INTRODUCTION TO LAW ENFORCEMENT
COMMUNITY POLICING

WHAT IS COMMUNITY POLICING?
Community policing is a policy and a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, improved police services and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions (Friedmann, 1992).

When was Community Policing Introduced?
Community Policing was introduced in the 1990’s as an anti-crime strategy.

What does Community Policing Entail?
Community policing is a philosophy and an organizational strategy that promote a new partnership between different types of people that form a community.
Community policing requires a department-wide commitment from everyone, civilian and sworn, to the community policing philosophy.
Community policing also rests on establishing community policing officers as decentralized “mini” chiefs in permanent beats (areas of patrol/ routes) where they enjoy the freedom and autonomy to operate as "community-based problem solvers" who work directly with the community – making their neighborhoods better and safer places in which to live and work.
Community police officers are assigned to fixed geographic areas for extended periods of time in order to foster communication and partnerships between individual officers and their community.

The Core Components of Community Policing * Intra-departmental changes * Inter-agency cooperation * The Community * Community Partnership * Problem Solving

Intra-departmental changes
In order for police to achieve better rapport with the community, departments need to become and operate more like open systems. This has tremendous implications on the organization of police departments. The structure of police departments needs to be more decentralized to allow