Police operations and activities have changed and improved in this 21st century, and this can be attributed to changes in different sectors. Police nowadays carry out their activities in a more efficient way than in the past. This is much evident in the USA where the police reaction to situation and way they handle their activities have changed in a big way, some of the developments that have tremendously impacted police operation and activities include the following.
How technology has affected police operation, mission, and values.
Technology advancement has led to the improvement on how the police carry out their activities especially in the USA. Technology has enabled a closer and even more interactive and collaborative law enforcement between the police and the community. The massive growth and use of smartphones and even use of social media has helped in changing the police operation. This is because the community can report a crime immediately with sufficient evidence using the various sites they have created in the social media.
The community also can suggest areas in which the police should improve on and ways they should handle situations, this has led to improvement in services provided by the police. Technology also has enabled the police department to have good data storage for the crimes committed using computers. In general, advancement in technology has benefited police operation and activities, effectiveness and even efficiency. Police sector has expanded in investigative and analytic capabilities due to advancement in technology (Hess & Orthmann, 2014).
How the community involvement has affected police operations, mission, and values.
Community involvement has also led to the advancement of police activities in various ways. In the past community policing has been misinterpreted by most and also frequently abused. Instead, community involvement is a very important system, which has to be integrated with the police operations. The main goal is the community working together with the police departments to improve their services. Community involvement encompasses appreciation that the police alone cannot handle activities on its own, and they, therefore, needs help from the community. Community involvement has always advocated for prevention, speedy identification and also a fast intervention in dealing with issues before they become a big problem. Police, especially in the United States, has been encouraged to cooperate with the community to boost them activities.
Effects of communication on law enforcement agency
The police department has also developed in the communication sector. Most of the police departments have direct lines in which citizens can reach them. They have also opened very many social media sites to receive information. Once the information is on their desk, they make fast moves to save the situation. All their activities are the stored safely in their databases for future reference. Though communication advancement has impacted on police activities in the United States it has come with a lot of challenges. The public can hold a very vital information from the police which can help them in the investigation. In most hostile environment some people can fix a police officer to paint a picture that the police are not friendly and share the information in almost all the social sites for the public to read. The main strategy that the police should use is to boost the community policing sector and also to effectively manage the communication systems well.
Importance of police patrol in modern policing
Police patrol is one of the advancement and changes which has taken place in the police unit in the United States. It has so many benefits that came along with it; the police now are in a position to stop a crime before it’s committed and even arrest the culprits. The police also can respond to situations when they arise in a much faster way since they are in strategic places. The community feels safe and can friendly interact with police officers hence boosting community policing (McDonald & Greenberg, 2012).
Quality of life issues that permeate modern law enforcement practices
Several activities are taking form enough to attract the attention of modern law enforcement practices. This include:
Prostitution has, in the recent past, flooded the law enforcement practices. The act of prostitution has been coupled with some negative practices that negatively affect the morals of the society. Prostitution has taken many forms; the worst form is the involvement of the children below the age of 18 years in the commercial sex business (Piper, 2012). This has always been a challenge to the law enforcement units because some of these commercial sex workers use wrong identity documents which may not be easy for both their clients and the law enforcement units to identify them easily.
Bars and clubs have also saturated the law enforcement practices; this has been through the sales of brews that are considered to be illicit. Some of the bars and the clubs do not have some considerations to the young generation; they allow for the entry of people below the age of 18 years. This is contrary to the law enforcement practices; these children of below the age of 18 years are then sexually abused and are involved in some forms of drug abuses. This kind of events has been a challenge in the law enforcement practices.
Some of the people who are mentally ill have experienced some forms of abuses; this has been a challenge to the law enforcement units because the victims are not always in a position to explain what had transpired. These cases are not easy to solve because finding the cause of the problem has been a challenge. The problem of mental illness gives a challenge to the law enforcement units when the victims are abused.
Compare and contrast police reactions as they relate to violence in schools, homes, and workplaces.
It is very prudent that the law enforcement units be involved in the prevention of violence caused by the youths and children in schools, this is not to forget about the violence caused both at homes and at work places. When the law enforcement units are called upon to react to the violence caused in schools, they should in all the ways pay attention to what is going on in the schools, the students in schools could be vibrant due to the stage of adolescence that they undergo.
The law enforcement units should be in a position to adequately interrogate the students before taking a legal action against them; they should also pay close attention to how the events unfolded (McDonald & Greenberg, 2012). The law enforcement units should also be able to monitor for any physical damage caused by the violence. The police units should take the initiative of educating the young students in the schools on the consequences of the dating violence. In the homes and the work-places, the law enforcement units should be able to do an adequate investigation in the case of any form of violence experienced.
Before they take any legal action in response to the violence caused, they should interrogate adequately the people involved in the violence, after that they can decide whether to solve the problem amicably between the parties involved or whether they should proceed to the courts to help solve the problem between the two parties. The law enforcement units should also be in a position to educate the people at work places on the consequences of the violence experienced both at homes and at work places (Orthmann & Cho, 2014). It is through such forms of education that the public may be to change their attitude about violence as a form of a settling their differences.
References
Piper, H. B. (2012). Police Operation. Auckland: Floating Press.
McDonald, P. P., & Greenberg, S. F. (2012). Managing police operations: Implementing the New York crime control model CompStat. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Pub.
Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. M. H., & Cho, H. L. (2014). Police operations: Theory and practice. Clifton Park, N.Y: Delmar.
