COMMUNITY POLICING MODEL

Community Policing Model

Community Policing Model

“Community policing is an oxymoron, for if the police could serve the whole community there would be little point in having a police at all” (Waddinton, 1999: 223). That said there appears to be a progressive drive towards 'community policing' as a model of policing preferred by today's society and even today's government, The New Labour.

The Home Office appears to be greatly committed to neighbourhood policing and the continuing development of community policing as a model of police service delivery. “The future of policing lies in local involvement and an accessible frontline force. The neighbourhood policing fund will facilitate expansions and put officers at the heart of the communities they serve” (Waddinton, 1999: 223). “Community policing represents the most serious and sustained attempt to reformulate the purposes and practices since the development of the 'professional' police model in the early 20th Century.” (Bayley, 1994: 104)

Many people are crying out that the community policing model is the hark angel of all police models and is the be all and end all, of all policing models, (such as John Alderson, (see later) and today's New Labour government), others say there are some serious faults hiding behind those angelic wings, (Bennett, 1994). In this essay I am going to firstly break down community policing into what constitutes community policing, by narrowing it down into three main components as broken down by John Anderson (who was then the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall), when he reported on the Scarman report into the Brixton riots in 1981. As I look into each component I will look at the positive and negatives aspects of each, before ending with a conclusion on community policing as a model of police service delivery.

Main body

Imagine the picture, we have all seen some kind of television program that depicts a lone 'Bobby' working normally in a small village, harmoniously with fellow colleagues and the community as a whole. 'The quintessential exemplar was the Dixon of Dock Green television series' (Reiner, 2000: 159). These fictional programs often base themselves on non-crime stories, however when a crime is committed the beat bobby uses his previously gained intelligence and knowledge of his community to find ways to solve the crime, normally spending lots of time in the local village public house, talking to his community, and gathering further intelligence leading him to the result the whole community wanted, the crime solved, renewing community cohesion. Although fictional and greatly exaggerated programs like these show in great detail the basic principles of community policing.

These basic principles, were broken down by John Alderson when he gave evidence to the Scarman inquiry, revealing that one of the reasons for the start of the Brixton riots in 1981, was believed to have been, that the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) had moved away from community policing as a model of police service delivery, and focused on a more zero-tolerance model of policing. Alderson was a great believer in the community ...