NCJ Number
72070
Date Published
Unknown
Length
49 pages
Annotation
Police field procedures which contribute to increasing and encouraging harmony between the police department and the community it serves are explored.
Abstract
All police procedures designed for crime prevention are part of the area of community relations. It can be assumed that as harmony between the police and the various groups in the community increases, there will be a decrease in community tensions, more direct public aid to police, and reduced criminality. In order for a department to establish good relationships with the community, efforts must be made to recruit people who genuinely care for others, to train officers in human relations as well as in police procedures, to demonstrate the chief's willingness to change and modify approaches for meeting community needs, and to promote identity of the department with the community. In the U.S., formal community relations approaches used by police departments are either aimed at the entire community and geared to adult response, designed to reach school children and youths, or programs that deal with the problems of special groups. Among the specific techniques are a police speakers' bureau and other information-giving programs, open houses, citizen recognition awards, joint civic group-police activities in identification of valuables, seat-belt clinics, crime-prevention pamphlets, etc. Police service can be evaluated through call-backs to persons requesting police assistance or through interviews with arrested persons after trial. Also helpful are youth programs to discourage delinquency, joint police-civic group school programs, special liason efforts for joint problem-solving, of auxiliary police units and special human relations units to coordinate general community relations activities. A major scientific study is needed of police-community relations with a focus on psychological, social, economic, and political correlates of attitudes toward the police, power, crime, individual freedom and community menace, and toward the ideals of a criminal justice system.