Overview: Historically, law enforcement and the community have had a tense relationship. The conflictual nature of the relationship is based on the fact that community members do not think traditional policing is in their best interest. They suggest that community policing model should be the strategy employed to address crime and criminality in the communities of which they are a part. At the same time law enforcement and its police officers believe that its primary role is that of crime control. These differing views have further widened the gap in police community relations as both law enforcement, and community members think their approach to curbing crime is more effective. Community Perspective: The community policing model promoted by members of the community is built on a philosophical foundation of collaboration between the community and police officers, where they work closely to both identify and solve issues affecting the community (“Understanding Community Policing : A Framework for Action, n.d.”). This offers a paradigm shift where police officers do not work primarily as the enforcers of law and order, but allies to members of the community in order to ensure that quality protection is in the neighborhoods and that these neighborhoods are safe (“Understanding Community Policing : A Framework for Action, n.d.”). The new focus on crime prevention and control has an expanded scope where community members have active roles in solving problems in their neighborhoods causing the primary or traditional roles of law enforcement as we know it to change, setting a change in motion ultimately affecting the structure and culture of law enforcement agencies (“Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action, n.d.”). Allowing community members to have a voice, offer advice and be allies and not foes, reinvigorate communities and their willingness to work alongside law enforcement in a trusting and respectful way (“IACP Committee on Terrorism: Countering Violent Extremism (CVE)& Working Group Community Outreach and Engagement Principles, n.d.”). In sum, this approach purports that the traditional way of policing is now anachronistic, and is no longer able to meet the demand of new challenges posed by criminals today. Law Enforcement Perspective: Law enforcement supports a traditional model of policing that focuses primarily on crime control and not so much auxiliary functions such as advocacy and mentoring of community members. Law enforcement agencies create their own rules and regulations that they determine was in their best interest of addressing crime and criminality. Law enforcement agencies do not only interact with other agencies, but merge their efforts to curb a growing criminal epidemic; there is no mention of efforts, advice or input from community members (“Conduct of Law Enforcement Agencies., n.d.”). Conclusion: Even though traditionally heterogeneous and decentralized, law enforcement is slowly embracing the community policing model in order to best address crime and criminality. Now the focus has shifted to remedying community problems, and not primarily on curbing specific crimes as the main purpose of policing. Officers who once were not receptive to what they see as a ‘social work’ approach to enforcement have found merit in building relationships with community members that are not only sustainable, but workable(“A Call to Serve, n.d.”). Now the pervasive philosophy of enforcement is to address problems with a focus primarily on the community (“A Call to Serve, n.d.”). There is merit and validity to the traditional way of policing our communities, there is room for a hybrid approach where crime control can be a strategy, but one that was an expanded community outlook to address the simplest of crime such as disturbances all the way to homicides. In sum, there is credibility to both forms of enforcement; however, the objective is to always seek strategies that are bendable and adaptable; accommodating the changing nature of crime, face of criminals, and trends in criminality.
References
A Call to Serve. Retrieved from http://discoverpolicing.org/why_policing/?fa=call_serve
Conduct of Law Enforcement Agencies. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/crt/conduct-law-enforcement-agencies
IACP Committee on Terrorism: Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) &Working Group Community Outreach and Engagement Principles. Retrieved from http://www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/IACP- COT_CommPolicingPrinciples__FINALAug12.pdf
Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/commp.pdf
