POLICE VOLUNTEERS

A Descriptive Study of the use of Volunteer Citizen Programs in Selected Law Enforcement Agencies in Kansas and Oklahoma



A Descriptive Study of the use of Volunteer Citizen Programs in Selected Law Enforcement Agencies in Kansas and Oklahoma

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Today, the public has become more dynamically engaged with their local law enforcement agencies. With staffing shortages, department have met the additional asset that volunteers offer as a partial answer to some of their needs. But, the boost in citizens volunteering with law enforcement agencies has supplemented to the matters increased in relative to those individuals who workout authority and their ethical standards.

Why Do Police Agencies Use Volunteers?

Although the use of volunteers in policing is advised to be a somewhat new program, the source of uncompensated work in law enforcement can be traced back to the early Anglo-Saxon times in England (Greenberg, 2005). However, as asserted by Ren, Zhao, Lovrich, and Gaffhey (2006), regardless of the attractiveness of volunteers over the past two decades, there is still restricted study on the use of volunteers in policing. Friedman (1998) proposed that through direct engagement in misdeed avoidance, commonplace citizens have assisted substantially to the down turn in misdeed rates that were seen throughout the middle to late 1990s.

Under the Constitution, the Police have responsibility for life and property. As their objective declaration states, they are there to ''secure life and house in joint project with the public in a pledged and expert kind in alignment to promote development''. No one doubts.

Citizen participation in volunteer undertakings can enhance police purposes that include:

(a) The proficiency to assist clear crimes,

(b) Prevent crimes from happening,

(c) Maintain public alignment in tough positions, and

(d) Provide services to promise and present misdeed victims.

In supplement, granted that agency resources are often restricted, citizens' voluntary participation can assist, to some span, as a productive entails of reimbursing for the need of economic and workforce resources (Zhao, Gibson, Lovrich, & Gaffhey, 2002).

Similar to financial personal security, acceptance of volunteer policing has been changed in less than a generation. Nevertheless, Bayley and Shearing (1996) recognised tendencies that represent important difficulties, especially in consider to community mobilization and volunteerism. They discovered that there lives a large allowance of selectivity in relative to individual and community participation in government programs in general and lawless individual fairness programs in particular.

Ethics and the Volunteer

Because volunteers can variety in age from 18 - 90, they convey numerous distinct knowledge, convictions, and standards to the agency. Those with little life know-how may not have a mature sense of ethics, while left volunteers may have well-developed morals. This best feature requires for clear-cut guidelines and a cipher of ethics adhered to by all staff in the agency. Moreover, the department's heritage will exemplify the ethical standards for volunteers.  Of course, law enforcement constituents have wise through sophisticated learning and training what is essential to be engaged in the profession. They contain themselves to a higher standard of ethics than manage most other ones in ...