Community Policing

Introduction

Community policing is not a program; it is a philosophy or strategy, a way all department members from the top to bottom, sworn and non-sworn, view their job. We prefer to use the term strategy. Some police officers despise community policing efforts. They simply think it means being soft on crime. This belief could not be further from the truth. Community policing is very effective not only in reducing crime but also in decreasing the fear of crime among citizens. For community policing to be effective, it must permeate the entire organization, local government, and community, not just a group of specialized community policing officers, for example. It requires police officers to identify and respond to a broad array of problems, including crime, disorder, and fear of crime, drug use, urban decay, and other neighborhood concerns. As the chief of a local police department I believe that the best way to plan and organize a city-wide response to a planned anti-government demonstration will be through Social Support Model and Citizen Patrols.

Background

Historically, most collective crime prevention activities are defined by two types of programs—Neighborhood Watch and citizen patrols. Despite growing citizen participation in these programs, evaluations have been unable to find consistent benefits in crime reduction or quality of life measures. Certainly, these programs provide additional “eyes and ears” for the police, and these partnerships with the police can improve police-community relations or lead to an increase in the number of arrests for certain types of offenses, although evaluators have yet to document such results. Considerable evidence indicates that vigilant citizens have been successful in using community antidrug initiatives to close drug houses and remove open-air drug markets. (Swanson, 20-41)

Summary Of the Community Policing Model: Social Support Model

In practice, social disorganization and social control models focus on the process of control and conformity, achieved primarily through various punitive responses to nonconformists. Essentially, the social support model suggests that neighborhood crime and disorder are fueled by a community (and society) that is “not organized, structurally or culturally, to be socially supportive”. Driven by self-interest and individualism, Americans have little time to express “communitarian” concerns for neighbors, show compassion for the less fortunate, or exhibit other types of support for persons outside their immediate family. (Ahlbrandt, 47)

These models can suggest different solutions to neighborhood crime and disorder problems by focusing on either the restoration of social control or the strengthening of social support mechanisms needed to prevent antisocial and dysfunctional behavior. However, the solutions can be complementary and mutually dependent because social support, trust, and respect are often prerequisites for exercising social control in a relationship. Nevertheless, voluntary community groups tend to give more attention to social control strategies, and, therefore, the approach of “Citizen Patrols” is the focal point of the present paper.

Elements Of The Citizen Patrols Program

Neighborhood and Block Watch programs generally involve passive surveillance, whereby local residents are asked to “keep an eye out” for suspicious or criminal activity as part of their daily, routine ...