What Is Community Policing Essay

Work shop task 1 Community Policing

Community policing is a style of policing that emphasises a conciliatory, rather than coercive, approach to police work that seeks to move away from the police-centred authoritarian nature of traditional approaches, focusing instead on a co-participatory model of crime prevention that accepts that the community has a legitimate, active role to play in the policing process (White & Perrone, 2010, p. 601).

Community policing began to appear in both the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) during the early 1980s. The global adoption of community policing that followed was reflective of a paradigm shift within many policing organisations from the professional era to the community era. Community policing has been enthusiastically received and readily implemented by communities and policing organisations alike over recent decades to an unprecedented extent (Ratcliffe, 2004). Community policing encompasses 4 key features; philosophical, strategic, tactical and organizational (Putt, 2010).
• philosophical—encompasses the central ideas and beliefs underlying community policing that are articulated in such materials as the organisational logo, the mission statement and annual reports
• strategic—the development of strategies that articulate the philosophical dimension and achieve the implementation of such strategies
• tactical—translates ideas, philosophies and strategies into concrete programs, tactics, and behaviours
• organisational—the ways in which management and the structure of the organisation support community policing.
It is generally agreed that “there are significant benefits to be accrued by connecting the police
and communities” (Putt, 2010). Community policing is essential if we are to deter crime and create more cohesive neighborhoods. In some communities, it will take time to break down barriers of apathy and mistrust so that meaningful partnerships can be forged. Trust is the value that...