IMPLEMENTING COMMUNITY POLICING

Implementing Community Policing

Implementing Community Policing

Introduction

This paper will present a practical, operational plan to develop community policing in peacekeeping contexts that can be followed by UNCIVPOL missions. The essential elements of community police and the rationale for it have been described in the companion paper Community Police: The Doctrine. Although the strategies of community policing may be applied anywhere, the operational forms that they take will vary according to local conditions, including both cultural traditions and the capabilities of the police. Accordingly, the implementation plan described here takes into account the need to make careful assessments of local conditions. The goal of implementation is to create institutions that are true to the principles of community policing and are sustainable.

This paper specifies the steps to be followed in creating community policing and also the way in which UN missions need to be organized to carry them out. The paper is organized to answer the following questions: What are the community policing practices that must be developed? What should UNCIVPOL do to create those practices? What local conditions must be assessed in adapting community policing to different contexts? How should UN missions be organized in order to implement COP?

Implementation Goals

Community policing is a strategy for enlisting the public as partners in controlling and preventing crime. It does this in four basic ways: (1) By demonstrating that police give priority to responding to the needs of individuals and communities; (2) By consulting with the public in developing local law enforcement and crime prevention agendas; (3) By mobilizing the community to participate in crime prevention activities; and (4) by adopting a proactive problem-solving approach to crime prevention. The objective of the United Nation's implementation plan is to transform these strategies into operational practices that can be sustained after UNCIVPOL withdraws. Based upon experience in many countries, the following activities are minimally required in order for police to become responsive, consultative, mobilizing, and problem solving. These constitute the institutional agenda for the development of community policing. A. To become responsive:

Create a toll-free emergency telephone number.

Provide convenient, comfortable access for the public to police stations and police posts to encourage requests for assistance.

Assign competent, well-trained staff to telephone and police station reception duties.

Inform members of the public regularly about progress being made about their cases and requests.

To foster consultation:

Assign police officers for not less than three years at a time to manageable beats where the public can get to know them by name. Require beat officers to consult with the community about safety needs and to design practical crime-prevention programs.

Create a consultative committee in each beat and police station composed of representative members of the public and open to public participation. These committees should meet not less than once every two months.

Share timely information about crime in local areas with consultative committees and the media.

To mobilize communities in their own defense:

Develop the ability of the police to advise individuals and communities about crime-prevention measures that address local ...