Thursday, January 10, 2019

Basics Of Effective Community Policing Programs

By Brenda Thompson


Community policing has been applauded for enhancing security in neighborhoods and reducing tensions between law enforcers and ordinary citizens. Its effectiveness depends on how well it is planned and organized in a particular neighborhood. Effective Community Policing Programs should ensure that they meet the following, among other conditions that have been deeply researched and ascertained to deliver results.

Trust is the foundation of any program involving law enforcers and communities they work in. Police are yet to be regarded as social partners. They are still viewed as persons searching for trouble even where there is none. Without trust, people will withhold information. Lack of trust makes police to regard every situation as suspicious. This is why small issues escalate into national debates. The program should find a way of enhancing trust between police and ordinary people.

Align the policies of your program with values of your community. Each neighborhood is unique. It values certain routines and levels of engagement. Officials should help officers understand local cultures and traditional values. Police should know issues to intervene and those that are solved locally. This knowledge helps them to understand a neighborhood better. However, these values should not violate national norms or be too extreme that they endanger the lives of other people.

Technology should form part of an effective program today. People should be allowed to call police and report incidences. Police should be ready to use body cameras to record incidences in order to enhance trust and transparency. Recorded videos should be admissible as evidence with a particular threshold. Technology makes everyone a partner in enhancing civility in the society.

Priority needs to be given to engagement with the people in the area. Engagement helps law enforcement officers to appear like ordinary members of the area. They will not be regarded as any superior or inferior. Police and other law enforcers also begin to see residents as part of their lives. This creates a great deal of cohesion and builds a society of shared values. The dignity of all members of this neighborhood will be preserved.

Training and awareness creation should be a priority. People need to understand the role of police, their procedures and areas where they will have to intervene. Police in return need to be conscious of rights of citizens and responsibilities of law enforcers over the neighborhoods they serve. Such training simplifies problem solving and makes it easier to de-escalate issues since each party is aware of the place of the other.

While police are integrated into the society and its programs, they should be accorded the dignity they deserve. Do not put them at risk through injuries or make false alarms. While you are supposed to regard each other with mutual respect, there is a level where the policeman has the final say. This policeman is not answerable to the people but to law and his superiors.

The best community policing initiatives are designed to address local problems. Each program should pay attention to issues that bother the local community. Police and citizenry must exercise responsibility for any program to succeed.




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