Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving (COPPS) movement requires a change in the culture, the organizational structure, and the culture of the police agency. The community needs to come up with new skills and knowledge in addition to refining abilities, aspects that pose a challenge to those involved in the education and training of these officers. This training is very important in successfully implementation of COPPS since it requires that every employee both inside and outside the agency and the police department to be trained.
According to Malcom Knowles theory of andragogy, for adult training to be successful, there are certain conditions for adult learning that should be kept in mind such as: giving them the relevant material, making them partners in the educational plans, and make the learning problem centered instead of content oriented. This theory appreciates adults as self-directed people who should be left free to direct themselves through class participation. Millennials are also seen to be unresponsive to lecture centered only learning and prefer use of engaging class activities, incorporation of technology in learning and teamwork. Problem based learning for adults and especially in COPPS training enables the participants to improve their problem solving skills, help them to think critically, and engage in teamwork activities. Additionally, problem based learning makes participant learn how to deal with the real-world problems and situations. Problem based learning further gives students more responsibilities which motivates them to do better once they accomplish them.
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There are four ways through which police officers can be trained; through a recruit academy, field training, roll-call training, and in-service training. The recruit academy is for newly hired police officers where they develop their police mindset. At the academy, police officers are given a comprehensive training through two elements of COPPS which include problem solving, and community engagement. After the police leave the academy, they them join the field training program where there are taught how to transition from the academy to the streets under a veteran officer. During the in-service training, police officers get to share their real life experiences when they applied COPPS in real situations. Roll call training involves the few minutes before a field operation/duty when supervisors call the junior officers to prepare them for the patrol task, inform them of new techniques and ideas to be used. In addition to these four methods, police officers can also be trained by use of technology. With technology, officers are able to receive training though the internet without having to necessarily put pressure on their professional and personal lives.
When determining what training needs are to be addressed, a trainer has to come up with a needs assessment so that he can get information about the officers. When developing a COPPS curriculum, it is important to determine the trainees to be involved, conduct task analysis, develop performance measures through which trainees will be evaluated, address needs in the already existing causes, and select an appropriate environment where the training will take place. There are a number of contents that can be incorporated when developing a curricular. One of them is the evolution policing. This includes telling the history of how policing has developed and evolved over time so as to understand where it has come from. Secondly, trainees must be taught how to engage with the community. This will help them to know how best to collaborate with the community when solving problems and understand their culture.
The third content is training them on diversity. The society is pretty much diverse nowadays and the COPPS training should appreciate and incorporate this aspect in their training. Problem solving learning should also be incorporated alongside case studies where officers are taught the basic information on how to resolve conflicts and how real life situations are dealt with.
Police in a Diverse Society
The meaning of diversity has changed with time. It not only encompass gender, race, and ethnicity, but also culture, religion, age, and sexual orientation. It is more of individual differences than it is group differences and the police have the mandate to serve all these people inclusively and equally. Lately, police have had problems in this aspect as the population has become more diverse with the immigrants issue and other social problems within the citizens. Minority police officers encountered racial outbursts between 1960 and 1970 especially in Detroit, Harlem and Watts involving killing, property damage and injuring of African Americans. There is also a perception that police officers mistreat the minority groups which sometimes raises tensions especially when a minority is shot dead by a police officer. This bias-based profiling has made the police be despised by some communities.
Police executives are also encourages to be tough on perpetrators of hate crimes as well as taking a leadership role in the society against hate crimes. The federal office in charge of COPPS has invested money with an overall goal of helping police agencies to strengthen their programs and build trust with their respective communities on issues to do with racial profiling. Police departments have come up with community programs to help address racial problems and bring unity among diverse members of the community. The LAPD for instance developed six community forums with the help of the community to help them promote community policing that will enhance trust, cooperation, respect, and partnership. The forums include; the black forum, Hispanic forum, religious forum, youth forum, Asian forum, gay/lesbian forum, and the Hispanic forum.
Through the COPPS philosophy, the community and the police are able to address complex issues such as racial profiling which most people prefer not to discuss as it may offend someone else. By doing so, COPPS helps to foster partnership between the police and the community based on understanding, trust, and communication.
