Policing is changing fast and while policing agencies adjust their efforts to adapt to these changes, the community will keep demanding conformation. In an era of high integration of sophisticated technological advancements in nearly all industries, the community expectation will demand that policing agencies conform to the trend. However, this is bound to create unrealistic expectations of policing ability to fight and prevent crime. It is well known that police-community relationships influence police’ ability to solve crimes. Communities where police are seen as incompetent or illegitimate have higher crime rates and more confrontation with law enforcement (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). Implementation of problem-oriented policing will enable the policing agencies to reduce and/or stop criminal activity in a timely manner. Successful future policing will establish the root causes of discordance with the community in a bid to bring legitimacy and integrity in policing and law enforcement to suit the needs of the future generations. This text is a prospective view of the potential changes likely to occur in policing in the next two decades.
Implementation of Revolutionized Crime Fighting Strategies
One policing strategy to be adopted will be predictive policing, which involves mining of data from different sources, thorough analysis of the data and subsequent use of the outcomes to predict, prevent, and respond in effective ways to future crimes. Future policing will implement intelligence-led policing, a philosophical concept of business and management where intelligence on crime and crime data analysis play a central role in making decisions related to crime detection, stoppage and prevention (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). By targeting prolific and known criminals, policing agencies will be able to gather data, analyze the data, and then use it to develop predictive models that can be used in real-world policing. Such algorithms will be able to update crime data in real-time, producing spatial crime forecast, which would then require law enforcement officers to use their expertise to ascertain crime-friendly factors in such areas and to address those issues actively (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). Through the predictive models, policing agencies will implement evidence-based strategies such as the revolutionized hot spots (place-based) surveillance to focus on places with high potential for crimes, as opposed to the traditional method of offender surveillance (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). This will assist the agencies to reduce opportunities for offenders to commit crimes, rather than waiting for crimes to happen so that offenders can be arrested. Future policing will implement real time crime centers to gather crime related data on a real time basis, and rapidly deploy such information to the responding field officers and investigators before arrival at the scene (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014).
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Next Generation Organizational Structure in Policing Agencies
The traditional paramilitary policing thrives on an extremely hierarchical organizational structure. Recent studies have this type of organizational structure, which hinders development and innovation in operations by discouraging autonomy by the team players. The current generation of workforce undergoes modernized training and education, and as such, most of them do not fit well in such a structure. The current recruit/ employee are looking to influence operational outcomes in their fields directly (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). However, hierarchical structures keeps experimenting with traditional forms of command and highly controlled organization structures dabbed ‘industry standard solutions’ that have worked in the past, forcing them onto the next generations. In 20 years to come, management structures in policing be more will be more of flatter structures than today’s, with the four fundamental policing levels from executive, management, supervisory (sergeants and supervisors of investigations, to workers (officers and investigators). The flatter structures will reduce communication barriers, encourage collective decision-making, and establish clear lines of responsibilities (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). The policing industry will emphasize on individual growth and will allow officers to thrive in specialty, to make policing an attractive profession than what it is currently, in a bid to maintain high caliber employees. Currently, minimum educational requirements for recruits into the police service are mostly a high school certificate diploma. With the many anticipated changes in policing, the educational requirement is bound to change to either a college diploma or a four-year degree, necessitated by the need to adapt to lofty societal expectations of competent leadership and legitimate procedural justice (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014).
Crime Mapping and Cyber-Policing Techniques
The police will be using crime-mapping technology made possible through use of real time data provided by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and crime analysis techniques. This will help determine the spatial distribution of criminal activity in relation to policing and other law enforcement activities. By use of crime mapping, it will be possible for the police to anticipate, recognize, and appraise crime risk at the initiation, allowing timely police intervention to reduce or stop it. The technology will be fundamental in hot spots policing to curb crime concentrated in small geographical areas. Cybercrime is a growing community threat that clearly needs to be addressed (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). The current policing are yet to fully position itself as the leader in the fight against cybercrime, with federal law enforcement and the private sector leading in the fight. In the near future, advancement in cyber policing will enable the police establish itself centrally in preventing and investigating these crimes. Such will include introduction of specialized cybercrime and social media investigative units by well-trained officers and detectives, undercover officers and detectives, increased collaboration with Internet service providers and social media owners and interaction with federal agencies.
Improved Crime Reporting and Emergency Response Systems
There will be a higher application of online crime reporting, dispatcher increase in emergency reporting and response, increased telephone crime reporting. There will be increased methods of listed service delivery. Vast network of cameras in cities and towns will assist law enforcement surveillance in monitoring and apprehending known and wanted criminals through advanced technologies in facial recognition, automated number plate recognition and GPS tracking. In addition, there will be increased social media application in policing. Social media will be used in communicating to public, public crime reporting, disseminating press releases, advertising recruitments, monitoring large social gatherings, and public mood, monitoring of community feedback to improve policing, for general and undercover investigations. Policing will implement the Public Safety Broadband Network that provides for increased radio spectrum with respect to safety of the public (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). The network will offer an exclusive platform for communication by law enforcement and emergency responders during emergencies and in addressing crime, thereby influencing decision-making, response, and quality of service offered.
Implementation of Strategic Partnerships to Increase Policing Capacity
Policing agencies will have increased partnership with other law enforcement and correction agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, private security companies, neighborhood associations, research institutions, religious groups and non-profit organizations. The partnerships will be fundamental in sharing of information to improve policing through such channels as interactive websites, meetings, radio channels, direct-line cell phones, real time crime centers, shared, shared closed circuit cameras, interactive crime mapping and joint police-private security training among others (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). Private security forces will play a broader role in policing. In addition, there are efforts underway aimed at finding ways for future police retirees to contribute to policing. When officers retire from their departments, most feel that they can no longer contribute to policing, yet there are ways in which this is possible. For instance, such officers have vast experience, which may be applied, in communication functions and solve cold cases on part time basis to assist the current detectives (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014).
Conclusion
Most of 20 th Century saw policing duties as responding to and investigating crimes with few technological improvements. In 20 years to come, policing will be a more proactive affair, fundamentally preventing crimes before they actually happen, thus reducing crime rates. This will be made possible by deployment of new strategies and technologies. These include community policing, crime mapping, intelligence-led policing, predictive analytics, hot spots policing, problem oriented policing, information sharing, strategic partnerships with community, private sector and the business community and through social media. Other strategies include automated gunshot detection and reporting systems, real-time monitoring, and revolutionized crime reporting systems. The consensus is that policing agencies will place more focus on data collection, real time intelligence gathering and crime analysis, with increased emphasis on community policing, enforcing immigration laws, increased coordination with other agencies amid the higher community expectations of trust and legitimacy. In effect, demands by individual members of the community, local business owners, and special-interest groups will influence policing strategies in an environment with effective performance appraisal of policing activities by both private and public agencies. However, the success of these strategies and developments will only work with the inclusion of federal law enforcement and judicial systems to ensure constitutionally protected civil and privacy rights are protected.
References
Police Executive Research Forum. (2014). Future Trends in Policing. Washington, D.C.: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
