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POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS.   Term Paper ID:25873 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Evolution of relations since 1960s riots, focusing on development of community policing. Definition, objectives, citizen involvement, crime prevention, case study, citizen complaints.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Evolution of relations since 1960s riots, focusing on development of community policing. Definition, objectives, citizen involvement, crime prevention, case study, citizen complaints. Paper Introduction: Introduction Perhaps the most cogent definition of "law enforcement" was contained in Sir Robert Peel's assessment of the role police play in society. In 1829, Peel penned nine main principles he believed applied to "modern" policing. His seventh principle states: The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interest of community of welfare (Worsnop, 1993, p. 107). The law enforcement community is still very aware of its need to engage in public relations. However, in almost all Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. R. H. 85-86). 1 57).Bonnie Bucqueroux (1995) responds, "How sad if community policing ends uptagged as a failure without receiving a fair trial on its own merits" (p.1 57). "The idea is that police departments will become more effectivenot by increasing their numbers but by extending their reach intocommunities" (Kaminer, 1994, p. Such fine words have profound implications for a society some woulddismiss as "going to Hell in a handbasket." References Benjamin, P. (1995, November 24). As an organizationalphilosophy, it promotes a set of values and corresponding procedures thatform the basis for police-community interaction to solve problems"(Bennett, 1995, p. Advocates of community policing stress that it is not simply a new program or strategy but a transformative new philosophy--what a New Age cop might call a paradigm shift (p. They also enable government employeesto establish personal relationships with community members" (Bennett, 1995,p.3). Gilmore had become deeply involved inthe life of the community . Early programs took on a variety of formsand formats, including citizen ride-along opportunities with patrolofficers, putting officers back on foot patrols in neighborhood "beats,"and school-based programs such as D.A.R.E. "The policeare the people, and the people are the police," Peel asserted, establishinga form of law enforcement which was proactive rather than reactive byplacing the emphasis on crime prevention (Worsnop, 1993, p. New York, pp. 11).Changes in Policy Emphasis "Community policing" has become the both the most talked about andmost implemented public relations tool in police work across the country inthe 199 s. Community policing also provides "the best method for beingresponsive to and involved in the community. 111-12 . Most surprising, however, was the fact that individual attitudestoward the shortcomings and benefits of community policing could becorrelated, with a high degree of probability, to officers' perceptions oftheir "community role orientations." That is, the greatest concern among all officers--regardless of ethnicity, gender, or length of experience--was the potential loss of traditional police "power" (e.g., control and authority) as the result of moving closer to citizens. Brown also asserts that "Community policing is tougher on crime thantraditional policing because its smarter. . (1997, May 19). . Lasley's findings proved to be quite interesting. Kaminer, W. As Ronald Hampton, executivedirector of the National Black Police Association, has remarked, "Somerecruits expect to come here and be Dirty Harry or Don Johnson. 43). The AtlanticMonthly, pp. 1 ). Carter writes: While the vast majority of white Americans viewed police officers as protectors, residents of minority communities held a far different view. 112). Lasley, J. Although it is mostlyblack and Hispanic, the police presence there is 5 percent white, 39percent Hispanic, and just 9 percent black (p. The long-standing interpersonal gaps between the public and thepolice are being closed through police and governmental efforts "toestablish a new 'professional' model of policing that relies heavily oneffective community relations (Lasley, 1994, p.85).Case study In the end, however, no matter how well-intentioned any model ofchange may be, its success is almost totally dependent on "the willingnessand ability of police officers to formulate lasting personal bonds withthe public" (Lasley, 1994, pp. The law enforcement community is still very aware of its need toengage in public relations. . 1 57. Finding out what attitudesare prevalent within a police department are far more important thanfiguring out how many more women, blacks, hispanics, or Asians to hire! 4). As both the police and individuals, families, neighbors, businesses,churches, schools, and organizations begin to accept the challenge thatjoint responsibility presents, a sense of empowerment to solve localproblems usually emerges. . 