Although CP has been criticized police academicians have mostly played the role of CP advocates. What are the criticisms?
- lack of continuity with history
- flaws in its parent doctrine
- serving as a legitimating tactic
Many of the social problems facing our urban centers today are the direct result of this and not the inherent pathologies of our cities or their inhabitants.
Poor policy decisions of decades past
This approach allows the police to expand beyond a narrow focus on crime to address a broaser spectrum of community concerns, such as fear of crime, quality of life issues, and neighborhhod needs.
Community Policing
Much of the resistance to CP and many of the problems in today’s failure toreally operationalize the spirit of CP stems from the fact that the impetus to change came primarily from:
Outside police departments
There are 8 occupations, aside from CP officer, mentioned as being a part of a Community Resource Center:
- parole officer
- drug counselors
- public health nurse
- social workers
- adult education teachers
- parks and recreation specialist
- physician
- personnel specialist
The Community Resource Center could become the hub of neighborhood activity, the outreach center where the local churches and civic organizations do the following:
- hold meetings
- coordinate projects
- desseminate information
The imposition of order creates this:
Disorder
The police have become the premiere problem-solvers for some of society’s most complex difficulties. Politicians and the bulk of the public fall back on these methods as a means to bring order and predictability to a largely unpredictable circimstance - modern living.
- Juvenile curfews
- Immigration checks
- Regulations
- Order Enforcement
- Target-hardening
Society is moving in this direction - where gated bedroom communities and carefully administered residential areas, isolated by the simulation of nature, punctuate the modern blend of people, places,and purposes.
Defensible social ordering
This approach is packaged as a type of market analysis. It is by far the most popular method by which the police ostensibly allow the citizenry to participate in setting police priorities, and it is used to demostrate to the community an ethic of public accountability.
The citizen-survey approach
What does community policing offer in terms of “community security”? (7)
- Decentralization of police organizations allow for a faster and more efficient response to any crisis
- Community policing’s use of a decentralized organization can produce a faster response to incidents because officers are better dispersed across the community
- Empowering line officers with decision-making authority and responsibility can make them better “first responders”
- Use of fixed geographical beats allows officers to identify security risks and investigate threats
- Indepth knowledge of a beat can allow for better collection and development of intelligence data
- Community policing officers are more trusted by citizens and are more lilkely to be given information about suspicious activities
- Community policing officers are freed from the incessant demands of responding to calls and are free to pursue leads or investigate suspicious activity
