Worth a Look: How police, community interact – and why it matters
A very interesting read crafted by Amanda Van Benschoten, of the The Enquirer, with more to come. Relationships are more important than ever, and in some places, long overdue.
© 2015 DAVID A. LYONS
Michael Redmond
Planning Lieutenant at UT Police @ Houston
interesting…a week of community service.
David Lyons, MBA
Author, PoliceBusinessAdvisor.com
We expose our recruits to as many community projects as we can. I think it’s important to let them learn to see things from different points of view.
Dave Telford
Undergraduate Psychology Student (The Open University)
Thanks for posting this, David. Engagement and education should always come before enforcement in the area of community policing. If that is done right then it provded a solid foundation for other work such as counter terrorism and combating gangs.
Joseph Fitzgerald, Ph.D.
Police Sergeant; Principal: The Peele Group
Progressive police leaders in hierarchal based organizations should consider gravitating more towards a transformational leadership style to engage the intrinsic motivation of their employees. This can be a very demanding method of leadership because it requires leaders to get to know their followers, developing strategies that suit each individual’s specific needs and aspirations.
Transformational leaders often provide professional development opportunities to their employees in order to grant the employee greater autonomy and empowerment within the workplace. In the end a transformational leader’s delegation of some power to the employee can ultimately foster employee motivation and foster self-actualization.
Paul Thomas
retired at met.police fficer
I spent some years of my career specifically tasked to community matters. i was called by many as an old style policeman, they meant I walked around and stopped and talked and listened to the public. i remember one instance specifically this fellow gave me some VERY usefull information, I said thank you very much, why didn’t you pass this to police before, he said no copper ever stopped and talked to me before.
Point made I think
David PAGE
Self-employed Consultant & Volunteer SWC Moderator
Top Contributor
David,
We all know the police can connect with the public, both in crisis and not.
Now just whether the public want to communicate with the police is a moot point, in part as the vast majority have an expectation what the police will do and see little reason to engage beforehand. In the British context the public consistently report their first encounter – requested by them – is good, but follow-up is poor, if not bad.
Until very recently in the UK the police service provided has NOT involved the public in any meaningful way. This was very apparent until 2010 with the targets being set centrally by the Home Office, initially crime-driven and later on anti-social behaviour was added.
‘Community policing’ sounds nice, but in my experience the police NEVER did anything they didn’t want to do. All too often we told the community what we had done and what we planned to do next. Nor was this part of policing well resourced for many years. Perhaps ten years ago ‘community policing’ became neighbourhood policing, with appropriate renaming of those involved as teams.
In England & Wales cuts to the police budget and reduction in numbers of staff has led to several chief officers saying ‘community policing’ – the ‘bedrock’ of UK policing – was under threat. Locally it appears only priority areas will get such policing, the remainder will get enforcement via response and investigation teams.
Martin Palmer
Experienced Manager & Trainer: Looking for new challenges and opportunities
Paul, David: Fully appreciate and relate to your comments however I can only see the situation getting worse with the cuts to the policing budget, priorities of senior officers and staffing reductions, which is a sad loss to both policing and the communities.
All looks fine on paper but without the correct elements built and supplied to the “Neighbourhood Policing Teams” they will struggle to make any impact at all.
Thobejane Kgoputso Johannes
training clerk at Impala Platinum
David i think Paul is right i was also involve in the crime prevention duties wereby members of the community were happy about me because i was every were i was needed and in 2001-2005 there was this project of adopt a cop at schools i was adopted by 8 schools and because of giving community my time to talk with them and listern to them that is why they adopt me.I think is very much healthy to talk to the community about the need of police officers from them.Men and women in blues please be friends of the community your are policing you will not suffer if you want suspects as the very same community will show you and your work will be easy and the community will live in peace
Thobejane Kgoputso Johannes
training clerk at Impala Platinum
David other thing which police must do is that police officers must participate to all activities which community do sothat they must be partners in policing,Guys you must understand that this time there is no more POLICE FORCE insteat we have POLICE SERVICE wereby community want to be serviced not to be forced.Practically i have done it and it worked for me and my station because if crime reported it was easy for me to get the suspect, it realy work.PLEASE TRY IT YOU WILL SEE
David PAGE
Self-employed Consultant & Volunteer SWC Moderator
Thobejane,
Sadly in the UK we appear to be in the position where ‘community policing’ is being largely abandoned. There is ample evidence locally for example school-based officers can and do work. Too often they are seen as an option and are withdrawn. Even when the officer is effectively funded by the school or university.
Thobejane Kgoputso Johannes
training clerk at Impala Platinum
Sorry for that David but in South Africa it works
Martin Palmer
Experienced Manager & Trainer: Looking for new challenges and opportunities
Thobejane, unfortunately I have to echo what David has stated. It wasn`t that long ago where “community policing” was growing and thriving however with the reduction in staff and the increase in demand the “community policing” aspect is getting smaller by the day, unfortunately.
The Met Police also had dedicated schools officers, how much longer that will last is unknown.
I do believe that with the withdrawal of officers from these posts will come back to haunt us one day.
David PAGE
Self-employed Consultant & Volunteer SWC Moderator
Added as it is part of the debate beyond the UK and for the link within to a British report on ‘community policing’ with case studies in Ethiopia, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste: https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/lisa-denney/community-policing-achieving-more-realistic-results
Martin Palmer
Experienced Manager & Trainer: Looking for new challenges and opportunities
David, nice point regarding Police absorbing every task thrown at them. The time has come, perhaps this needed addressing earlier, for the Police to learn to say “No” at the initial contact/call and signpost the individual to the relevant agency.
The only problem is that alot of other agencies are not 24/7 and the natural default is to call the Police.
David PAGE
Self-employed Consultant & Volunteer SWC Moderator
Reducing demands for service is all too often taken by the first person taking the call and NOT by senior management. Invariably when complaints are made or it all goes wrong that person “carries the can”. No wonder jobs are accepted and passed onto communications staff.
Yes in recent years all forces have introduced various methods to say ‘no’ without actually clearly saying ‘no’. One force recently claimed after police staff walked out demand dropped by 40% as their replacements, police officers said ‘no’.
What is needed FOR the public is a far clearer statement by chief constables that the police will say ‘no’, with examples cited.
Do the police say ‘no’ to recording the demand or ‘no’ to providing a resource?
Paul Thomas
retired at met.police fficer
i take martins point,but will it change, for many years now the police have absorbed every request put upon them. a fair percentage of the publics first reaction when there is any problem is to call police what would they say if we were to say no.
hobejane Kgoputso Johannes
training clerk at Impala Platinum
Police officer is responding to any call but sometime community do missuse them i remember one day i responded to a call from community member wereby i found that there were bees in the kitchen of that caller i ask myself what help m i going to help this people because when she called she said she was being threatened, i then call relevent department and the bees were killed.If you can ask yourself who played important role you will find that is police officer.I will also like to agree with PAGE you are quitly right David
Martin Palmer
Experienced Manager & Trainer: Looking for new challenges and opportunities
David, this not only needs a clear message from CC but also support from PCCs and the Government. As you say, there are various ways in saying “No” without the issue that the caller has being addressed eg Other agencies being fully resourced to deal with that particular issue and should be the first port of call etc.
I also think that there are other factors that play a part in this:
1. Lack of support by Line Managers
1. Fear of getting a complaint
1. Identifying issues that can be used as evidence to progress an individuals promotion application
1. Just wanting and feeling the need to help someone.
With more cuts to come in all areas the plain fact is that the Police will not be able to deal with as much as they did in the past and that message needs to be conveyed sooner rather than later.
David PAGE
Self-employed Consultant & Volunteer SWC Moderator
Yesterday I caught a BBC Radio Four programme, part of the Crossing Continents series, on policing in Portugal which was fascinating, in part as ‘community policing’ featured. Hopefully you too (those outside the UK) can listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05r401f
The summary states: ‘Does Portugal have a problem with police brutality and racism? In February a group of young black men from the Lisbon suburb of Cova da Moura allege they were beaten and racially abused at a police station. Police claim the men tried to invade the station. Residents of Cova da Moura are mostly from immigrant backgrounds, and they say this is just the latest of a number of serious incidents in the past few years, and claim that the neighbourhood has become a ‘police state’. James Fletcher travels to Cova da Moura to investigate whether police are too heavy handed towards black and immigrant communities, and whether those communities are bearing the brunt of Portugal’s austerity driven spending cuts’.