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Essay Subject: Examines reasons for tense relations. Image of police. Making officers part of community.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines reasons for tense relations. Image of police. Making officers part of community. Paper Introduction: Relations between the police and members of certain minority communities are often quite poor, and arguably this contributes to the crime problem in several ways, from the fact that the young and disaffected turn against law and order as well as the police to the fact that many who are crime victims will be reluctant to call the police. Many minorities feel that they are unfairly singled out by police for stops, searches, interrogations, and the like and that they are at greater risk for death or injury at the hands of the police as a result. Relations between the police and the black community have long been tense. In some regions, the police are viewed as an occupying army present not to protect the people but to control them and to keep them in their place. Numerous civil disturbances in recent decades can be traced to tensions between the p Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Community Policing is a program that links the actions of the policewith citizen participation as part of an overall effort to solve theproblems of the community by involving the community, a method adopted bypolice agencies aware of the scope of the crime problem facing them: These frustrations have led progressive police executives to a broader set of conclusions: that crime has many complex causes and that police departments cannot keep the streets safe by themselves. In the last decade there have beenblack police chiefs in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,Houston, Philadelphia, and Detroit. The number and influence of black officers has increased considerablysince the beginning of efforts at integration, and since 1972 the number ofblack officers nationwide has doubled to more than 6 , . The use of these tests was in answer to a pledge to do something aboutthe problem of racism and brutality among some police officers: A commission appointed to investigate the Los Angeles police recommended that officers be retested for psychological problems every three years. Thecommunity policing method is proactive rather than responsive. Relations between the police and the black community have long beentense. An effort to make this a reality was attempted in Macon,Georgia where a crime-prevention program was instituted in which the policedetermined that a group of young people with a history of problems wouldbenefit from having their own full-time police officer. He also meets with theseyoung people and helps them with their problems ("Policeman Next Door" 6). Requiring officers to live in thecommunity is seen as a way of enhancing the community policing effort in avariety of ways and of adding to the comfort level on both sides. "Have the Benefits of Community Policing Been Oversold?" CQ Researcher (November 24, 1995), 1 57.Oppenheimer, Todd. Among the features of such a program are integrated investigations,team and neighborhood rather than a shift and divisional basis for officerdeployment, foot patrols, and community service as a focus along withproblem-oriented policing instead of mere crime-fighting. www.newsweek.com. Critics cite the fact that the use of such testshas not accomplished the desired result of weeding out those who may beracist or who may use excessive force. Cities in free nations will never reflect the orderliness of Berlin under the Nazis or Moscow under the communists. A report by a community group knownas Police Watch that monitors complaints of police misconduct in LosAngeles County shows that there has been no diminution in complaints afterthese tests were instituted. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.Lambert, W. "What the LAPD Ought to Try." U.S. Between 1982and 1992, the 5 largest police departments saw an increase in blackofficers by an average of 36 percent. "Making Neighborhoods Safe." The Atlantic Monthly (February 1989), 46-52.Wintersmith, R.F. Joseph D.McNamara, formerly chief of police in San Jose, California, states, It was constantly necessary to emphasize to the officers that we were peace officers, servants of the community--not soldiers in a war against crime and drugs. In America police methods must comply with the law and community standards. Some see the police as having isolatedthemselves intentionally, leaving them open to charges of abusing theirauthority by coming into neighborhoods in which they have no stake andusing their power unwisely. A number of arguments are advanced as to whysuch rules should be adopted, beginning with giving the police a stake inthe community, encouraging greater understanding on the part of eachofficer of the people he serves, and creating greater accountability.Arguments against include the idea that it really does not matter where theofficer resides but how he or she is trained and the belief that sometimesthe officer and his or her family may be safer in a different community,given the tendency on the part of some for retaliation. The image of the police as an occupying army is especially strong inblack, Hispanic, and some other ethnic neighborhoods.Residents see the police as different form themselves--they are of adifferent race, different background, and live in different communities. "A Veteran Chief: Too Many Cops Think It's A War." Time (September 1, 1997), 28.Moran, Richard and Bonnie Bucqueroux. Policing. He states that the people were glad to see him arrive. Police and citizens should seethemselves as part of the same community.Informal and casual contact between police officers and the public occursat different rates in different communities.Often, members of the public keep their distance from police officers outof concern that they will be investigated or somehow drawn into policeactivity or because of a general distrust of the police: "American studiesshow high social isolation of police officers in comparison with people inother occupations (Guyot 279). However, the mere act of hiring alarger number of black officers does