If the police truly understand their role in the vitality of their community, they will become true stakeholders and develop the sense of ownership needed to make a difference. This is why quality of life must be the end game and ultimate goal for local law enforcement. When citizens feel safe where they live, work, and play, they put more value in their local police department. Businesses and people move to communities that have a great quality of life. Economic vitality equals jobs, and jobs reduce poverty-related issues.

 

We provide products, education, strategy for diverse policing interests and geography. Geography focus inclusion is important because officers that are assigned to defined smaller geographical areas often feel a sense of ownership for that area. Officers commonly know many of the people who live and work in the area and are intimately familiar with the area’s geography, businesses, schools, and churches. Officers will often seek out detailed information about police incidents that have occurred in their area of responsibility during their off-duty time, and they become resources to community members for other city services.

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Social Media and Public Trust

Smart policing initiatives embrace technology to prevent and solve crime. Intelligence-led policing uses technology to disrupt criminal activity or prevent it from ever occurring through a focus on intelligence gathering.

 

Recruitment and Training

A key component of maintaining community trust is ensuring that those who would do harm never get into the law enforcement profession, or if already in the profession, are removed. Hiring the right people using comprehensive background investigations is imperative, and once the right people are hired, they must be developed. 

 

National- and state-level accreditation programs for law enforcement have become a popular way to determine what the best practices are. One such program is the Texas Police Chiefs Best Practices Recognition Program.6

 

Recognized agencies in this program must meet 166 standards that have been determined to be the best practices for professional law enforcement in Texas. 

 

These best practices include policy standards and requirements for everything from use of force to evidence collection. Such recognition validates that a community’s police agency is doing business the correct way as verified by outsiders who regularly assess the agency. Accreditation programs can also reduce civil liability claims.

 

Modern law enforcement agencies are adopting a customer service–driven model of policing that embraces the prevention goal laid as the foundation of the profession in the early 1800s by Sir Robert Peel. If law enforcement executives truly make prevention the key focus of all police operations, they are putting their customers—community members—first, and the agencies will seek community members’ input (voice) as part of the solution. Effective police departments embrace technology, develop their staff, follow best practices for the profession, and understand when to employ de-escalation techniques. The ultimate goal for any law enforcement agency must be to improve the quality of life in its community for those who live, work, and play there. A prevention-focused model of community policing can strengthen trust between the community and the police that serve it.

 

All respondents (100 percent) indicated it is important for the police to build partnerships with the community to prevent crime.This important component of community policing is not understood by all law enforcement executives, but the survey results demonstrate that it is understood by the community. Nearly 93 percent of those surveyed believe police should be problem-solvers who proactively seek out ways to prevent crime and improve public safety by forging strong partnerships with the community. More than 90 percent also believe police officers should be “problem-finders.”

 

When given options to choose from what the “end goal” should be for the police, the highest rated choice was improving the quality of life in the community (selected by nearly 84 percent of respondents). When asked if the police should see their role as warriors, guardians, servants, or servant-guardians, over 80 percent said the police should be servant-guardians.

 

We also provide technology and training to help police 

 

• Tracking criminal activity

• Analyzing crime trends

• Developing and implementing action plans to help address community issues and criminal activity

• Acting as a liaison between the police department and residents, businesses, and community groups

• Identifying nuisance and aesthetic issues and work with other city officials to correct them

• Coordinating with Criminal Investigation Division personnel to solve crimes in the sector and apprehend offenders

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Adopting best practices and using multiple methods of interaction and partnering with the community became priorities.

Our best practices measurement model included the following four components: (1) operations; (2) community partnerships; (3) programs and projects; and (4) education awareness.

 

A law enforcement agency that adopts a prevention-focused policing model of community policing will be more successful in building public trust. Also, We believe that Best practices in policing by Making prevention the focus of all police operations, fostering a servant-guardian mentality in officers, making quality of life the end game, embracing technology, developing staff, adopting, measuring effectiveness against best practices. 

Assigning police officers areas of responsibility will make them feel a sense of ownership of the area.

officers need to have defined specific responsibilities backed up by an accountability system with measurable outcomes and performance expectations—they should understand they are stakeholders in their sectors and be required to create partnerships with residents and businesses to seek their assistance in preventing crime. 

Prevention should involve the elimination of crime-conducive conditions.