Community Relations and Police

Community Relations Ideas to Build Rapport Between Police and Residents in a Community The police force is ultimately accountable to the public in one manner or another. Therefore, not only must the police justify its policies and actions relative to the public service of the community, but the community will also be the most important critic of their actions as well. Various policing organizations have come under intense scrutiny and have received a great deal of negative publicity through the mainstream and social media channels.

The relationship between a police force and the community they serve is often tense, but with the massive spread of smartphones and portable cameras, the levels of animosities have reached new heights in some jurisdictions due to improper use of force in many cases. The friction between public servants and the community are experiencing vast amounts of friction because of such instances and the publicity they have generated, whether deserved or not.

However, whatever the case may be, it is absolutely necessary for police departments in all areas to work to bridge whatever divides there are in the perceptions of the larger community in which they serve. These tensions not only make policing more difficult, but it can also lead to further escalations of violence from both sides.

When the police are not trusted by the community, then there will be decreased cooperation at best, and could also led to far worse consequences such as increases in the criminal activity that occurs in the community. Community Relations Recently, in response to a police officer killing of an individual in Ferguson named Michael Brown in August 2014, the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) was tasked to conduct a federal level assessment of the St. Louis County Police Department.

This group found that the department "lacks the training, leadership, and culture necessary to truly engender community policing and to build and sustain trusting relationships with the community" (Gest, 2015). Although the case of Michael Brown erupted in mass levels of social instability throughout the St. Louis area, but in also many other urban areas in throughout the country.

One of the issues that the report that the DOJ produced relative to this investigation, was that blacks are "significantly underrepresented" in the ranks of police officer and police sergeant and "moderately" underrepresented in the ranks of lieutenant and captain (Gest, 2015). The police force should be roughly equivalent in racial demographics as the communities that they serve.

In Ferguson, the officers were predominantly white, while the community was largely composed of African-American communities, and as a result of the lack of diversity in the police force, racism is an issue in these relationships. Race has long been an issue in the US and one way to help overcome it is to ensure that the police force is actually as diverse as the communities that they serve.

It is often the case that minority racial and ethnic groups often view themselves as the sole targets of abusive treatment during interactions with authorities. Although there is definitely some racial variation in public assessments of the police performance in the United States which has been documented in past research, less research has explored the sources of these differences at the intersection of demographic, interactional, and ecological levels (Weitzer, Tuch, & Skogan, 2008).

Understanding differences on a more holistic level, which can be achieved through internal diversity, may be one way to stem such problems from continued growth and to improve community relations on a large scale. Another aspect to the DOJ's recommendation is to create greater outreach programs to embrace the community on as many of the new mediums that have become popular as possible. For example, the DOJ recommended to St.

Louis County that they "should use social media to engage the community and protesters before, during, and after events to disseminate accurate information and correct erroneous information" (Gest, 2015). During the protests, a lot of misinformation was spread throughout the community of St. Louis that was mostly biased, if not altogether untrue in its nature.

Therefore, by engaging the citizens in the community directly through these channels then they could hopefully work to mitigate any false information that is being inappropriately spread relative to the conduct or position of the police department. Building better community relations is not a new concept and has been long recognized for its import on many levels.