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Community Policing And The Long Run Essay

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Is Community Policing Beneficial in the Long Run?
Morgan Attenberger
Ridgewater

Composition II 122
Professor Rezac
November 19, 2016 During the 1950s-1970s, police officers were setting forth policing strategies that are now known as “traditional policing” (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 2004). Traditional policing has been characterized as a method of responding to crime after it is committed. Over the years, major changes began making their way into the law enforcement field that affected the way that police officers did their job, like radios being put into the vehicles. With the constant changing methods of policing, some people in law enforcement refused to believe in what is defined traditional policing. In the 1970s, big cities began using a method known as community policing which caught political attention with its positive outcomes. It began to be implemented in smaller communities with federal funding and studies showed that departments employing community policing jumped from 34% in 1997 to 64% in 1999 (Hickman & Reaves, 2003, p 506). Community policing appeals to the five key elements set forth by traditional policing; routine patrol, rapid response to calls for service, arrests, investigations, and law enforcement information sharing (Community Policing Dispatch, 2008). Routine Patrol is improved with community policing because it reduces fear with police presence and sets up preventative patrol in areas of high crime rates. Technology and

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