SLIDE 8: COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING AS ETHICAL PRACTICE
The recent history of policing in America has enjoyed the influx of the ideas centered around community as a central tenet of security and security operations, particularly in the field. Naturally, operators who are assigned to the field develop some community awareness and a sense of diplomacy as a means of simple survival and sustainability. But, organizationally, the concepts included in the federal program called “COPS” and other similar and related programs are key and essential undertones of the policing industry’s evolution.
However, that said, the programs meet with mixed support and success right along. Why? The excellent scholarly piece below looks into the seeming resistance, stubborn interference, and/or opposition to community policing that may be centered in its philosophical and somewhat abstract composition which does not lend itself to evidence-based measurement. In the research piece below, attitudes of police stakeholders are examined and leveraged by predictive analyses as well. An outcome is found that local and specific objectives may not coincide perfectly with global intentions. Also, however, the research found that the attitudes of the stakeholder police population can be measured effectively. This portends that the effectiveness of the programs may be enhanced by understanding what kind of perceptive interference may be encountered ahead of time.
https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/13639510210450622\
Thurman, Zhao, & Giacomazzi (2002) offered additional insight into the same subject of internal and/or institutional resistance from the view of partnering and reinvention. Changes within the institutionalized processes are reflected as keys. Such implementations of change within traditional aspects of policing include reform of the recruiting and the selection processes, the initial and ongoing training, the management procedures and methods, and determination of tools that can measure success in terms of community orientation in policing. This article includes actual peace officer reflections as critical insights.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=186122
The contemporary situation is one that requires amazing balance and fortitude for the policing and safety industry must reform to actualize a greater alliance and partnership with the population and people it serves. The industry, its leaders, and all of its stakeholders must embrace change in a positive way and engage outcomes continuously as a Team. This is an obvious lesson for the private patrol agent and patrol agency who also may have a less stubborn a set of traditions to overcome and thus may become more and more community friendly in multiple ways potentially much faster!
