Community Oriented Policing

There is a need for some communities to rely on the traditional police organizations due to the existence of high-end, or serious, criminal activity which must be controlled by a directive enforcement of the laws governing any criminal activity or behavior. Today, there is a higher need for law enforcement agencies to become a more community-oriented police force to further develop a healthy relationship with their communities on prevention of the low-end, or minor, criminal activities or behavior. This adjustment with community-oriented policing also allows the law enforcement agencies to focus their primary attention to the more serious infractions of the law affecting their communities. The community-oriented policing programs and strategies …show more content…
Police officers are involved in numerous stressful situations, which have an influence on their ability to act appropriately and their overall duty performance. Law enforcement agencies have been criticized on police officers’ actions that are considered unacceptable or unjustifiable within their communities, such as excessive use of force or police brutality. One of the noted, potential causes for a police officer’s undesired action could be based on occupational stress officers are exposed to in the performance of their law enforcement and community-related duties. Occupational stress for police officers take many forms including the less intrusive administrative duties and high-risk incidents, which are considered critical in nature, such as an incident where lives are at risk within the response phases. Police stress can have a positive or negative effect on others associated with the officers themselves, such as their law enforcement agency, their community, or the officer’s family. Neely and Cleveland (2013) mentioned “Police stress can have a bad influence on police performance and can cause many problems such as poor job performance, increased accidents, sleep disturbances, marital discord, domestic violence, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, alcohol and other drug abuse, ulcers and other digestive disorders, respiratory ailments, and cardiovascular disease” (p. 28). Negative effects that police stress has on officers and their families vary based on the extent of stress involved and the officer’s ability to cope with the stress. Gaines and Kappeler (2014) mentioned factors including work hours, inability to express oneself, injury or death, high expectations of children, children bullied, ownership and access to a weapon, constant role as an officer, perception of work over