9-A. Contemporary police culture has been, for the most part, grounded in the belief that a powerful image (especially that of a physical nature) is necessary to gain public respect and cooperation. . The survey was given, as a matter of coincidence, after the RodneyKing incident and before the riots which followed the acquittal of theofficers involved. However, the survey revealed that therewere no "unique relationships between police officer ethnicity and genderand police-community attitudes." Further, gender and ethnicity alonefailed to predict "the extent to which police officers will favor or opposecloser contact with citizens. were pointedprovided a number of fresh insights by which some common beliefs about therelationship between gender and ethnicity and police-community relationscould be dispelled. 95). 39). CQResearcher, pp. By his personal devotion to the community, Gilmore found himself therecipient of much unsolicited information on criminal activity, one of thechief goals of a community policing strategy. (1996, Summer). 42-45, 84) details the shooting death of a 16-year-oldwho was the third black or Hispanic to be fatally shot by police in NewYork in less than a month in early-1997. 88). For example,Benjamin (1997, pp. Secondly, officers tended tomaintain some unique concerns about increased public contact, and certainof these were more influential than others in shaping "favorable outlooks"toward the adoption and implementation of new community policing roles(Lasley, 1994, p. Community policing does not rely on simply increasing the size of theforce. Police agencies struggle torebuild ties with minorities. Such substations have been very effective in ethnic communitieswhere language and cultural barriers exist. Bennett, B. 44). The conclusions to which Lasley and the L.A.P.D. 4). [helping them] prevent crime in the first place" (Worsnop, 1993, p.99). A. The issue of police-community relations continues to pose seriousquestions for thought. He hounded drug dealers, andreceived a dozen citations from the police department and civic groupsalike, for his two-year investigation of "the Jheri Kurl Gang, one of themost murderous drug posses ever to set up shop in New York, that eventuallyled to the gang's demise in 1991" (p. 1-6. Incorporating diversity: Policeresponse to multicultural changes in their communities. Crime and community. Current strategies in police-community relations have been shaped, inlarge part, by the breakdown of "professional policing" in the wake ofincidents such as the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1991, and theturbulent times of civil, social, and political unrest in the 196 s and197 s. L. . (1995, December). In January 1992, James Lasley, of California State University,Fullerton, surveyed 2,8 members of the Los Angeles Police Department inorder to examine "the relationship between police office ethnicity andgender and attitudes toward police-public interpersonal relations" (Lasley,1994, p. To test his hypothesis that police officer attitudes toward thepublic are shaped more by the occupational environment rather than a resultof an officer's demographic background, Lasley used the Los Angeles PoliceDepartment because it had aggressively begun to implement a Federaldistrict court consent decree designed to increase the recruitment andpromotions of women and minorities in the department (Lasley, 1994, p.87). Kaminer goes on to state that, "A change to community policing is notnecessarily supposed to result in more arrests, since its focus is onprevention" (p. 112). This finding was equally true forinexperienced as well as experienced officers" (1994, p. 45).Conclusions and Recommendations It all comes down to the fundamental philosophical change required bythe new paradigm in community policing. However, arrest rates are still the standard bywhich police effectiveness is measured, and that is probably not going tochange anytime soon. Ronnie Carter,now a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,remembers growing up as a black youth in the 196 s and 197 s "who fearedthe police" (Carter, 1995, p. Complaining that the police department was isolating itself from thecommunity, residents of the "Sugar Hill" neighborhood in the WashingtonHeights area of New York told department representatives that they felt thepolice "ignored the advice of neighborhood leaders, and reassigned the fewcops who had won the community's respect" (p. (1993, February 5). Howcan polarities in thinking be brought to the table and resolved? According to Mariani (1996),police officers "can offer an especially clear vision of peacemaking. 85). (1995, December). Lasley's study utilized "2 independent predictors of police-community contact attitudes, three demographic controls, and a generaldependent measure of officer's attitudes toward their role with communitymembers" (Lasley, 1994, p. (Toelke, 1995, p. 1 7). Professor Richard Moran (1995) believes the benefits ofcommunity policing have been oversold. 