Development and Challenges of Community Policing
Complete the term project which is an 10-12 page APA Style paper. Your paper should have at least 10 full (not partial) pages of substance not counting the cover and reference pages. Please be sure that your paper is a Word Document (.doc). Students will be required to use at least six (6) scholarly – peer reviewed – sources. Students have access to peer reviewed sources through the APUS library. (Added as attachments) (Use additional sources also)
This is the absolute minimum and additional resources are encouraged to improve your work and impact your grade. Of course additional references do not have to be peer reviewed articles from the library but they should be, or at least from credible sources.
Question (do paper on this)
Directed patrol, as opposed to random and self-initiated patrol, reduces much discretion, but also reduces down time periods that may not be utilized performing police related duties. It is primarily a management tool to reduce non-productive patrol time while increasing the deterrent effect of properly employing patrol assets.
Hot spot patrol uses a variety of methods, generally crime-mapping, to determine areas of likely criminal activity. It is a popular crime prevention tactic and considered good use of scarce resources. It is felt that the high-profile appearance of law enforcement in the area will deter crime. Often it does, but unintended consequences include crime displacement, it just moves somewhere else.
Zero-tolerance patrol is aligned with the crime prevention doctrine of the Broken Windows Theory. By acting on even small incidents crime will be reduced through deterrence by fear, and also by the implication that action will be taken against virtually all offenders.
When looking for a patrol deployment model that works best with community policing concepts it has been though in the past that the geographic/sector method would be the most effective. Since the same officers are assigned to the same area their frequent contacts with local citizens would reduce the fear of crime and increase citizen interaction. This is seldom the case.
Actually, the overlay model works best for community policing since there are officers dedicated to problem solving and engaging members of the community in proactive crime prevention efforts. The fact that officers are specially trained and focused on these efforts makes it the most often utilized in agencies that promote community-oriented policing.
