The executive meeting to develop a community policing initiative gave an avenue for the representatives from lawmakers, research, the community and the federal government to share experiences and viewpoints about harmonizing the need of law and communities of shading. A rooted tension exists between African Americans and police officers even before the period of the civil rights. Boettke, Lemke and Palagashvili (2016) argue that these relations are entrenched in a history of hostility and distrust. The acts of police officers can influence the views of citizens and hamper associations between citizens and officers. In a circumstance where a police officer shoots unarmed black men would result into the minority communities having a negative representation of the police. Viewpoints of police officers depend between minorities and whites generally, and the grounds can be complicated (Whitelaw, Parent, & Griffiths, 2014) . The major agenda of the session was to come up with a community policing initiative that will ensure better relations and collaboration with an African-American community.
Organizational transformation
A transformation of the organizational systems has to happen in the law enforcement agencies if at all they wish to close the gap between themselves and the community they serve. This is serious particularly for the underrepresented group of communities. The minorities as opposed to the whites are dissatisfied with several systems of policing because of crime regulation, media assessment, misconduct, and individual experiences. Community policing is perceived to be an opportunity to establish better relationship between police officers and the communities, cities, and other areas they offer their service ( Stern & Griffith, 2017) . It is significant that the viewpoints of the minority groups are examined within the framework of community focused policing practices. It is through understanding the experiences of the minority at different jurisdictions that inform effective community policing initiative.
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The community policing programs that are adopted are intended towards community participation with police roles incorporated to them. It such a system that will secure a heightened level of trust as well as communication between the police and the community they are serving. Nevertheless, community policy initiatives are not the only aspects that influence community opinions of policing. Boettke, Lemke and Palagashvili (2016) elaborated that in some cases, the quantity and quality of policing in communities are different and such disparities affect residents’ viewpoints of the police. The killings of innocent blacks for instant are harmonious with what several African Americans supposed to be ancient police aggression. Historical ethnic segregation has formed imbalanced educational and employment occasions, forming instances of impoverished blacks nationally, especially in urban regions (Leroux & McShane, 2017) . These regions are where crime thrives and with higher rates of crime, there would be higher levels of fear of crime. Because of the fear, the residents would lack confidence and decline their aid of police officers’ attempts of dealing with crime.
Community policing experiences concentrate on adult experiences with the police, at a time when youth undergo unequal numbers of negative police experiences. Most studies on police experiences concentrate on the attitude or perception of the communities, and few studies reflect on how the actions of the police offices determine the conduct of the suspects (Leroux & McShane, 2017; Cordner, 2014) . It is easier to understand the distrust among communities in a better way by addressing the selection of police officers, and much more how law enforcement are conducted. An organizational transformation would involve ensuring a procedural justice in minority experiences with police officers and dealing with them in a better way (Crowl, 2017). Residents of less privileged communities indicate that even though they would appreciate an effective community policing initiative, they need to be treated with greater humanity throughout their police interactions. Past studies have not dwelt on the complexity of the issues. Therefore, future researches ought to establish the effect of these interactions between law enforcers and the community.
Police departments should work with partners in the African-American communities in helping them with diverse kinds of problems and social circumstances. They can do by helping sick people, dealing with minor domestic disputes, control traffic and hold seminar on children and teens in this minority communities. Considering the aspect of police professionalism in modern days, some police officers are unaware of the kinds of social conditions and challenges they experience as first responders. Cordner (2014) insists that the chief role of the police is to arrest individuals, record statements or respond to calls. Their roles in the community is far beyond these, thus, the police has to recognize the challenges in the community and sufficiently address them. The police live in the community and should be conscious of the reasons why the people need or call them ( Stern & Griffith, 2017) . The community policing strategy is must have a geographic focus so that the police officers are appointed to same areas for a long period. This will help them be aware of the social challenges in the community and align with their needs effectively. It will build familiarity with the residents.
Building partnerships within the community
The police departments should build effective partnerships within the community by being focused on the people contrary to the apparent administrative and militaristic approach. The marked bureaucratic and militaristic approach was majorly inspired by British policing and has been utilized since the commencement of policing in the United States (Whitelaw, Parent, & Griffiths, 2014) . Policing should be focused more on offering services to the community members from a partnership approach, not to engulf them with law prosecution. For instance, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment that was done between 1981 and 1982 that displayed arrests in domestic fierce calls were more successful than counselling or vacating the suspect from the scene for half a day to alleviate tension that may have resulted into violence.
The police departments utilizing information and communication technology to engage and link with community residents or to offer quick network to community services can reinforce partnerships. These strategies are essential for trust building, and adopting new methods of accessing the community members (Leroux & McShane, 2017) . Police departments can utilize virtual communities through the utilization of social media like Twitter, What’s App, LinkedIn, Facebook, and have webpages that include their email address and important contacts. Therefore, social media sites can be used a critical strategy to engage community members in making their recommendations easily and be involved fully. Namgung (2017) observes that most police officers who use cars to do the patrol miss out the grip of the community. Patrolling using a car is less personal and interactive and in some instances, several community residents think that such police officers use strategic policing. Strategic policing majorly targets probable crime locations and is totally against the dynamics of effective involvement of the community in policing.