7-9. The participants were patrol officers or patrolsupervisors, and represented nearly 8 percent of the department's patrolforce (Lasley, 1994, p. Social Science Quarterly, pp. The Dallas Morning News, p. 44). Worsnop, R. Through a proactive campaign to involve localcitizens, community policing can often reverse the notion that "the policehave the sole responsibility for maintaining public order, recognizinginstead that the community at large is responsible for the conditions thatgenerate crime" (Bennett, 195, p. AsKaminer (1994) maintains, community policing requires teaching critical-thinking skills to people who have been traditionally thought to play by the book. 1 4). Carter, R. The goal ofeffective community relations programs is to bring the public to a betterunderstanding of the problems both the police and the community face withregard to crime and public safety issues. . Residents suspect thatGilmore's relentless "war" against the drug trade made him unpopular with"colleagues who were taking payoffs from dealers" and ultimately led to histransfer (p. Eighty-five percent of police work is not that. 114).Police-Community Relations and Reorganization In the aftermath of the inner city riots of 1965 and 1966 in LosAngeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, and elsewhere in the United States, manypolice agencies saw the need to develop and implement specific police-community relations programs. Introduction Perhaps the most cogent definition of "law enforcement" was containedin Sir Robert Peel's assessment of the role police play in society. One of the chief complaints lodged against the police was theunexplained reassignment of James Gilmore, a black, from his patrol job inSugar Hill to a desk in the Bronx. Instead, it seeks to increase community involvement in crimecontrol. 99). Attheir best . Mediators. Community policing. 95). FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, pp. 1 -11. Noting that the relationship between society and the policeis "clearly in transition," the researcher asserted that "growing numbersof police officers are rejecting the traditional notion that physical andemotional barriers between themselves and citizens are the essence of'professional' policing" (p. 14). The average police officer in America is never going to draw his gun in his entire career" (Kaminer, 1994, p. From the earliest days of the legendary "Peelers" in nineteenth-century London to the present, the police have often struggled with acomplete understanding of their role in society. 42-45, 84. 44). Even so, when the chance for making peace has passed, the officeris permitted to let the law enforcement role take over. To this end, Maddoxobserves, "Education and community-wide programs are essential if publicperception of police service is to change. [they] turn argument to agreement, crisis to calm, andanger to acceptance" (p. Toelke, G. His seventh principle states: The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interest of community of welfare (Worsnop, 1993, p. The modern philosophy behind community policing has its roots in theprinciples espoused by Sir Robert Peel nearly 17 years ago. A positive impact of police-community relations as a result of theformation of police-citizen partnerships has been observed in thealleviation of fears associated with personal and property victimization,apathy toward crime prevention, and distrust of police (Lasley, 1994, p.85). And Lee P. 9-A). What does the community expect from its police? (1995, November 24). because he or she will get more information"(p. 115). A poll taken in 1991 by the Dallas Morning News reported that "over8 percent of black respondents believed that the police administer justiceunequally" (Johnson, 1991, p. Hence, an officer's successful adaptation to a community-based policing program will depend largely on replacing the traditional police concept of power with one that enhances the officer's power vis-à-vis citizen involvement (1994, pp.95-96). [His] time in Sugar Hill was spent notjust making collars but getting to know how the neighborhood worked, whichkids were trouble and which weren't. But the "most critical finding of all," according to Lasley, was: police officers' concerns over loss of traditional police "power" when required to work as community advocates. As indicatedabove, it was thought that women and minorities would be more sensitive tothe concept of community policing. B. Occupational OutlookQuarterly, pp. Community sensitivity. Bucqueroux, B. Sugar hill blues. Specifically, he asks, "Does anyoneseriously think that a cop . 14).Because of this, many black citizens and other minorities maintain adistrust of both the police and the criminal justice system (Carter, 1995,p 15). Mariani, M. R. As law enforcement personnel,we must present what we are, as well as how and why we do what we do, tothe public as often as possible" (p. Many at the meeting argued that KevinCedeno would not have been shot had Gilmore remained at the 33rd Precinct(p. Improving minority relations. What do police expect from the community in returnfor their efforts? 1 57. 