Community Policing
According to the United States Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services Website, "Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime." Community policing is defined in similar ways throughout local police departments, although there are enough differences to make the concept of community policing difficult to pinpoint. Partnership and cooperation are the primary features of community policing, as are the goals of reducing crime through prevention and long-term public safety strategies. The Department of Justice's three main components of community policing include community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving. Each of these components will ensure a successful implementation of a community policing program.
One of the drawbacks to community policing is its nebulous and ambiguous interpretation by different police departments. The Lincoln Police Department of Lincoln, Nebraska, for example, calls community policing "the most misunderstood and frequently abused theme in police management." Community policing has been called a fad, a trend, and a buzzword (Friedmann, 1996). Because of this, some departments have taken shortcuts, only "paying lip service" to community policing (Friedmann, 1996). The Lincoln Police Department (n.d.) also admits that "all manner of organizational tinkering" has been mislabeled as community policing.
Beyond this, however, there are real pitfalls with community policing programs that should be taken into consideration when contemplating any organizational changes. For one, community policing is "not simply equivalent with foot patrol," which can take place without "building relationships with the community," (Friedmann, 1996). The idea that community policing is simply "foot patrol" had been a part of the early literature on the effectiveness of community policing, but is no longer relevant (Triojanowicz & Pollard, 1986). In fact, foot patrolling without relationship building is useless. Building relationships with the community is the heart of community policing.
Second, community policing does require long-term dedication and commitment. Each department and its managers must be prepared to thoroughly implement a community policing strategy, which could entail genuine changes to the organizational culture and its policing strategies. Organizational...
Community Policing According to the U.S. Department of Justice is a "philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime" (cited in www.cops.usdog.gov). From the community's perspective, it means that the policy and organizations within the community form partnerships to increase the effectiveness
Community policing is a strategy that requires both new attitudes and commitments from citizens and new attitudes and commitments from police officers. It builds on the basic practices of policing by emphasizing cooperation between the police department and the citizenry, by emphasizing the prevention of crimes as opposed to just catching perpetrators, and by developing long-term solutions to existing and potential problems in the community (U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ],
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