Research Paper
Mark Jarnagan
Northern Arizona University
Abstract
This
paper studies community policing, and its effects on different communities
around the world. First is the history of community policing in America, then
the countries of Britain, Japan and Nicaragua will be addressed in their usage of
community policing. The affects will be discussed, and while there has been
some areas where community policing where it did not meet expectations it is
the stance of this paper that community policing models and strategies are
overall effective when it comes to lowering crime and restoring legitimacy to
the police.
Community Policing
I
Introduction
Community
Policing is gaining popularity across the globe as more police departments, stations,
precincts, and city governments are realizing the benefits to community
policing. One of the initial goals in community policing has been to legitimize
and restore the publics trust in the police. It has also been instrumental in
lowering crimes in the communities were these programs exist. “Police agencies
must help build stronger, more self-sufficient communities—communities in which
crime and disorder will not thrive” (BJA 1994) community policing is about
bringing the community together in an effort to deter and keep crime at bay. Not
all programs are equal and across the world community policing has been
instituted for a number of different reasons; like stopping home grown terror
attacks, or to help with rising numbers of homicides, or to help with
protecting neighborhoods, but they all have had similar effects regarding crime
and restoring trust in the police. Community
based policing is an effective strategy or set of strategies that combined
lower crime and help legitimize the police to the communities they are in.
II History of community policing
During
the 50’s and 60’s there was a lot of civil unrest with war protests, the hippy
movement and the Civil Rights movement- there were many clashes between the
people and the police. Crank (1994) suggests that the police were committing
some of the crime that they were supposed to be trying to stop. Reform in the system was needed and the idea
of Community policing was eventually formed. The idea was that by implementing
these programs it would help make the police look like an organization that was
actually fighting crime (Crank 1994). However, many of the programs at first
were not successful or not implemented in way to address the problems facing
the communities and the police. (McKee & Lewis 2016).
McKee and Lewis go on to state how the Community Policing as touted by
Presidents and Politicians was a “distraction from the real problem” (McKee
& Lewis 2016) and that is Accountability for the actions of the police.
President Obama made an executive order to look into these problems and find
solutions or strategies to help the issues of accountability, police brutality,
and crime in general (McKee & Lewis 2016). President Obama’s executive
order lead to the creation of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing “The task
force was created to strengthen community policing and trust among law
enforcement officers and the communities they serve (Ramsey & Robinson
2015). They came up with a number of
different plans and strategies which they compiled into 6 different pillars
that are recommendations for police departments to follow. Each pillar has a
series of recommendations for police to implement, for example pillar three is
the on the use of technology and social media, what follows is a list of
recommendations on how to acquire new technology and how to effectively and
ethically use social media in the community.
III Community Policing Programs
Police
departments across the globe have started using the community policing model
all in an effort to lower the crime rate and to legitimize the police. Although
the reasons for which such programs are started are different, the end results
are the same. Cooke-Scott says about the Halton, Ontario police that the public
is pushing for and demanding more police accountability (1998). In Japan 2003
the “Ministerial Conference on Measures against Crimes, which comprises all
cabinet members and is led by the Prime Minister” (Hiro
2018) met to discuss the growing crime problem there the citizens volunteer
to help patrol their communities and keep an eye on others As such in 2012
there were less then half the number of crimes reported in 2002- there were
over 2.85 million crimes reported that year (Hiro 2018). After the attacks on
the London underground, Britain started community policing in an effort to
watch out for and stop radicalized terrorists (Klausen
2009). Nicaragua has adopted a community policing model long before its
neighbors, believing that the police can work “from the community, for the
community and with the community” (McNeish et al., 2018). As one can see,
programs these started because of and for very different things, but in most
cases the communities have seen a large decline in the overall crime rate. And
as Crank noted, community policing is a result of the reform that was needed to
address the problem of legitimacy of the police (1994).
