Improving Police-Community Relations

In modern American policing, police-community relations are essential for effective policing, however; in many cities, the relationship between the police and the community is strained and even volatile. The term police-community relations refers to the relationship between the community and the police, it “consists of both human and public relations” (Cox 279). For the police to have a productive role in society, the police must receive a level of reciprocity from the community to strive for better relations between the police and the community. However, the issue of weak police-community relations is further complicated in that the police must often be the ones to strive to improve the relationship between the police and the community. This
As evident by the poignant protests performed by groups such as Black Lives Matter, the community generally believes that the police are racist. However, this is a misunderstanding, as evident by a Harvard Study conducted in 2015 by Roland Fryer. In his study, Fryer concluded that “minorities were slightly less likely to be shot when a shooting occurred: black people are 23.8% percent less likely to be shot by police, relative to white people. Hispanics are 8.5% percent less likely to be shot” (Fryer). Furthermore, the misunderstanding that the police are racist and tend toward using lethal force on black people is perpetuated by the media, and people accept this as a fact. For the police to ameliorate their image, police agencies must incorporate specialized training to educate officers to be more aware of his or her image at all times. These specialized training programs will increase the level of trust that the community has in their respective police department, which will impact the levels of cooperation from the
This will, in turn, give police skeptics fewer grounds for their vexatious claims of police brutality or police corruption. The public seems to support the notion of the police wearing body cameras during while conducting their duties; this is supported by the findings of a 2015 poll, where 87% of people surveyed support the utilization of body cameras by police agencies (Police Body Cameras). Furthermore, in 2015, President Obama announced a plan to spend $75 million for the purchase of 50,000 body cameras (Kelsh para. 2). With nation-wide implement of body cameras into policing, the community will grow to trust the police more; which will, in turn, nourish a better relationship between the police and the