A great deal of criticism has been leveed recently at American police and American policing. In light of the apparent increase of police-involved shootings of citizens, specifically, unarmed citizens, many have speculated that systemic change is needed within police agencies across the United States. Minority community’s trust of police is disturbingly low and the nation seems almost equally divided on the issue. On one hand, a segment of the population argues that the problem lies with the police and how the deal with the citizens they are supposed to protect and serve. On the other hand, part of the population says that negative encounters with the police are the fault of the private citizen acting illegally or inappropriately. How police …show more content…
Focusing so intently on security often does not sit well with citizens who are subjected to more invasive policing methods. Security Policing does not see every citizen and every area as the same or equal, it looks for areas with a higher risk for crime and implements higher levels of security and policing accordingly (Chriss, 2013).
Law enforcement has essentially reinvented itself multiple times over the centuries but in the community policing era it had stumbled upon a system that worked, but because of the fear of terrorism and the over-zealous and legalistic attitudes of police departments it threw that system away. K. Babe. Howell writes,
If we took the theory underlying Broken Windows policing seriously, we would be fixing broken windows. We would be replacing broken light bulbs. We would be repairing broken doors and broken elevators in public housing. We would be improving parks and schools and after-school programs in underserved communities. We would be making our public spaces safe by addressing unsafe conditions. (Howell,
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Shifting to a customer (citizen) first approach has great potential to alleviate much of the stress that has fractured the trust between communities and the police. The biggest challenge will be implementation. I believe that for implementation to be successful, it must occur on two levels. First, there needs to be policy change across the board. A systemic and standardized change of how local police departments operate in relation to private citizens. Second, individual police officers need to change the way they deal with people. The legalistic hardline approach that many officers take will not work in this system. If these things take place, I believe that community policing can drastically change the dynamic of police-citizen encounters in a positive