vendredi 4 janvier 2019

Pillars Of Effective Community Policing Programs

By Brenda Thompson


Community policing is viewed as a security revolution. It has melted tension between police and communities and enabled them to keep neighborhoods orderly. However, one does not wake up one day and roll out a program. There are tenets that effective community policing programs must meet. These pillars have been under research and are ascertained to make the law enforcement easier.

Trust is the glue that enables police and ordinary people to work together. A person believes that his or her issue will be addressed once it is reported to the police. Police stop treating people with suspicion leading to altercations. People trust the police with information that would otherwise endanger their lives. Police also trust that the information passed to them by members of the public will be credible and help them maintain law and order.

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.

Police should make it a priority to engage people in the neighborhood while people also engage police on their concerns. Issues should not be allowed to blow out of proportion as those police are non-existent. Police do not appear as lords or the people. In reverse, people do not view police as peers because they have a responsibility. It is mutual engagement that will ensure that the dignity of both people and police institution is preserved.

Peaceful co-existence between people and police is enhanced through intense training and awareness creation. The aim is to make people understand the role of police officers and police to be cognizant of expectations from citizens. Awareness of boundaries and the responsibilities that come with these boundaries helps to de-escalate issues since everyone is aware of his or her place.

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 basics of effective community policing initiative are to address local social issues. It is the responsibility of people and the police to actualize these programs for mutual benefit. When each of these entities plays his or her role effectively, neighborhoods become safer and police officers enjoy their work.




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