Mid-term Criminal Justice

Midterm Criminal Justice

Midterm Criminal Justice

Policing in the community - Discuss community policing and its intended impact on policing

Community policing represents an innovation in law enforcement as well as a major opportunity for law enforcement to make the dynamic switch from responding to crimes after they occur to actually being able to prevent crime . Simply put , what is referred to as community policing is the type of law enforcement whereby policing organizations develop close ties with the civilians in a given community , with the goal of working with those

civilians in to open lines of communication and encourage the local residents to share information with police and cooperate with them to actually prevent crime (Fielding , 1995

The intended impact on policing through community policing is multi-faceted . Of course , as was previously discussed , community policing models make crime prevention more prevalent , and allow police to fight crime rather than simply investigating crimes that have already taken place . Beyond this , there are direct benefits to police organizations themselves in a time when local budgets are stretched to the breaking point in many cases , the cooperation and assistance of the citizens makes police more effective and efficient without having to spend the money to increase police forces . Additionally , the visibility of police in the community improves the image of the police in the eyes of the citizens , possibly positively influencing young people , thereby keeping them away from criminal behavior . Lastly , in an age where terrorism is a possibility in any community...