Tell me about "community policing"

[xraymongral]

Our police department is moving towards "community policing". There have been lots of rifts between the "Traditional policing" officers and the "community policing" officers. This has included abuse of older officers by the chief and her assistant, both of which are, I hate to say this, dikes.

Just curious what all this new policy is about. Thanks for any input.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Community policing is where the police officer identifies the problems, the resources available, and coalesces them together to resolve the problem. If the problem is muggings in dark alleys, the officer may contact public works to put up more lights, the landlords to clean up the garbage (via gentle nudge of the Health Inspectors), and a few more patrols through the area. It's more than just getting cops out of cars and putting them on bicycles.

You want to hear the bottom line? It's the same old fashion police work that we did before it received a fancy name! An old timer once told me that any cop who really did his job did this stuff naturally. We certainly did it without the benefit of some class or grant or bicycle.

 

[Charmedlyfe]

Community policing is a slippery concept. Some believe that it has to do with substations, a 'the public is always right' attitude regarding complaints, and a general approach of de-policing and shaking hands. Many also believe that it has to do with giving politicians control over what the department does (micromanagement from hell). This is the direction that most departments take in the beginning, and it tends to cause good officers to quit. Just imagine liberal 'warm, soft, fuzzy', and you've got the concept. Rather than make an arrest, the officer is expected to 'understand' the criminal, and seek to council rather than do his job.

Community policing as originally (and properly) envisioned had little to do with not hurting the bad guys' feelings. It had to do with becoming involved in the community, learning the crime patterns of the area to prevent crime, and becoming accessible to the public. Stop for coffee and shoot the breeze at the 7-11. Be seen. Smile a little more and say hi. Listen to people. Help people when they need it (like helping a woman change a tire, or give a stranded motorist a lift). Don't be a hard-@55 all the time. Be willing to give helpful advice when someone asks for it. Do your job, but BE A DECENT HUMAN BEING while doing it. NOTHING in community policing should be taken to mean a cop should be weak or back down. Pretty much what good patrol officers have been doing forever.

 

[AAshooter]

4V50Gary, I think your comments are right on. I think the best thing about it is that you have a model that you can explain to the members of the community. It helps good officers engage others to help solve the problem.

It moves from the officer's problem to "our problem".

 

[xraymongral]

Intersting stuff. We have had alot of our seasoned officers leave the force, which is good and bad. We have a tradition of "bad cops" in my town. But they have been replaced by a group of mostly punk kids whose badges are a little heavey on there chests. Nothing a good ass whippin or three shouldn't cure though.

Sounds like commen sense police work to me. Glad to see it back in vouge, just hope it ends up not being abused.

Having a dike and her dike minion for chief of police has not left a good taste in many officers mouths, even to those that support community policing. Luckily, the assistant chief is on suspension pending results of a investigation od her stalking a female officer.

 

[Payette Jack]

Community policing is a know-it-all 23 yr old social worker with a gun and almost unlimited power. Pure leftist police state thinking.

 

[dinosaur]

We called it "Park, Walk and Talk".

Just what it sounds like. You had a steady sector, you got out of the car and talked to people. Listen to the problems and try and correct them. Sometimes it was just a referral such as street lights that needed fixing. The problem is, the powers that be don`t really want the police to get to know the people because it leads to corruption.

I had a Lt. who used to be FIAU. IAD to most. He was telling some rookies about how well community policing worked in Japan. He told them the officers had to visit every person on their beat twice a year. I told them "Once on Christmas and once on their birthday".
He chased me out of the station house.

 

[fed168]

Community policing is a concept. Departments cannot adopt it for a year or two and expect it to work, it must be in the mission statement. To me, it partially operates on the premise that the citizens want your assistance, will tell you their problems, and actually want to improve their living conditions.
Alot of the concept has been mentioned in this thread. But it does not always work as planned. In our department, the beat guys chase the radio, upwards of 25 calls per officer per shift. They don't have the time to park and talk. So in place of that we have COP units, their job is to do the community policing, put on displays, meet with citizens of the community.
It is a difficult thing to do when being cursed at by someone who who did not ask for your help in the first place.
I am through ranting.

 

[Jim March]

At it's best, it can be a very good thing.

In larger towns, cops often become these faceless beings who cruise around looking for trouble.

"Community policing" when done right means that individual officers cover as small an area as possible, and get to know it by getting out of the car (or off the bike or whatever) and talking to people, finding out what's REALLY going on, and what problems are serious versus worthy of only a wink. And better yet, they can get a sense of what trouble is brewing and needs a firm hand before it blows up.

Let's take one example from my own past: some dude has a pet ferret in Calif where they're illegal, and takes it to play in the local park.

Under the "standard model", cops drive by, spot an illegal critter, make a bust.

Under "community policing", they might already know that half the kids in the neigborhood have played with the fert, it never bit anybody, the guy that owns it has even been in local businesses and neither him nor the skinnykitty ever caused problems. So they ignore it.

That's just one example of what's supposed to happen.

On the flip side, the community beat cop has an idea of which kids are actually trouble and which are just being kids, and can stop real trouble (gangs/drugs/etc) before it starts *without* coming across as "harassing all kids" and breeding a whole local generation that fears the uniform.

 

[Coronach]

'Community Policing' vs 'traditional' policing

Well, due to the need for americans in general and politicians in particular to hang a label on things, 'community policing' is exactly what everyone has said- what the cops used to do in the old days, before cops became slaves to the 911 system, and the leadership told everyone that cops would solve the crime problems themselves, thankyouverymuch.

However, there is a flip side. The long trend towards putting cops in cars and making them respond to calls for service rather than proactively solve problems was partly in an effort to make law enforcement more efficient, but also as a way to fight corruption and graft. The idea was that faceless cops rolling around in cars and only showing up when there was a problem was better than cops being on the take and shaking down businesses.

I'm not saying that 'community policing' is a bad idea...I'm just advising that every silver lining has potential for a cloud.

Mike