The police force needs to have a productive relationship with the community as a way of combating crimes. The police officers need to rely on the society or the community they serve to get information that can help in enforcing the law. Currently, the real situation is far from achieving a good relationship between the community members and the police force. The growing concern of police brutality is a critical concern to the police department. Even though some of the accusations on the police brutality are unfounded, the community is no longer trusting the police agencies. The minority community thinks that they are much safer in the absence of the police than in their presence. The police force is succumbing to Ferguson Effects, where they are no longer willing to go to the extreme to protect what is right for the society. The resulting issue is that there is no trust between the police officers and the community, a situation that is resulting in more crime in the city. The mismatch in the community and police values can also come to an end when there is some alignment, and the conflicting values addressed. Therefore, enhancing community policing by building ties and strengthening the close relationships between the community members, and police department should be the best way to solve tension that exists between them. Towards finding the balance between the society and the police agencies, there is a need to reassess the values the community and the police hold, and the reason that makes them different. In the current police system, the significant norms are services to society and enhancing law and order within the community. The role the police department needs to play is to create a situation where the organization feels safe and not threatened by the presence of a police officer. The police department needs to be under the guidance of cultural sensitivity, honesty, and a high level of professionalism. Society has a lot of expectations from the police officers. The community, mostly the minority, look up to the police officers for protection. Therefore, they believe that among others, the police officers should uphold the culture of justice and security for all. Police officers need to understand the history of the minority individual in the country. These are people with a history of different forms of segregation in the country. Therefore, a police officer needs to understand how to handle them. Most importantly, they need to remain sensitive to the norms the society has and the trust the minority has on them to protect them and ensure that justice prevails. Due to the historical injustice the minority society has faced in the country, they have become delicate to handle. They have different cultures and believes in their community. As a result of injustice they met in history, these community values have their roots on fairness, equity, and equality for all. It is the role of the police to understand these values and ensure that they align with the norms and culture that the police force also upholds as they strive to serve the community. A misalignment of police agencies' values and those of the population results in conflict. In this case, therefore, the conflict between the police department and society is inevitable because the police believe that they have to enforce the law at all costs. Still, the community believes that the police officers are unjust. The minority believes that instead of the police having the values of integrity, justice, and fairness, they are biased and treat the majority better than the minority. The police are trying to enforce the judgment by antagonizing the criminals with the full force of the law. Society thinks that justice is only for the majority group but not for the minority. The solution lies in strengthening the ties between the police force and the community. The solution to strengthening the ties between the people and the police officers will be to implement a community-based policing strategy. The strategy will enhance a situation where the police officers will be looking forward to working closely with the community to pinpoint the wrongdoers and punish those who deserve the punishment. Therefore, the emphasis will not be on the reactive policing; rather, it will be on proactive problem-solving. The focus will turn on collaborating with the public to control crime, instead of harassing and using violence that creates tension between the community and the police department. ( Kessler, 2009). Notably, community-based policing will not mean that there will be no aggression and proactive activities towards bringing crime to an end. What it implies is that there will be three key issues that will guide the policing system in the community. These will include community partnership, problem-solving, and organizational features. Community partnership will mean that the police department will need to understand the critical value that the society upholds and try to assimilate them toward creating a better relationship with the community. The objective will be to ensure that the law enforcement agencies, the community members and police officers have an interactive relationship as they collaborate to mitigate crime (Ponsaers, 2011). While striving to create a better relationship with the community, the following will be the target people and organization. The police department will attempt to strike a good relationship with any law agency within the area. They will also have a good relationship with groups and society members. The media, the private business, and the service organization will also be on the list. The aim will be to get enough information from these agencies that will help in a proactive reaction to the crime before they happen to avoid the incidence of crime and shootings that induce fear among the community. The aim will be to prevent crime before they happen so that they reduce the antagonistic approach between the police officers and the people. The next approach will be problem-solving. The police department will replace the aggression with skilful proactive research to identify the problem and come up with intervention before such problems occur. The basis will be to encourage the police department to act proactively to identify the issues, develop innovative responses, and evaluate the results before taking any action (Cossyleon, 2019). The key to such a problem-solving approach will be the new notion that fighting crime should be more proactive than reactive. For this approach, therefore, five strategies will be in place. The first will be the scanning for the problem. The office will identify any potential crime within society and prioritize them based on their nature. The second approach will be to research the society by gathering data from the people around the community. They should understand what society knows about the problem and research for what may be missing about the potential crime. The next approach is to come up with a solution that aims to reduce or eliminate the problem and its concerns to the society. The answer should look forward to rectifying the situation and eliminate the potential threat. The next approach is to come up with an assessment method to understand the impact of the solution to the problem (Nassauer, 2015). At this point, recommendations and working on the answer to make it better will be the aim of the department. A crime triangle can be useful as the last step as it can help in mapping and understanding the crime between people, place, and offender. With such problem-solving techniques, the hope is that there will be proactive and aggressive measures to combat criminal behaviours. Another approach will be to have in place the organization features that will suit the changes towards achieving a balance people and the law agency . The police organization’s features will be critical for the success of the program. The first will be police officers. The culture of community partners will be considered in hiring, training, and also enhancing cultural sensitivity. These will ensure that the team is suitable to match the demand of the community-based policing. Also, the organization structure will change to allow the line-level officers with a high level of accountability and decision making ( Miller, 2018). Such flexibility in the department’s structure will be critical for the success of this approach. The high rate of security response and the use of high technology will also be part of the changes toward a striking balance between the society and the police officers. The aim will be to motivate the officers to perform at their best under new regulations, mission, and objectives. In the end, the police department will establish a better relationship between the officers and the community. They will be working together to detect crime and act before they happen to avoid a confrontation that induces fear among people in society. The police officer thus will feel safe, and the community will also feel safe. Such a relationship will be mutually beneficial to both the police department and the community members.
References
Cossyleon, J. E. (2019). Community Policing. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies , 1-5.
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Kessler, D. (2009). The Effects of Community Policing on Complaints against Officers. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 15 (3), 333-372. Retrieved April 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/23366739
Miller, L. (2018). Community policing . Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Nassauer, A. (2015). Effective crowd policing: empirical insights on avoiding protest violence. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management , 38 (1), 3-23. Doi: 10.1108/pijpsm-06-2014-0065
Ponsaers, P. (2011). Reading about “community (oriented) policing” and police models. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management , 24 (4), 470-497. Doi: 10.1108/eum0000000006496
