Buy essay on Community based policing

Community based policing is an important police strategy imposed to create a better relationship between the police and the community.
This paper describes the community based policing (CBP), gives the definition, explains how and why people need and use it. The work gives a detailed explanation of main CBP’s features. It also depicts its components and benefits which society obtains from this police-community cooperation. Fundamental principles the same as the importance and the role of CBP in modern society are also observed.

Table of Contents:

1. Community based policing and its features.
2. Community based policing components and its benefits.
3. Fundamental principles of community based policing.
4. Community-based policing: more than just law and order.
Community based policing and its features.
Community policing is probably the most misunderstood and often abused topic in police management during the past years. During the last few years, it has become popular for police agencies to create community policing, and very often with little understanding of what that phrase really means. It is true, that any kind of organizational tinkering has been called community policing. But in fact, community policing is not really a program (Mani 2002).
Instead, community based policing is an important system which allows the police department, in which the main organizational goal is to work in cooperation with individuals, groups of citizens, and organizations in order to identify and resolve the issues which can effect the livability of some specific neighborhoods, areas, or the whole city. The departments of community based police understand that the police can’t effectively cope with such issues alone, and should partner with others who share the same responsibility for solving these problems. Community based policing helps the prevention, early identification, and necessary intervention in time to deal with issues before they become serious problems. Thus, the individual officers try to act as general-purpose practitioners, bringing government and private resources in order to achieve positive results. Officers spend considerable time and effort for developing personal relationships with citizens, businesses, different schools, and various community organizations. The main features of community policing are: beyond crime fighting a focus on livability, citizen involvement, geographic responsibility, long-term assignment, decentralized decision making, participative management, generalist officers, and police leadership on community issues, proactive policing and other (Kelling 1997).
Here is a description of some features of community based policing.
Beyond crime fighting a focus on livability. Many police departments and police officers determine their role as crime control. The law enforcement agency plays the main rile in it. But policing is certainly more than law enforcement. A big quantity of studies have proved that working with crime cases takes only 10-20% of the police workload. So, the officers of community based police departments are aware that “crook-catching” is only a small part of their work, and that they deal with a lot of other issues and problems every day. Officers know that resolving problems with unruly people, who are drinking in the public place, trying to decrease truancy at school, controlling resources in order to make lighting in a park, and taking away needless vehicles from the streets, may all be the cases of police work, which affect the neighborhood conditions of life. This is the essence of the officers` work.
Citizen Involvement. The police department tries to involve citizens in its operations actively in different ways. Such volunteers as college interns or retired seniors are widely used. Police encourages and welcomes citizen patrols and crime prevention initiatives of people. The meetings of area commanders and members of the public are held often in order to solicit input and feedback. A lot of internal committees need public participation. The policy decisions usually involve opportunities for input from citizens, so the department has formal and informal mechanisms for this purpose. Citizens are included in promotional boards. The police departments use any opportunities to tell the public about their work, such as: web sites, town hall meetings, publications in newspapers and television and citizen police academies (Skolnick 1999).
Geographic Responsibility. The basic division of work for the police is geographical. Officers have the work shift or functional division also. Commanders are divided according the geographical principle and are allowed to use their personnel and resources within that region. Individual officers take care of smaller geographical areas and feel like owning that area. Usually officers are familiar with a lot of citizens who live and work in that area, and know the area’s geography, churches, businesses and schools. The officers find detailed information about different police incidents which happened in their area of assignment when they didn’t work.
Long-term Assignment. Usually officers work for a long time in the same geographical area. The preferences of officers for areas are considered while making assignments. The changes of geographical assignments happen very rare.
Participative Management. The police department uses a lot of methods in order to involve employees at all levels of decision-making process. Issues of internal management are discussed at staff meetings, task forces, committees, task forces, quality circles, and so on. There are a lot of workplace initiatives that begin with ideas or concepts of line employees. Receiving input from frontline employees is understood as necessary part of any policy decision. There are comparatively few levels of rank in the department. Supervisors` roles are to provide support to field personnel by teaching, solving problems, coaching, obtaining resources, and doing other functions (Haberman 1997).
Generalist Officers. There is a domination of field officers to the sworn work force. Officers work with huge amount of police incidents, and follow them from beginning to the end. Specialization is only in the areas where it is necessary to have considerable expertise. Even when specialists are involved, they work in cooperation with field officers. Most specialists see their duty in offering technical expertise and help to field personnel.
Police Leadership on Community Issues. Senior police workers take an active part in community affairs. They often find out and discuss the issues of community concern. Police managers often pursue community issues as their personal causes. It is common for police officers to be leaders in community organizations (Dietz 1997).