Within the points of view of a patrol officer, the relationship between the police and the community is significant on the policing strategies to implement in addressing violence, crimes and vandalisms in schools because most of the actions taken by the police authorities mainly depends upon the crime reports they receive from the community members. To address the prevalence and occurences of these specific crimes in schools, the community police should work closely with the school authorities as its partners in order to address the issues more effectively.
The additional interventions in community policing strategies that can better address these problems in schools, including the issues on illicit drug use in the Anonymous community is the conduct of various programs that aim to improve the ability of the students towards self management skills, social skills and seminars with the participation of the police authorities in disseminating information about crimes, violence and drugs. The police authorities can also undertake organized community meetings to enhance the awareness of parents on how to develop their behavioral management skills on their children (Catalano, Loeber and McKinney, 1999).
The local community police can engage the youths to become involved in its community policing strategies by coordinating with the Anonymous community officials the conduct of trainings and seminar that are aimed at helping the youths to develop their own sense of accountability and engage their commitment towards a meaningful participation in crime prevention. To make the community policing strategies more sustainable within the Anonymous community, it is essential to develop a consistent partnership with the community' officials by implementing a forum program consisting of feedbacking. An open forum will allow the community and the police authorities review the police actions taken and to assess the effectiveness of their programs (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 2008).
Lens 2: Community Member
The relationship between the police and community members impact the type of community policing strategies in addressing violence, crimes and vandalism in schools by giving the community members more meaningful role in the identification and providing solutions to community based problems (Community Policing Consortium, 1994). Community members are viewed to be allies by the police authorities as watchdogs in monitoring specific issues affecting the community, including in school based crimes, violence and vandalism.
A helpful prevention community policing strategies that can address violence, crime and vandalism in schools and illicit drug use in the Anonymous community is the implementation of a citizen crime reporting program. This will help organize the community members to render mutual aid to one another in monitoring the risks of crimes in their neighborhood to reinforce the effectiveness of community policing strategies in their communities. By enhancing the citizen’s reporting capability, the community members will play a distinct and unique role in the implementation of community policing strategies (Miller, Hess, and Orthmann, 2014). The school authorities itself as members of the community can also impose better policies to define excepted behavior, after school programs and strategies that will create a safer school environment that will complement the community policing strategies being established in the community.
The youth can become involved in community policing strategies in the Anonymous community to address crimes, violence and vandalism in schools by the proactive initiaves of the community members in developing programs of mentoring, peer intervention and leadership trainings and development to make the more useful and crime prevention and active partners in community policing in their school. For the community policing strategies in the Anonymous community to become more sustainable and with enhanced implementation, the community members need to build a coordinated partnership with the local police authorities to express their needs and to offer information about the existing crimes in the community to help the authorities implement more relevant policies in community policing that suit the needs of the community members.
Summary
Lens 1 is more difficult to answer considering that among the challenges of community policing is to build up the image of the authorities to the community and to establish good relationships to community members for better implementation of police community strategies. Obtaining the trust of the public is one of the greatest challenges in community policing. Impediments like the police culture, organizational changes, resistance to cooperate from the community members are common barriers in community policing (Ferreira, 1996). The local authorities need to resolve these barriers to win the cooperation of the local community members and the youths to participate in their program against prevention on crimes, vandalism and violence in schools.
One aspect of the scenario where the information shared in the textbook could not be applied is the initiative of providing treatment of drug users as part of the national drug control strategy. This initiative does not only involve community policing and the role of the community members in combating youth crimes and delinquecies and other school related violence that may be caused by illicit drug use as discussed in the textbook. It requires criminal justice reforms and the integration of national policies on the justice system for better implementation because it requires resources and adequate legislation and court participation in determining the right intervention to drug users and youth delinquents which are matters not discussed in the textbook.
References:
Catalano, R.F., Loeber, R. and McKinney, K.C. (1999). School and community interventions to prevent serious and violent offending. Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Washington: US. Department of Justice.
Community Policing Consortium (1994). Understanding Community Policing A Framework for Action. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Assistance.
Ferreira, B.R. (1996). The use and effectiveness of community policing in a democracy. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice.
Miller, L. S., Hess, K. M., & Orthmann, C. H. (2014). Community corrections: Partnerships for problem solving (7th ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (2008). Good practices in building police public partnerships. Vienna: OSCE.
