Police Counter-Terrorism: Community Policing And Homeland Security

Community policing has been a police innovation that got nationally funding in 1994 by the Clinton Administration. This form of policing was meant to support community by allowing them to be actively involved in decision making. The hope was to improve police legitimacy especially among minority groups. Many minority groups have felt they have been targeted and profiled unfairly by law enforcement which has been an important issue among blacks, Latinos, and more recently Muslims. The poor treatment of minorities has negatively impacted procedural justice which can dramatically impact cooperation from the public. Without cooperation from the public it makes proactive policing very difficult. When it comes to stopping terrorist attacks the police …show more content…
There has been a shift of police strategy from community policing of the late 20th century to homeland security of the 21st century (Chappell 2009). Can the two strategies work together to maximize safety and the well being of the society or are they mutually exclusive strategies? Much research and evidence has shown that community policing can help support homeland security by giving the police legitimacy and promoting procedural justice. I would like to discuss specifically counter-terror focused on Islamic terrorism since that has been the focus by much of the policy of the united states and other western nations but I am aware of that there are also many non-Muslim terrorist groups which may or may not have similar implications for law …show more content…
For law enforcement to successfully implement homeland security practices they transform the organization not just have certain officers learn about how to ‘fight terror’. This includes police learning how terrorist operate and how to identify their activities while on duty as an police officer, this could be by identifying suspicious materials made at a traffic stop that shows evidence of bomb making materials. Also learning the type of movements that terrorist may use and learning their living situations, and learn how to analyze and gather data and intel for suspected terror and share it with other agencies. Another important measure is conducting accurate threat assessments and proactively acting on them. Knowing how to investigate suspected terrorist while upholding the constitution and not targeting the entire community is tough but very important.. Without the proper training police won't know the subtle signs that is necessary to uncover covert terrorist