Community Policing Advantages

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Community Policing is the system of allocating police officers to areas so that they become familiar with local inhabitants. It is used to change the way police departments interact with the public, focusing on community concerns, including crimes. The idea of community policing is to work together to improve the life and quality in their neighborhoods. Community Policing emerged in the 1970’s with the goal to eliminate public disenchantment with police services and the criticisms of the lack of police professionalism (Fagin pg. 114). They identify and resolve issues which potentially affect the way neighborhoods live. Community Policing stresses prevention, early identification, and timely intervention to deal with issues before they become …show more content…

One of the main advantages to community policing is that it can reduces the fear in the community. To increase police presence in many neighborhoods can make residents feel more secure (Strehlow,2017). This can also help establish trust within the community, leading to improve police and community relationships. For instance, they could work together if there was ever a time when the police needed the public to help since there is a trust between them. Another advantage is that the community policing allows the community to come up with solutions that fit within their own neighborhoods. Each community is different from the other, one plan that ends up working in a city can probably end up not working in another city. This leads to police and community problem-solving and citizen involvement to eliminate the number of ways to decrease crime. When a citizen becomes more active in taking care of their own community, they start to understand what officers go through to keep everyone safe (Strehlow,2017). There are, however, disadvantages to community policing, like having the opposite effect of what it should do. For example, this could lead to relationships between officers and communities worsening. If a specific neighborhood has a bad history with the police, it might cause the community to strike back and worsen the situation (Stehlow,2017). Other disadvantages could be that citizens around that neighborhood just do not care about keeping their community