In most cases, social workers within a community and police officers predominantly work with people from the same populations, going through similar types of issues and challenges. It is significant that the community and police departments have an appropriate competence to engage successfully with their diverse clients. Agencies in the community and the police will join in coming up with ways of dealing with issues tar are practically beyond the range of any single organization ( Boettke, Lemke, & Palagashvili, 2016) . The strategy in police training should be in spending more time to learn on community focused policing or service way of policing rather than crime fight fighting. Police officers are initial responders to alarms on some basic community disorders like domestic quarrels and mental health crises ( Stern & Griffith, 2017) . Therefore, the emphasis should be in development of skills among police officers such as mediation, conflict resolution besides criminal law. Thus, by understanding intervention tactics through training, the police can effectively work specifically with individuals in the African-American community in times of crises.
Problem-Solving
The problem solving strategy has been viewed as a crucial approach in policing and not a sporadic special development endeavor. This approach recommends that collaborating with agencies and organization may be quite significant while solving problem. Despite this, several police officers consider themselves as crime battalions as opposed to being givers of social services. This poses a challenge for the police to engage in partnerships. Substantial research done in the 1950s determined that it was not possible to weigh up the police as majorly crime-fighting, preventing and investigating team (Cordner, 2014). Police departments must utilize problem-focused policing that recognize persistent crimes as well as other social challenges in the society, and endeavors to restructure the offensive or possibly violent circumstances. The police should devote substantial amount of time to deal with family fights, informing and counseling, mediating and making referrals for expert involvement, dealing with mental health challenges, limiting drunk driving and ensuring order. Effective community policing creates relationships with community members, face-to-face encounters with the rest of the community and not just individuals who occupy critical positions in the community (Namgung, 2017). Through the inclusion of sections of the community in the decision-making or initiatives, the members of the community will embrace the initiative and policies not as those in power are imposing them to them.
Increasing instances for social interaction is very critical since it builds collaboration and creates confidence that community members may contact police departments in case of any need. Leibold, Mengistu and Pindur (2015) affirm that assessment of good policing by police officials should not only be based on their arrest frequencies, service calls, crime levels, and the giving of traffic tickets but by incorporating other elements of community interaction that can reinforce trust and friendliness. Police officers involved in community policy in most cases are given to self-sufficiency and the space to solve problem when responding to a call. On the other hand, the observance of stern job descriptions and compliance has been considered incorrect in for reinforcing community trust in police departments (Whitelaw, Parent, & Griffiths, 2014) . Stern and Griffith (2017) assert that the main challenge with police training is the substantial time the staff use on policies and procedures and not acquiring problem-solving skills and decision-making abilities, particularly in the field and with the framework of a local community. Remarkably, the fact that most police dockets are organized to balance and exalt crime fighting by way of noticeable respect, honor, a feeling of heroism, as well as extra remunerations. Such a culture in the police force in most instances undermine the ability of police officers to solve problems of non-crime issues. Therefore, an initiative that equips the police officers to solve problems that are non-criminal in nature should be enforced.
Conclusion
The police should be trained in a way that they value diversion programs, even make offence citations, and alleviate the legalistic aspect of an intervention. Partnership between the police departments and the African-American community is very fundamental in countering issues in the society. Meanwhile, police officers have to possess extensive knowledge and skills on problem solving and decision making to reinforce their relationship with the community. The welfare of the police officers should be examined since they are also exposed to witnessing traumatic events, experiencing compassion fatigues and act on their individual issues. It will enable them to engage aggressively with the community in their policing duty and meet productivity requirements.
References
Boettke, P. J., Lemke, J. S., & Palagashvili, L. (2016). Re-evaluating community policing in a polycentric system. Journal of Institutional Economics , 12 (2), 305-325.
Cordner, G. (2014). Community policing. The Oxford handbook of police.
Crowl, J. N. (2017). The effect of community policing on fear and crime reduction, police legitimacy and job satisfaction: an empirical review of the evidence. Police Practice and Research , 18 (5), 449-462.
Leibold, M., Mengistu, B., & Pindur, W. (2015). Community Policing in a Multicultural Community Environment: Marketing Issues for a Police Service, with Specific Reference to South Africa. In Proceedings of the 1998 Multicultural Marketing Conference (pp. 211-215). Springer, Cham.
Leroux, E. J., & McShane, K. (2017). Changing youth attitudes toward the police through community policing programming. Journal of Community Psychology , 45 (6), 810-822.
Namgung, H. (2017). How can police agencies implement community policing? Create specialized units!. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice .
Stein, R. E., & Griffith, C. (2017). Resident and police perceptions of the neighborhood: Implications for community policing. Criminal Justice Policy Review , 28 (2), 139-154.
Whitelaw, B., Parent, R. B., & Griffiths, C. T. (2014). Community-based strategic policing in Canada . Nelson Education.