IV In the Current Environment, Community
Policing Is an Effective Policing Strategy
Although
there is a focus on police brutality, Community-Based policing has had a
positive effect on policing and police abuse is rare. The media tends to
cherry-pick and choose the worst cases to make a problem seem worse than it is.
For example, according to the FBI’s Unified Crime Report (UCR) violent crime
has been steadily decreasing. In 2000 there were approximately 1,425,486 cases
of reported violent crimes while in 2018 there were 1,206,836 reported crimes,
that is a drop of about 8% (FBI 2018). But the mass media would have people
believe that violent crimes are worse, and that everyday life can be cut short
due to the rampage of criminals. In recent years there has been a lot of media
coverage over the “police brutality” against people of color. There have been a
few instances where the action of the police was questionable, and at times
thought provoking and emotionally scaring. But those instances are not the
normal, they are the few cherry picked incidents
that get national attention McFarland, Taylor, and McFarland note how these
instances gave rise to groups like Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the “slayings”
of people of color by the police show how historically police have always
infringed on black people’s lives. Statistically speaking though, it is
debatable about the validity of the BLM’s claims. According to the Bureau of
Justice Statistics 4,813 people were counted as an arrest related death, with 42%
of persons being white, 32% were black, and 20% were Hispanic (Burch A. M.,
2011). And although these numbers do contradict the BLM’s claims, it is worth
noting that the Arrest Related Death survey was found to have incomplete data
and the survey was suspended in march of 2014 (BJS n.d.).
While
the Counter Terrorism approach of community policing in Britain has not
produced the intended results (Klausen 2009), Japan has had great success with
their community policing model. The Japanese homicide and theft rates are lower
than France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Hiro 2018). The Nicaraguan model of community policing
predates its neighboring countries and its model focuses on state-community
relations. This model guides not only the individual officers, but the entire
national police force and as such they have effectively “escaped the wave of
crime and insecurity suffered by its neighbors” (McNeisch et al., 2018). As noted earlier, the UCR states that violent
crimes have decreased in recent years in the United States, that could most
likely be due to the goals of community policing. Williams et al. explain that
social media strategies used by police departments are particularly effective
during crises (2018). Beshears notes that the usage of social media affects its
effectiveness, the more frequency of its use equates to more communication with
the public (2016) in other words, the more police departments use social media,
the more they can communicate with the public and help with their needs.
V Conclusion
Community
policing is the effort to not only help restore legitimacy in the police, but
also to help lower crime rates. While some communities had trouble Starting
their programs most have seen success. Police are being seen and treated as
respected authority figures and are helping community’s lower crime. In the
case of Britain, while their counter-terrorism approach to community policing
has not had the success they hoped for, it has had some positive effects on the
terrorism problem so it has had some success just not a lot (Klausen 2009). Nicaragua
has managed to not see the same rising crime rates its neighbors have (McNeisch
et al., 2018), And Japan has had one of the best results of community policing
and saw its number of violent crimes be cut in half over more than a decade. (Hiro
2018). By comparison the United states has not had the same success, but it has
seen some with the national violent crime rate dropping roughly 8% in the same
period (FBI 2018).
As
for the effects of police brutality against people of color, there needs to be
more complete data and more research. What was found is that of the reported
incidents, the arrest related deaths are statistically more White than not, but
the minority population is much smaller than the white majority and as such
absolute percentages of various crimes and deaths are misleading. Even though
that is the case, the facts are that community policing is effective. These
programs help drastically lower crime ad allow the police to build
relationships with the communities they are sworn to protect and serve. And
although some communities are not the resounding success others are, they still
have an overall effect on the crime rate and help to restore legitimacy to the
police. As the police are helping build relationships with community member
(face to face or virtually) the people can see what the police do and learn how
they protect communities. Cooke-Scott and McNeisch et al., both have stated in
their own way that Communities are the Police, and Police are the Communities-
meaning that the people watch and protect each other and help the police.
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