Community Oriented Policing Essay

Community oriented policing is a shared program being instituted in more and more police departments and communities across the nation. The responsibilities of the citizens of the community and the patrolling officers are linked together to create a healthy relationship between the two and to have a safe community. This type of policing also allows officers to use more useful tactics to control crime and at the same time engage the people. The thought behind this shared program is to get the citizen involved in the community and develop the relationship between neighbors and the police. More than likely if there is a problem in the neighborhood the people living there will probably know more about it in detail. This will help assist investigations will more of a …show more content…
The people are able to believe in the overall goals of the police department and how they function. Shared knowledge and skills between the people and the police. The people and the police are able to target root causes with crime and the police are better able to help with issues in the neighborhood.
The weaknesses of community oriented policing are that it may take away from being able to respond to service for other calls and it does take away from traditional policing. Some patrolling police may see community policing as a burden and involves the people too much creating additional stressors. Additional training is needed for the officers and people, inadequate training for principles and strategies. Some communities may be divided and or unaware of the activities that other citizen and patrolling officers are participating in.
The overall issues of crime were reduced; however, it was not done with just community oriented policing. COP helped to developed some new strategies such as Problem oriented policing, Compstat and intelligence led