Plan – shift to community policing

Plan – shift to community policing

Inherency

Community Policing is in decline: not funded, not widely implemented etc

Community policing//// Police history is dense in reform efforts, typically tied to two kinds of events – public perceptions of widespread corruption and efforts to make the police more responsive to citizen oversight. Community policing is an example of the latter kind of police reform in the USA and was historically tied to lack of police responsiveness to urban, and especially urban African-American, social dislocations in the 1960s (Crank, 1994; Scrivner, 2004). Over its life-course, community policing was extended to organizations across the urban and rural landscape, and was associated with all efforts to build better relations between citizens and police.//// By the end of the twentieth century, scholars noted that the implementation of community policing (COP) was slowing (Myers, 2004). In spite of its popularity among reform advocates, police departments did not implement many of the supportive structural changes necessary for institutionalizing behavioral change (Maguire & King, 2007; Walker, 1993; Zhao, Thurman, & Lovrich, 2000). Further, the early 2000s marked the loss of grant funding previously offered by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (Bohrer, 2004).//// In 2001, the terrorist attacks popularly called ‘9/11’ marked a sharp deceleration in community policing. Much of this deceleration stemmed from the collapse of government funding – aside from some continuation funding for crime prevention, community policing monies generally disappeared. The two questions for community policing after 9/11 were (1) whether community policing could actually do anything about crime (for which there was a growing body of evidence that it could not) and (2) whether it could facilitate post-9/ 11 homeland security efforts.

Solvency

Community policing can amplify the strengths of Intelligence-Led Policing

CRANK prof Criminology @ Univ of Nebraska, Omaha, KOSKI phd candidate @ Univ. Nebraska, Omaha, and KADLECK assoc. prof Univ of Nebraska, Omaha, 2010 (John, Colleen, and Connie, “The USA: the next big thing”, Police Practice and Research, 11:5, October, p.406-407 , note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16]

Intelligence-Led Policing Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP) has been heralded both for its ability to make use of community policing endeavors and as a police strategy adept in the use of intelligence. It is increasingly in use in the USA, for example, in the intelligence-led policing strategies and organizational structures put in place by the New Jersey State Police, available for review online. ILP is a recent development that can be traced to the Kent and Northumbria Constabularies of the UK (Ratcliffe, 2002). In general, ILP ‘provides strategic integration of intelligence into the overall mission of the [police] organization …’ (Carter, 2004, p. 41). The delicate social climate that exists post-9/11, proponents argue, necessitates an even greater emphasis on interactive dialogue between the police and society than in the past (Carter, 2004). In this way, ILP and community policing can piggy-back off each other to strengthen local community security.

Community policing can lead to intelligence gathering – increases chances of detecting domestic terrorism risks

CRANK prof Criminology @ Univ of Nebraska, Omaha, KOSKI phd candidate @ Univ. Nebraska, Omaha, and KADLECK assoc. prof Univ of Nebraska, Omaha, 2010 (John, Colleen, and Connie, “The USA: the next big thing”, Police Practice and Research, 11:5, October, p.414, note://// indicates par. breaks)[AR SPRING16]

Community policing//// Concerns over terrorism and security occupied a prominent role in the panelists’ concerns. The police function, it became clear, was widely perceived to expand in the security arena. This included anti-terror activities, training, community outreach to identify terrorists, and intelligence gathering. ‘Intelligence-led policing,’ as a security orientation for the police, was emphasized. Carter, for example, noted that intelligence should organize itself in terms of an ‘all-hazards approach’ that recognized that community threats could emerge from any of a number of potential sources. One of the responsibilities of the police, he suggested, will become the identification and response to community threats, recognizing that threat sources were no longer only local but might be international in scope.//// The war on terror was seen as a spark to further terrorist attacks. Taylor worried that there might be a significant attack, possibly a bomb encased in radiological material (a dirty bomb), carried out against a major city such as New York or Washington, DC. Moreover, the next generation of terrorists from the Iraq conflict, similar to the ‘mujahadeen’ of Afghanistan after the Afghan–Soviet conflict, will pose a threat to Western interests in many places, with Europe as a particularly attractive target.

Solvency – (a) U.S. should end federal grants for military equipment, (b) change militarization-focused training (c) shift to community policing

BALKO author 2013 (Radley, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop (book), “Rise of the Warrior Cop”, Wall Street Journal, Aug 7, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904, note://// indicates par breaks)[AR SPRING16]

Unfortunately, the activities of aggressive, heavily armed SWAT units often result in needless bloodshed: Innocent bystanders have lost their lives and so, too, have police officers who were thought to be assailants and were fired on, as (allegedly) in the case of Matthew David Stewart.//// In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual (that is, crimes such as drug use or gambling, in which all parties participate voluntarily). These victims were bystanders, or the police later found no evidence of the crime for which the victim was being investigated. They includeKatherine Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed by an Atlanta narcotics team acting on a bad tip from an informant in 2006;Alberto Sepulveda, an 11-year-old accidentally shot by a California SWAT officer during a 2000 drug raid; and Eurie Stamps, killed in a 2011 raid on his home in Framingham, Mass., when an officer says his gun mistakenly discharged. Mr. Stamps wasn't a suspect in the investigation.//// What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures? The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement.//// Consider today's police recruitment videos (widely available on YouTube), which often feature cops rappelling from helicopters, shooting big guns, kicking down doors and tackling suspects. Such campaigns embody an American policing culture that has become too isolated, confrontational and militaristic, and they tend to attract recruits for the wrong reasons.//// If you browse online police discussion boards, or chat with younger cops today, you will often encounter some version of the phrase, "Whatever I need to do to get home safe." It is a sentiment that suggests that every interaction with a citizen may be the officer's last. Nor does it help when political leaders lend support to this militaristic self-image, as New York City Mayor Michael Bloombergdid in 2011 by declaring, "I have my own army in the NYPD—the seventh largest army in the world."//// The motivation of the average American cop should not focus on just making it to the end of his shift. The LAPD may have given us the first SWAT team, but its motto is still exactly the right ideal for American police officers: To protect and serve.//// SWAT teams have their place, of course, but they should be saved for those relatively rare situations when police-initiated violence is the only hope to prevent the loss of life. They certainly have no place as modern-day vice squads.//// Many longtime and retired law-enforcement officers have told me of their worry that the trend toward militarization is too far gone. Those who think there is still a chance at reform tend to embrace the idea of community policing, an approach that depends more on civil society than on brute force.//// In this very different view of policing, cops walk beats, interact with citizens and consider themselves part of the neighborhoods they patrol—and therefore have a stake in those communities. It's all about a baton-twirling "Officer Friendly" rather than a Taser-toting RoboCop.

Download 1 Mb.

Share with your friends: