Police Foundations LAW250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Decision-Making, Problem Solving
9 Jun 2018
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POLICE FOUNDATIONS-LAW250
LECTURE 5
Crime Prevention and Community Policing
What is community policing?
Sir Robert Peel, 1829.
To maintain at all times relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that
the police are the public and the public are the police. The police being only members of the public
who are paid to give full time attention to duties, which are incumbent upon every citizen. In the
interest of community welfare and existence.
The traditional or professional model of policing:
• Police officers are the professionals who have sole responsibility for crime control
• The objectives of police work are legally defined and involve responding to calls that
involve criminal incidents
• The role of the police officer is to control crime and this role is carried out by way of
preventative patrol and rapid response times
• The police tend not to work in conjunction with community residents or other agenices
• Police services are centralized
• Decision making occurs through a hierarchical command and control structure
Traditional patrol practice- 3Rs
Random patrol, rapid response, and reactive investigation
• Central premise of random patrol, also know as the watch system. The mere presence of
patrol cars serves as a deterrent to crime and increases citizens feeling of safety
• Patrol officers spend their shifts responding to calls
• Remaining time is spent for the next call for service
The traditional approach to police work:
• Incident oriented: the primary focus is on responding to specific incidents, calls, cases
or events
• Response oriented: police management and operations are oriented to responding to
events as they arise
1. Response capacity and capability are emphasized
2. Little time and few resources are devoted to proactive intervention or prevention
activities
• Focused on limited analysis: information gathering is limited to specific situations and
does not include analysis of the causes of the events
• Focused on the means rather than the end: the emphasis on response efficiency
means that little significance is placed on the impact of police strategies on preventing,
reducing or eliminating problems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
To maintain at all times relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police. The police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties, which are incumbent upon every citizen. In the interest of community welfare and existence. Random patrol, rapid response, and reactive investigation: central premise of random patrol, also know as the watch system. The mere presence of patrol cars serves as a deterrent to crime and increases citizens feeling of safety: patrol officers spend their shifts responding to calls, remaining time is spent for the next call for service. The traditional police deployment: patrol officers work the same shift rotation, patrol operations are based on a hierarchical and centralized military model of policing, emphasis is on command and control principles, narrow range of police response options.
