Creative Writing Essay: Improving the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Local Residents: Philadelphia

Improving the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Local Residents: Philadelphia
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Improving the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Local Residents: Philadelphia
Effective policing relies on the interrelationships between law enforcement agencies and their respective communities as its fosters cooperation and upholds social research and legitimacy in the justice department. The vitality of these relationships between and among law enforcement agencies and the public to the efficiency and effectiveness of the justice system necessitates the effecting of community policing. The evolution of law enforcement through various reforms towards community-based policing directed towards bridging the gap between police departments and citizens. Cooperating with communities leads to a problem-oriented approach as policing is based on the social and criminal sources leading to not only managing but also preventing crime through mutual understanding. Philadelphia’s police are among US departments with variant policing techniques that are focused on community engagement like the Town Watch Integrated Services, Community Associations, and the foot patrol experimentation as some prevention proactive mechanisms. Improving the relationship between law enforcement agencies requires commitment from both parties and clear specifications on the objectives and the ways to instill such a cooperation. There are various strategies that the justice department, individual police departments and communities can adopt to drive the cooperation towards a more efficient and inclusive law enforcement through Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This report analyzes some of the ways that can help improve the relationship including training, technological innovations, community initiatives, federalism and reflects on their extent applicability in Philadelphia.
Training
Continual training on the impact and role of community engagement, diversity and implicit bias to for serving officers as well its incorporation in recruit training is one way that law enforcement agencies can help cultivate the relationships within its structural organization. Training programs should be designed to enable officers to not only understand their role and tasks but also understand the community as a part of the efforts in enacting law adherence. In his article on the police officer and community policing, (Meese III, 1993) proposed that expanded training programs on community understanding which include communication skills, public speaking, problem-solving, conflict resolution and negotiations, socioeconomic and demographic aspects of the community and the functionality of other supporting agencies can help officers in cultivate closer relationships with their jurisdictions. Expanded programs can also include university or college sponsorships and seminars on cultural sensitivity and responsiveness as part of developmental training on community engagement. In this regard, police departments should incorporate community policing training in police academies in order to create an inherently inclusive and collaborative approach to law enforcement. Cultural sensitivity and diversity training are particularly important in fostering such relationships due to the increased social groups like the LGBTQ community which requires additional to veteran officers in the ways to engage with such groups. In their recommendations to the Philadelphia Police Department, Colden et al., (2015) noted that the agency needed several adjustments to its training programs to promote more inclusiveness especially for minority groups. Communication, escalation and de-escalation skills, increased scope and duration for community-oriented policing, training in unconscious or implicit bias, and reality-based training on the community expectations are some of the adoptions proposed by Colden et al., (2015) for improving the Philadelphia Police Department to improve their community relationships with their citizens. Philadelphia’s training programs includes two training programs- Police Supervisory In-service Training (POSIT) and Police Executive Development which include reality based and impartial policing courses to improve their contact skills (Joyce, 2016).
Technology
In era characterized by communication technology offering instant feedback, law enforcement agencies need to adopt technologies that meet community communicative demands and preferences. Employing technology equipment like body cameras and social media is one of former president’s- Barack Obama- initiatives to strengthen the cooperation with law enforcement agencies (LEA) and establish from the public. For LEAs to utilize technological advancements for community-based policing some of the factors to consider include the characteristics and functionality of the equipment, organizational and community traits, as well as the political environment regarding the department’s reception and position (Strom, 2017). Although the effectiveness of crime mapping technology is still doubtful, its success to accurately predict crime occurrences needs a clear understanding of the community characteristics if LEAs are to rely on the technology. While crime mapping and data mining technology require an inherent understanding of the community for designing, other technologies like body and car cameras are leads to more community involvement due to their association with transparency. Transparency encourages public participation in active crime prevention as it encourages citizen engagements from trusting LEAs which is a great way to ensure community involvement in the prevention and fight against crime. Some of the ways technology helps in ensuring community participation in law enforcement include providing and soliciting information from the public, online services, and engagement through networking and partnerships. Some of the community oriented technological adoptions by the Philadelphia Police Department include replacing pagers with smartphones, Leads-Online, tested body...