COMMUNITY POLICING - The Community and Community Policing
The Community and Community Policing
The key issues surrounding the community portion of community policing include
Whose responsibility is it to get the community involved?
Who and what is the community?
What is the level and distribution of community participation?
Who trains the community?
What are the potential and limits of community involvement ?
The Ontario COPAR (Council of Police Against Racism) program is a multi-police service effort to improve race relations in the province by:
Sharing ideas and initiatives
Developing ways to eliminate racial intolerance
Providing a forum for discussing race-related issues
Assisting community organizations involved in anti-racism programs
Service as a resource for the police community
Enhancing the understanding and requirements of a multi-cultural society
A community profile involves gathering information on the demographic characteristics of a community, crime rates, and community issues and concerns, as well as the residents perceptions of crime and the effectiveness of the police and criminal justice system. This information can be gathered via community surveys, focus groups, public forums, and community consultative committees. The development of a community profile provides the police service with valuable information that can be utilized in structuring the delivery of policing services and in developing police-community partnerships.
Community surveys are a cost-effective way to gather information from community residents in order to improve service delivery. The Policing for Results Survey created by the OPP is a good example.
Focus groups are a widely used, cost-effective technique for obtaining information from various groups of citizens within the community. They are invaluable as a way to identify the major issues of concern to the community and for securing the involvement community residents in the identification, prevention and response to problems of crime and social disorder.
Public forums can function to raise the profile of community concerns and provide police with a venue where they can explain their goals and objectives. Public forums can be counterproductive if the discussion is dominated by one issue or community interest groups.
Integrated service teams are one way in which the police can collaborate with other agencies and organizations in the community
Volunteers play a significant, and varied, role in Ontario policing. They include internal volunteers who work directly with the police service supporting police-sponsored programs, and external volunteers who assist with various groups in the community that have the support of police. Among the activities that volunteers are involved in are Block Parents and Crime Stoppers, citizen patrols, staffing storefronts, and serving on community policing committees.
Among the issues in recruiting and screening volunteers:
Should ensure that volunteers reflect the diversity of the community
Should be recruited from all segments of the community
Among the issues in training and retraining volunteers:
Must ensure proper training
Strategies to retain volunteers include providing organizational support and resources, holding workshops and conferences, formal recognition of volunteer contributions, and giving volunteers discretion to carry out tasks.
Auxiliaries are a major feature in Canadian Police Services and perform a wide variety of tasks, including assisting with traffic duties at events and in emergencies and accompanying regular members on patrol.
There are three major types of community policing committees:
Consultative community policing committee: advises the police, focus on gathering information that is passed along to the police, minimal structure
Multi-functional community policing committee: activities extend beyond information gathering and advice; partner with police to identify areas of concern and to develop problem-solving responses.
Interagency community policing committee: composed of the police and other agencies in the community; broad mandate to examine community and social issues, formulate plan of action; the most complex type of police-community committee; formal operating structure.