Community Policing: Collaborative Relationships Between Police and Their Communities
Community policing is a model of policing that has become increasingly popular since it was first established in the 1970’s and 1980’s. In fact, Hickman and colleagues (2018) reported that in 2016, 85% of local police departments with at least 100 officers reported having a community policing plan. Despite its growing popularity, there is a lacking understanding regarding the purpose, effectiveness, and functioning of community policing. In this paper, I am going to evaluate and explain what community policing is, what community policing is not, and what common criticisms of community policing are.
What is Community Policing? A philosophy and policing strategy,
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Implemented in the 1980’s in response to high crime rates, the program sought to promote community involvement and cooperation with law enforcement. Residents were seen as being the eyes and ears of the community, making them best fit for identifying and reporting suspicious activity. In the Neighborhood Watch Program, civilian volunteers were trained in crime prevention techniques and applied their training to efforts like watch patrols. The program extended further—it also included community-building and crime-preventive implementations, such as youth programs and social events (Kelling & Coles, …show more content…
For example, some argue that it can lead to over-policing and reinforcements of existing power structures through the reliance on subjective interpretations of what is considered suspicious activity. To build off of this critique, those with that opinion also claim that the community members may not represent the interests of all area residents equally, leading to unequal distributions of resources. Overall, community policing is heavily criticized for reasons relating to possibilities of perpetuated systemic biases and power structures. While some police departments only embrace the rhetoric of community policing or are not as effective at implementation, community policing strategies have been found to be objectively effective. This can be seen in the way that community policing has an impact on crime