11). Simply that attitudes toward the successfulimplementation of any community policing strategy are based more on anofficer's "individual patrol experiences and occupational subcultureinfluences" than on either ethnicity or gender. Brown, who introduced community policing to Houston andNew York, contends, "Community policing gives individual police officers achance to be more creative and independent in their approach to police work. What does this mean? Because I had only negative contacts with police officers, I believes that they did not represent our part of the community (p. (1994, May). 95). 114).Still another part of the problem, according to Hampton, is that somerecruits who enter the police academy with that sense of an ethic ofservice often leave with "a taste for authority, which they find easier tosatisfy by policing racial minorities" (Kaminer, 1994, p. 85-97. (1994, March). The attitude items were developed incooperation with a number of "focus groups" comprised of police officersfrom both patrol and administrative activities. 44).The community's perception had been positively affected by this popularpoliceman during his nearly seven-year assignment there. Citizen attitudes toward the police, on the other hand, can be shapedby the kind of officers assigned to community policing. 7). Have the benefits of communitypolicing been oversold: Yes. However, in almost all agencies, the use ofthe phrase "public relations" is supplanted by the term "communityrelations." As it applies to law enforcement, community relations isthought of as the proactive (as opposed to reactive) involvement of thepolice department in the life of the community it serves. . 44). 89). FBILaw Enforcement Bulletin, pp. Have the benefits of communitypolicing been oversold: No. But not all sides agree that community policing is achieving itsobjectives, and some speculate that it, too, will vanish from thelandscape. Johnson, J. 14-17. can do anything about the powerful social,economic, and cultural forces that shape our inner cities?" (p. (1995, December). 4). 99-114.----------------------- 15 (1993, February). 86). The objective of most police-community relations programs is to raiseboth officer and citizen awareness levels so that there is a greatersensitivity to the values, problems, and threats--both real and perceived--that each group possesses (Maddox, 1993, p. But police officers do not achieve thissimply by carrying a gun and a baton; instead, they are successful whenthey possess self-discipline and respect for other people (p. FBI LawEnforcement Bulletin, pp. CQ Researcher, p. Maddox, J. We need toshift from a spirit of adventure to a spirit of service" (Kaminer, 1994, p.114). (1991, December 16). Students for justice: Teachingyoung people about the justice system. Those departments committed to the "community policingstrategies offer cops more opportunities to resolve disputes informally"(p. Conversely, the greatest attribute of closer citizen contact evidenced here was the potential for improved police- community relations (Lasley, 1994, p. Although these programs are being implemented in any of anumber of different forms, they all have a common goal to get "communities,the media, police departments, and minority groups [to] work together tomaintain a policy that provides for a peaceful, cohesive environment"(Maddox, 1993, p. Many police departments haveattempted to implement such changes by hiring a greater percentage of womenand minorities, although, as Lasley notes, the hiring policies are based onunconfirmed assumptions that women are less likely to effect and arrest orengage in official encounters with the public, or that minorities will"adapt more readily to community-oriented policing" (1994, p. A good community police officerwill make more arrests . . First, the diversification of the police force byadding more women and minorities would not achieve the objective ofheightened sensitivity toward the public. "Only by listening to and working with communitymembers can the police determine what needs to be done, and how best to doit" (Bennett, 1995, p. Mariani also contends that while the amount of "peacemaking" done bypatrol officers varies, it is influenced by the individual policedepartment. R. FBI LawEnforcement Bulletin, pp. . In1829, Peel penned nine main principles he believed applied to "modern"policing. 38-47. CQ Researcher, p. Much of the tension which continues to exist between the police andthe public today is still racially- or ethnically-based. Who arethe real benefactors of community policing--the police, the community,both, or neither? Even in the 199 s, the public's image of policing is still beingshaped by the entertainment industry. Or as former New York Police Commissioner William Bratton indicated, there is resistance from the 'old guard,' who fear losing authority and control as police departments are decentralized, and there is resistance from recruits, "who come in expecting to chase people and do shoot-ups. Ethnicity, gender, and police-community attitudes. . One of the most effective types of community policing programs hasbeen the installation of small, store-front substations--frequentlyincluding other city agencies--which "provide citizens the opportunity toaccess needed government services. Moran, R. 85). And the communitysupports the action. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.