Policing Policies- Community Policing

CJA/580 Public Policy Issues

November 21, 2011
Professor Joseph Gutheinz, Jr., J.D.

Policing Policies- Community Policing

This country has a system that operates and helps maintain rights and protection of the citizens. This same system also punishes those who violate the laws and policies set forth by the government. This system is the criminal justice system. As a previous subject in this course, there are three main branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, play a major role in the criminal justice policy process. The executives are the advocates of policies and budgets to implement these policies; legislatures create the policies and laws; and judicial officials are those who handle those in violation of these policies. Within the criminal justice system is law enforcement (e.g., police officers), court systems (e.g., judicial officials), and correction (e.g., jails and prisons). Each sector plays a major role in the enforcement of the law, protection of rights, and to ensure that justice is for everyone. The main focus of this paper is police officers. Police officers carry many roles and responsibilities. “Police agencies are those government agencies that have some responsibility for enforcing the law and providing protection to our local communities” (Marion & Oliver, 2012, p. 304). In this paper the subject to discuss is community policing. What is Community Policing? Community policing can be defined as the action taken by law enforcement officers to mend relationships between the community and the police by providing specific services throughout the communities. Some roles that police officers take on in community policing is “encompassing high-visibility policing with problem-solving, peacemaking, and interagency work and active involvement of community members” (Bartkowiak-Theron & Crehan, 2011, p. 17). Marion and Oliver (2012) identified three categories that “the various types of programs under community policing fall into” (Marion & Oliver, 2012, p. 434). The first category under community policing is strategic policing. “The methods of strategic policing adopted the concept of cracking down on minor crimes and disorder to bring the community out from behind closed doors” (Marion & Oliver, 2012, p. 434). “The neighborhood policing methods focused on bringing police and citizens into contact with one another on a daily basis and included foot/bike patrols, neighborhood substations, and police-community meetings that would occur on a routine basis” (Marion & Oliver, 2012, p. 434). “Problem-oriented policing tended to generally adopt the SARA model for addressing specific problems in a neighborhood” (Marion & Oliver, 2012, p. 434). Key Actors The idea of community policing came about as the issues of drugs and crime started to become a major problem. “Community policing developed at the grassroots level in the early 1980s, coming out of local police demonstration projects that were often funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Assistance” (Marion & Oliver, 2012, p. 433). This came about after the “rejection of traditional policing practices” (Marion & Marion, 2012, p. 433). The executive branch of government is a major key actor of community police because of their primary role “of implementing and enforcing the laws” (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010, p. 11). “The police are a part of the executive branch of government because of their role is to enforce the laws enacted by the legislature and to refer alleged violations of those laws to the judiciary” (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010, p. 11). The legislative branch of government is also a key actor because this is the branch that enacts the community policing policies that police officers enforce. The third key actor of community policing is the judicial branch of government. “The judicial branch was directed to review the constitutionality of legislative enactments and to adjudicate alleged violations of the laws” (Cordner & Scarborough, 2010, p. 11). Example of Community Policing Community policing is exemplified in many forms. One example of community police is D.A.R.E. programs offered in local schools and communities. “Through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, law enforcement personnel contribute their expertise to help America’s youth to resist peer pressure and to abstain from drugs, gangs, and violence” (Singh et al., 2011, p. 93). Other examples of community policing is when police officer actually get out and get to know the people in the community. This is done by having different events in the communities or by just getting out of the police patrol car and foot patrolling the neighborhoods and talking to the residents. Conclusion A 1994 study “indicated that D.A.R.E. was not effective in reducing illicit drug use among youths” (Singh et al., 2011, p. 97). “More recent study examining D.A.R.E. outcome results published between 1991-2002, reported an overall effect size that was small and not statistically significant” (Singh et al., 2011, p. 97). On the other hand, community policing such as being involved in the neighborhoods and getting to the neighbor is somewhat effective. The reason why is because this gives the people an opportunity to get to know the police and the departments better and it also gives the police officers a chance to get to know the people better. This is helpful when there is an investigation and the police officer needs additional help and information from the people in the community that may have seen the crime in progress. As a conclusion, it can easily be stated that community policing serves advantages for communities throughout this country.

References
Bartkowiak-Théron, I., & Crehan, A. (2011). A new movement in community policing? From community policing to vulnerable people policing. Research & Public Policy Series, (111), 16-23.
Cordner, G.W., & Scarborough, K.E. (2010). Police Administration (7th ed). Elsevier.
Marion, N. E., & Oliver, W. M. (2012). The public policy of crime and criminal justice. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Singh, R. D., Jimerson, S. R., Renshaw, T., Saeki, E., Hart, S. R., Earhart, J., & Stewart, K. (2011). A Summary and Synthesis of Contemporary Empirical Evidence Regarding the Effects of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program (D.A.R.E.). Contemporary School Psychology, 1593-102.