Community policing

[Rosyrain]

Community policing is a concept that is widely used where I live, and it is based off the principle that citizens and police should join together to prevent crime in communities. Do you have this where you live, and do you think it works to reduce crime?

 

[ally79]

Community policing definitely works to reduce crime but it can take time before you see the results. The officers in the community have to take the time to get to know the people in the community and give them time to trust them. Our community is making an effort to do this in some of the higher crime areas.

 

[Kittyworker]

I think the more people you have active in help solving a problem like crime the fewer people there are that are going to be out there perpetrating it. If you have an area where people are known to report the crimes they see than you are of course going to have less crime in that area. I don't think this reduces the total amount of crime, I think it simply moves it from one location to another. So does it work? Yes and No. It can help a community but it may hurt the others that the crime is shifted to.

 

[mrsbright]

I think a lot of people can let it get to their head, play hero and act like if they catch some minor crime, it makes them special. On this point, I'd say it'd be a nuisance. I think all the best to a community if it can prevent thieves and murders and rapes, but I'd think that even without the label of "community police", people should try to help with this.

I think that the energy could be much better employed making a community shelter, or a community learning center, or a community garden, or a community kitchen -- something that brings people together around productive peaceful things, rather than putting them on the lookout for each other like we would be in Communist East Germany. I mean, seriously. Normal people don't have the training to solve real crimes, just to make trouble for some harmless criminals smoking weed or gambling in a corner. Better have them helping each other out instead of condemning each other out.

 

[Rainman]

I once lived in a city where they had a vigilante group handling the community policing for them. The vigilantes were rather brutal. It was later disbanded by the town council but they operated as an illegal vigilante group anyway. But the community loved them anyway because no one would attempt to commit a crime knowing that they'd be facing people who unlike the cops, didn't have a code of ethics governing them. People who were way worse than the cops they knew. I'm against community policing for that reason. People have prejudices and can target those who they think are different whether they've committed a crime or not.

 

[missbishi]

We have community police here in the UK. To be honest, they are not very well respected as they don't have any powers of enforcement. I think their value lies in their visual presence - they wear a very similar uniform to the regular police so you wouldn't know they were community officers until you got right up to them.

Unfortunately, some of these officers do have a tendency to act like they are special, like mrsbrown describes.

 

[shilpa123]

I have never heard about this before. I believe that this is a major step to prevent crime and help people to become responsible. This can be a wonderful way to prevent crime if implemented in the right manner.

 

[bala]

I presume community policing would make the investigative process that the law enforcement must go through much easier. This form of policing is geared around having the police become more "closely associated" with the community. When the police are considered a friend of the community rather than a strict enforcer, the community is more willing to work with the cops to solve a community problem.

 

[Kamarsun1]

It does work to reduce crime and at one point in time the community could police themselves, we have fallen far away from that kind of unity. Now a days people live right next to each other and don't know any thing about each other. I think the overall crime would be lower if we had more community policing.

 

[bala]

It does work to reduce crime and at one point in time the community could police themselves, we have fallen far away from that kind of unity. Now a days people live right next to each other and don't know any thing about each other. I think the overall crime would be lower if we had more community policing.

Second that.That is the idea behind community policing and thanks for emphasising on the same.We have a system in here called BEAT policing where one cop takes care of a community and acts as a friend in needy times.
The cop in our area has been brilliant thus far and we probably are lucky to have him.

 

[tanker]

Community policing is a concept that is widely used where I live, and it is based off the principle that citizens and police should join together to prevent crime in communities. Do you have this where you live, and do you think it works to reduce crime?

Most crimes are not solved, because people do not go to the police when they see a crime. Or many times people are scared to witness. It makes people more aware of crime, and it helps prevent crime. This has been proven many times.