Evolving Police Service and Community Involvement

The future of law enforcement
Introduction
The contemporary world has seen evolution of virtually every sector of the society, from communication to trade, from food production to medical care procedures and from foreign wars to the inland security. This same revolution needs to be fully implemented in the law enforcement which looks forward to being effective in the highly globalised society. There is need therefore to critically evaluate and analyze areas in which pertinent factors like technology, leadership/organizational culture, community policing and police training can be improved and modernized in order to make them palatable to the current society, with the current law adherence challenges.
Problem statement
The USA law enforcement officers face challenges in handling and effectively resolving the contemporary crimes and the ever changing faces of criminal tendencies. The main problem that perpetuates this status quo is the stagnation in the approach to combating crimes, despite the fact that criminals keep changing their approaches to crime. The police have not been adequately exposed to the contemporary technology, community policing programs, change of organizational culture and proper training hence making the entire law enforcement to trail the criminals as the criminals outwit them in ways of committing crimes. The challenge that this current approach to law enforcement has is that the police learn from victims of crimes, instead of preventing crimes they are preventing recurrence of crimes (Suro R., 1999).
Purpose statement
The central focus of the study is to find out the possible areas of improvement that the law enforcement can focus on in order to make the law enforcement more vibrant and in turn effective in both crime prevention and combating crime. The study purposes to delve into the possibility of having contemporary technology used effectively and more frequently by the law enforcing in order to maintain law and order and if this is possible, how it can be implemented. It also seeks to find out from the community and the police involved in the community whether the concept of community policing is palatable to the community in question and if so, how it can effectively be implemented. The study seeks to find out how the organizational culture of the police can be changed to reflect a more contemporary culture that is palatable to the current society. The study also seeks to know whether the training that the police undergo currently is sufficient and the areas that need emphasis or improvements in order to make the police more effective and responsive to the needs of the US citizens in general.
Significance of the study
This analysis and evaluation on how best the law enforcement can be improved follows the realization that poor service to the community cannot be attributed to a single factor but a myriad of interconnected issues. When the issues are adequately addressed, there is a high possibility that the crime levels will decrease significantly and the community will have better chances of living an economically stable and secure life and they will be able to invest in their own communities. The extensive positive effect that the implementation of the contemporary measures to combat crime will have is that they will lead to a secure and safe to invest in society, hence this study is of extensive significance.
Theoretical framework
Some of the theories that will shape this study are the institutional theory of police which explains the police as an institutionalized body with its complex traditions that have been guiding it over the decades (Crank J.P., 2003). The other concepts that will be instrumental in shaping the direction of the study will be the community security, community policing and police-community relations as concepts within the police reforms. Yet another important theory herein is the theory of change which looks at the change, need for change and the possible impediments to change and how this particular theory can work together with evaluation theory in the field of community initiatives like community policing (Lucik S.D., 2014). The last theory that will be instrumental in the study is the collective efficacy theory which discusses the cohesion within a given population and the willingness of the members to intervene in scenarios of possible crime prevention (Chassan A., 2008).
Literature review brief
Police officers are probably the most visible law enforcers in our society today. Not everybody understands all what the police officers are supposed to do apart from cracking down criminals within the community. Apart from this widely known role, police officers ensure public safety by conducting traffic, educating the public about the law, provision of noticeable presence to deter crime and above all, they are the first responders in preventing a crime from occurring. These roles, in as much as they remain basically the same, the complexity in implementing them keep increasing by decade as technology and communication evolves. It is important therefore to have the police evolve in tandem with the community.
There are areas like the use of technology which need to be significantly improved. The crime mapping procedure with the contemporary technology will give more accurate trend that will help solve a crime faster and forestall further committing of the crime. Use of other technologies like lie detectors, DNA determination and mapping and the unmanned aerial vehicles are ways through which technology can intervene in the contemporary work of the police. There are also better surveillance systems that need to be included in the current law enforcement agencies to help in combating crime (Fortenbery, J., 2016).
The police culture also needs to be revolutionized and changed to fit in the contemporary trends. The police needs to take more responsibility for the actions of the department and needs to change the organizational culture from the punitive system to a preventive and correctional one, with the help of the community (Reynolds B., 2014).
The training of the police is also an aspect of great concern since there are no federal standards for the training of the police in the USA. This leaves a lot of gaps between the police in different states, gaps that criminals can easily explore to get away with particular crimes. The training of the police in the USA needs to take a global standard trajectory where the uniformity and professionalism of the training will help in crime prevention and deterrence. The intelligence in the police training curriculum needs to be as important as the physical strength and not a case of brawn fully compensating for lack of intelligence as has been the case in the past (Griffith D., 2015).
The community engagement in the enforcement of law is equally important in the ensuring that the crime levels in the community go down with the help of the community members. The contemporary society needs collective effort in combating crime since the crimes keep changing in nature and are not predictable hence a collaborative approach to crime prevention, developing solutions as a community and increasing trust between the community members and the police will lead to significant crime reduction as envisaged by US Department of Justice (2017).
Research methodology
The research method that will be used herein will largely be qualitative in nature where past literature will be consulted and interviews will be conducted among selected police and community members to get substantive facts about the crime prevention and the role of the contemporary provisions as mentioned above.
Biblical worldview
There are various instances in the Bible where crimes have elicited the response of the community and communal crime prevention. In ecclesiasts, the Bible outlines various ways through which different crimes in the community were to be dealt with in the community at that moment in time. It also has intervention mechanisms in the new testament where witnesses were called upon to help rehabilitate the criminal. The crime deterrence and prevention even in the Bible was not an activity that was left in the hands of an individual or a department but was communally approached.


References
Chassan A., (2008). Collective Efficacy: The Key to Community Change? Retrieved October 05, 2015 from https://shelterforce.org/2008/05/15/collective_efficacy_the_key_to_community_change/
Crank J.P., (2003). Institutional theory of police: a review of the state of the art. Retrieved October 05, 2015 from http://www.observatoriodeseguranca.org/files/p186.pdf
Griffith D., (2015). 25 Ways to Make Police Training More Effective. Retrieved October 05, 2015 from http://www.policemag.com/channel/careers-training/articles/2015/04/25-ways-to-make-police-training-more-effective.aspx
Fortenbery, J. (2016). Law enforcement organizations: Possibilities and challenges for the future. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Retrieved October 05, 2015 from https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/law-enforcement-organizations-possibilities-and-challenges-for-the-future
Lucik S.D., (2014). Community Policing and Community Security: Theory and Practice in Timor-Leste. Retrieved October 05, 2015 from http://www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/research/JSRP/downloads/JSRP16.Djurdjevic.pdf
Reynolds B., (2014). How to change culture in your police department. Retrieved October 05, 2015 from https://www.policeone.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/6969415-How-to-change-culture-in-your-police-department/
Suro R., (1999). FBI Lagging Behind on Cyber Crime. Retrieved October 05, 2015 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/oct99/cyber7.htm
US Department of Justice (2017). Community Policing Defined. https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p157-pub.pdf