the community would letthe good officers know who the bad ones were, and then hopefully we wouldhave leadership that would get rid of the bad ones so that the good onescould get on with the job." Officer K believes that if LAPD seniormanagement had to deal with the community directly themselves, and were notlocked away in their offices talking to no one but themselves, that theywould see that the best interests of the department are served by workingfor the larger interests of the community, not merely the interests of thepolice department. Collaboration is essential, and this meansconfronting issues of cultural diversity that can undermine efforts toforge new partnerships between police organizations and grassroots advocategroups. If that CRASH unithad been under some real supervision so the cowboys had to either shape upor ship out, and if they had really been working with the community, theywould have known who the real bad guys were, would have gone after thembecause they knew the community wanted it, and they would never have beenable to become the bad guys themselves. At the end of two years of operation, an analysis of reported crimefigures and resident victimization survey results found that perceivedcrime problems had decreased significantly in all prototype districts.There was evidence of decline in robbery and auto theft in three districts.Perceived physical decay declined significantly in three districts. Medicine once held out thepromise of the magic bullet -- the hope that serious illnesses such ascancer and heart disease could be cured by a new pill or operation. But aswe began to understand the actual dynamics of disease, it instead becameclear that the best cure is for doctors and patients to developindividually tailored plans that promote not only freedom from disease butfitness and good health. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. The overarching goalshould be for the police to become partners with the community, empoweringthem so that they can shoulder their share of the responsibility and thetough work of making their neighborhoods safer. Professional Police Resistance to Community Policing The history of community policing demonstrates the possibility of avirulent internal backlash by the police. One of the most potentmeans of involving the community in exploring creative ways to enhancepublic safety is to provide them a Community Policing Officer, who acts asa problem solver and as an ombudsman to other public and private agenciesthat can help. For all the positive change in professionalized law enforcement inrecent decades, some unpleasant facts of life remain in many agencies.There remains significant mistrust of law enforcement in many communities,particularly in communities of color disproportionately affected by policemisconduct. Police agencies that resist civilian revieware saying, in effect, that if problems arise between the communitypolicing partners only one partner -- the police partner -- should beallowed to investigate and issue findings and recommendations. http://www.communitypolicing.com Crew, John M.: "Community Policing vs. Imean, she is the problem!" Officer A believes the police have to maintainstandards and hold to them in dealing with kids in the community who haveno concept what standards are, and must be forced to see them as somethingto be followed. She decided to become a police officer whenan older brother did so. The program was designed to increasethe responsiveness andeffectiveness of police problem solving by linking these efforts directlyto a broad range of city services and involving the public in identifyingand seeking solutions to neighborhood problems. "Keeping ourselves separate from the community keeps usfrom knowing what's really going on, and prevents us doing the job we'resupposed to be doing." While Officer K hopes that community policy becomesa reality in Los Angeles, she does not think the departmental managementwill really do it without a gun at their heads. How Community Policing Should Operate Community Policing shifts the role of the Police Officer fromincident-driven law enforcer, to problem solver and facilitator.Enforcement tactics are not eliminated, rather the tools available toofficers are greatly expanded (Bucqueroux, 3). Also,officers are understandably reluctant to take public positions regardingpresent or proposed departmental policies, not wanting to "put their headon a block." As a researcher, I was able to interview two differentofficers on the promise they would remain anonymous, a position I agreed toas I was experiencing difficulty getting permission for official interviewsand did not think such official meetings would give me the informationsought. "I was at an amusement park recently, off-duty with my family," he recalled. And it means confronting the myths and stereotypes that canprevent all of us from exploring new approaches (Crew, 7). Yet, many police agencies still react toinevitable controversy with unnecessary defensiveness andsecrecy. Police institutions remain, in many respects, closed and secretiveinstitutions, overly protective of their image and reluctant to sharenegative information with "outsiders." The uniqueness of the powers wedelegate to police officers -- the power to use deadly force, to deprive usof our freedom, etc. He is African American, and believes thathis experiences as a person of color while growing up before he became apolice officer do affect his way of being a police officer; he likes tothink that he has an insight into the actions of groups in the community,particularly the criminal element. Others rankle at the thought of working directly with peoplewho live in troubled neighborhoods, often because of elitism, outrightracism, or an "us versus them" attitude based on the belief that everyonewho lives in such neighborhoods either commits or condones the crime andviolence. They were drug dealers and pimpsand thieves themselves! As he put it during the interview, "Imean, I grew up with the gang-bangers. Patient in particular have good reason to prefersolutions such as quitting smoking and establishing regular exercise and ahealthy diet than one that relies on being rescued in the emergency room.The same holds true for crime-riddled communities.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
Click here to request an essay written just for you.
|
|
|
