What Is The Transition From Traditional Policing

Seminar Paper: Policing Strategies and Citizen’s Rights

Police agencies in the United States currently focus their attention and efforts in reducing crime rates in high crime neighborhoods. Police agencies do this by implementing strategies and tactics in order to be specialized in the reduction of crime. This mindset of policing has come over time due to a shift from the traditional policing strategy to a more community based policing approach. This transition was a result to the 2008/2009 policing crisis in the United States. The policing crisis was a result of the recession that occurred over the same time frame in 2008/2009. City governments were in financial trouble as they had to cut back on spending which resulted in the ceasing of
This is because in the past years while under the traditional strategy, police officer’s approach to policing was on the defensive side rather than being proactive on the offensive side. Defensive policing is a type of police strategy meaning that they would wait around for 911 emergency calls to occur before they would take any action in stopping the crime that was given at hand (Greene, 2000, 310). The traditional policing strategy has a very narrow focus on crime and crime prevention in all communities and neighborhoods across the United States. Traditional policing also tends to only focus on serious crimes after they have occurred, as opposed to maintenance of community social order or general service delivery (Greene, 2000, 310). In this approach, police are crime catchers who only respond to the calls that they are dispatched to in order to stop the crimes that are occurring after they have in fact occurred. The key idea here is that they are “catchers” of the crime and not “preventers” of crime in neighborhoods and communities. They also view themselves as authoritatively independent from their clients or citizens of the community
The goal of community based policing is to redefine the police role to increase crime prevention activities, raise reciprocity in police and community relations, area decentralization of police services and command and some form of civilianization (Greene, 2000, 301). Each of these core elements of community based policing is necessary in order to receive greater police accountability in the community that they serve in. Issues that community based policing is addressing in an effective manner is public safety, crime reduction, fear of crime, and overall quality of life for citizens in their communities that they live in (Greene, 2000, 302). They are doing this by implementing specific strategies and areas of focus such as hot spotting or specifically focusing on areas which have high crime rates rather than areas that do not, foot patrol officers in downtown areas to raise police awareness and improve community relationships, integrating community programs such as neighborhood watch, and introducing new techniques of preventing crime such as the stop and frisk procedure (Greene, 2000, 302). All of these strategies and tactics that are mentioned plus many more that are being used in community based policing are reducing crime rates successfully, but with this