The Effectiveness of Community Policing

Prior to reading through multiple sources that research the effectiveness of community policing, it has been found that it was once a useful tool. Research that was done dating back to the 1960’s had been finding that citizens were appreciative of community policing, and felt safer knowing they were present. However, bringing the research to more recent times, it is not something that community members nor law enforcement find beneficial. In addition, it has been found that there are racial disparities when it comes to satisfaction reports. This poses an issue as it is argued that the lower income neighborhoods could benefit most from community policing, and instead research is showing the opposite.

Additional findings include the importance of different variables when considering effectiveness of community policing. Each study that I conducted a literature review on determined that there are different social and environmental factors that can play a role in community policing. These variables included age, race, and the community that they lived in. These factors are important when it comes to implementing community policing because not every city will receive community policing the same as another. This calls for the need of location specific community policing.

Conclusion

After conducting research on the presence of community policing I have found that from past years it was an effective and appreciated tool in law enforcement. However, as times have gone on people in communities have changed their feelings towards law enforcement. In addition to these feelings from community members, law enforcement officers have also reported that they do not believe community policing will be effective without the collaboration of both parties. In addition to researching the attitudes of adults, it was important to conduct research on the feelings of the youth, as they will grow up to be effective members of society. Youth were found to have different feelings towards officers based on their race and environment. However, it was found that youth can appreciate community policing when it is done in a comfortable setting.

Community policing has been around for years, but has decreased in effectiveness. The purpose of community policing is to increase feelings of safety in their community and when in contact with police officers. Although this has been hard to obtain considering all the different characteristics in each community. Essentially, community policing is a tool that could be highly successful if used properly. This research highlighted many different times that community policing worked, and many times that it did not work.

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