Chapter 11-12
COPPS on Drugs, Gangs, and Youth Crimes
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, one in every eight arrests is for drug violation which highlights the grave drug problem in the United States. Drug abuse causes undesirable problems to the environment, youths, and adults. People on drugs are also more likely to commit crimes. The annual budget for fighting the drug problem in the United States is significant. Methamphetamine commonly referred to as crack, a drug developed in laboratories in remote areas is increasing in the market. Its negative effects are addiction, brain damage, and psychotic behavior episodes. Various police departments have taken steps to fight this drug in the United States. The Oklahoma City police department increased their training on the effects of the drugs for its officers as well as partnering with drug courts. Police in the city engaged in undercover buying of drugs so as to catch the offenders. Little Rock Arkansas also increased training for their officers regarding identification of meth and how to respond.
Clandestine drug labs pose a problem to the policing units. Meth alone accounts for 80 percent of the labs’ production. Dealing with these clandestine labs requires officers to have high technical training and expertise. People mandated to respond towards this problem need to have the know how on how the drug labs works and the chemistry behind the production. They also need to know how to neutralize the risks that come with the clandestine production such as fires, explosions, burns, and fires and how to dispose these hazardous waste in a proper manner that will not be harmful to people and the environment around. They also need to be well versed with the federal, local, and state laws on drugs manufacturing and distribution of drugs. The police response when cleaning the drug labs involves more than just finding where the lab is and seizing the lab equipment.
There are also open-air drug markets. They represent the low level of the distribution network of the drugs. These open-air markets pose a risk to market participants and the entire community. With these markets, buyers know exactly where to go so that they can purchase the drugs they want and can weigh the price being asked for against the quality of drug that they are getting. Open air markets also pose a problem to the society since they cause traffic congestion, loitering, robbery to get drug money, prostitution, and theft. For the police, arresting the buyers does not solve the drug problem as it does little to reduce the market size and the amount of drugs available for consumption. To help eradicate this problem, police enforce the law intensively, carry out foot patrol, use intelligence report, and arresting buyers of the drugs.
Pharming parties have become rampant in the United States. These are dance parties which involve fast paced music and raves. Participants use drugs at these raves to improve their energy and sensation so that they can be able to party and dance for longer periods at a time. The Columbia University’s Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse found out that prescription drug abuse had increased significantly. Teens are mostly affected as they become easily addicted to some painkillers such as Vicodin and antianxiety drugs such as Xanax and valium. COPPS in the case of drug use helps to supplement the traditional methods of arrest by having short term response mechanisms.
Gangs pose a significant problem and provide damaging effect in the community. They engage in drug sales, car thefts, violence and firearm transactions, and homicides. COPPS attempts to solve this problem by doing a problem analysis of the street gangs. This helps in understanding the gang landscape which helps in a successful response strategy. COOPS provide a range of activities when dealing with gang menace which includes prevention of the problem, carrying out an intervention, suppression and later carrying out a comprehensive strategy.
Identity theft is also one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States. Identity theft occurs when a person steals information from another person. Police are encourages to use some specific response when dealing with identity theft such as educating people on how to protect their personal information, collaborate with government institutions in protecting private information of persons, and helping to track delivery of personal documents. Other problems in the society that the police have to deal with include homelessness, domestic violence, mentally ill, neighborhood disorder, domestic violence, and prostitution. With the development of technology, internet crimes also developed as people discovered new ways to entertain themselves, shop online, and conduct business. Crimes such as cyberbullying, card theft, and pornography have increased over the years. These crimes cannot rely on traditional methods of solving crimes. They require new techniques to be implemented in order to solve these problems.
All these crimes compel the relevant authorities to develop new methods and specialized techniques during police training so that they can be able to deal with various crimes that require specialized techniques such as internet crimes. The crimes further compel the authorities to employ persons with technical backgrounds to work in conjunction with the police department to help them in solving crimes. Criminals are getting smarter in the techniques that they use while committing crimes and with this, the police need to be better equipped and better trained. Social networking sites are also become some of the dangerous sites as criminals are using them to commit crimes. These sites also provide information to the police on the character of the person they are looking for.
