Interactions Between A Police Department And Community: An Analysis

Interactions between a police department and the community in the jurisdiction that it patrols is very crucial. It is detrimental for the police officers to have a relationship with the people under their watch because the citizens in that area can either help or hurt them with cases that they are trying to deal with. According to Walker, Spohn, and DeLone (2018), how the police officer interacts with the people shapes their attitudes towards the entire police department. Sir Robert Peel's seventh principle of policing states that the police should persevere a relationship with the community ("Sir Robert Peel's Nine Principles of Policing", 2014). There are many ways for the police to interact with a community and have relationships within.
The way departments can achieve this is to have more diversity within the department itself. This is tied to the second principle stating that in order for the police to do their job the public needs to be in favor of their actions meaning that if the public approves of the way that police officers are carrying out their duties then officers will be able to do their jobs more effectively. It is thought that a community might better respond and be more accepting to interactions with the police if they feel like they are represented and can relate to them. For example, if an African-American police officer patrolled an all-white community the citizens in that area might be skeptical about receiving help form that individual. The same outcome would occur if a white police officer patrolled an area where more minorities lived. If the police force mirrored the community such as having several different officers of varying races and languages monitoring different areas, the public might be more accepting to the police being in their neighborhood. According to Walker, Spohn, and DeLone (2018), there has been a positive progression in the percentage of people of color that are hired in police departments. Due to this incline police departments can better live up to Sir Roberts Peel's
Sir Robert Peel's eighth principle states that police officers should direct their attention to their functions as a police officer and should not shy away from this ("Sir Robert Peel's Nine Principles of Policing", 2014). Often times an officer might go against what the protocol states because they might feel a certain way about someone. This could be a negative reaction, such as stopping and frisking a person because they are of a different race, or it could be positive reaction like stopping and letting the person off with a warning because they are of the same race. While not all officers engage in this kind of behavior, the ones that do have given all police officers a bad name. If the police chiefs better manage the officers and respond to citizen complaints, they might be able to enforce the policies that are already in place to improve this ongoing issue. For example, state patrol officers have a strict protocol they follow and a script that they seem to recite when pulling someone over. If local police agencies had strict protocols like the example given, then they could have a more positive response from the community, thus making a viable relationship (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone,