Assignment : Police Effectiveness and Community Policing

Police departments provide service to their communities, and like any service, it is important to determine whether the police are providing that service effectively. An inherent quality or design of community policing is that it effectively engages the community in crime prevention and crime intervention efforts.

Measuring police effectiveness in a community policing environment is an interesting challenge simply because the relationship between the police and the community is dynamic. Every community is driven by its own needs, and therefore, the implementation of community policing is different in different communities. Simple measures, such as police response times or numbers of arrests or clearance of crimes, may not be readily noticed by the residents of one community as effective service but might be greatly appreciated in another community.

Thus, many factors affect a community's perception of its local police department, and various methods can be used to measure that effectiveness.

Submission Details:

In a minimum of 250 words, post to the Discussion Area your answers to the following questions:

What are the key measures of police effectiveness as it relates to community expectations of the police?

How might the expectations of a community be different in a community policing environment as opposed to a professional model police department?

Read and respond to at least two of your classmates' posts. Challenge their positions and provide alternative views to their responses that might result in a reflection of their original points of view. If you agree with their posts, provide additional support with examples from agencies you have researched on the Internet or through outside readings.

Cite your sources using APA format.