not solve the problem of racism in thepolice department and does not create an equal playing field for the blackswith respect to the whites in the police department (Kaufman and Gaiter 1). "A Shocking Accusation of Abuse Raises Old Questions about Police Brutality--and How It Can Be Stopped. and George L. An issue raised more and more in cities across the country is whetheror not there should be a requirement for members of the police departmentto reside in the communities they serve.Indeed, this argument extends beyond the police and often centers on adebate over whether there should be a residency requirement for police,foremen, and city officials. It was a choice, plain and simple. A New York resident notes this when he says, Police officers made the decision to be what they are. Heworked to help the local kids and talked each week to the principal oftheir school to check their grades and behavior. Relations between the police and members of certain minoritycommunities are often quite poor, and arguably this contributes to thecrime problem in several ways, from the fact that the young and disaffectedturn against law and order as well as the police to the fact that many whoare crime victims will be reluctant to call the police. The departmentbought a house for the officer in the neighborhood, and he lived and workedfrom that home. Blacks and Hispanics wereeven more emphatic about the issue and voted nearly three-to-one thatpolice should live in the communities they serve (Willen A 5). When a cop forgets that simple notion, they are in danger of abusing their positions (Oppenheimer www.newsweek.com). A number of police abuse cases in recent years have led to commissionsin New York and Los Angeles offering suggestions for changes to reduce theracism in the ranks and to control excessive police aggression. Newsweek (September 1, 1997), www.newsweek.com.Guyot, Dorothy. Arecent study from Northeastern University shows that students are morelikely to view an arrest as involving brutality if the person arrested isblack and all the police are white: "You can have all the civilian review boards in the world, and you can train every officer to the hilt, and you'll still have cases of brutality," says Jack Levin, the study's author. Theefforts to accomplish these goals have been mixed. That thinking is responsible for the most radical and controversial innovation sweeping the field these days--so- called community-oriented or problem-oriented policing(Witkin, Tharp, and Arrarte 29). Policing is an occupation just like being waiters, stock brokers, doctors, etc. Online: The Thin Blue Line."Policeman Next Door." Time (May 1 , 1996), 6.Willen, Liz. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1974.Witkin, Gordon, Mike Tharp, and Anne Arrarte. Making the police more a part of the community is a worthygoal. Theofficers need to be comfortable with the victims and to understand theperpetrators, and living in the community they serve. In some regions, the police are viewed as an occupying army presentnot to protect the people but to control them and to keep them in theirplace. Innovative meansto combat crime have been instituted in recent years and have had somesuccess in cities like New York, but activists believe that more could beaccomplished if the police were part of the community they serve. "You have to make sure that officers in a black neighborhood represent the residents" (Beals and Bai www.newsweek.com).Indeed, some see the attitude taken by the police toward crime and towardachieving a zero crime rate as misplaced. Numerous civil disturbances in recent decades can be traced totensions between the police and the black community, from the riots of thesummer of 1965 to the riot in Los Angeles after the first Rodney Kingverdict, from the problems in Crown Heights in New York to any number ofdisputed police shooting incidents in cities across the country. Arecent study suggests that the benefits of community policing may have beenoversold to the public, but there are also indications that communitypolicing needs to be given time to work and that the police and thecommunity must become more comfortable with one another to create a betteratmosphere (Moran and Bucqueroux 1 57). This can be achallenge to traditional police department structures because thetraditional method is to respond to citizen demand rather than to try toascertain the underlying forces creating patterns of problems. Kelling. Programs of thissort mean a different structure for the police as well as alteredfunctions, allocations of resources, and general attitude. A recent survey in New York conducted by Quinnipiac College found thatmost people in the city of New York would prefer that their police officerslive in the city, by a ration of two-to- one. Evenwithout a specific incident to set off a disturbance, there is often anunderlying tension between poor black communities and the surroundingsociety, with the police serving as a symbol of that society: The very complex, diffuse, interrelated, but still independent nature of the social, political, and economic institutions within American society, supported by layers and layers of public and private bureaucracies often manipulated by elusive, anonymous power brokers, perpetually frustrate the attempts of Black Americans to modify and reorder societal arrangements in their favor. Works CitedBeals, Gregory and Matt Bai. Other police departments around the country also beefed up their psychological screening (Lambert 1).In addition, black officers have charged that these psychological testshave been so subjective that they have been used to discriminate againstminorities, making the instrument itself racist (Lambert 1). News & World Report (May 11, 1992), 27-35. One way for the police to learn more about the neighborhood and theresidents is to be residents themselves. They must not arise from a rigid concept of public order formulated within the police culture (McNamara 28). Theapproach also calls attention to the degree to which the police aredependent on the public for support, information, and cooperation. Because of what they are, though, many think it makes them special citizens, able to abuse traffic laws and arrest procedures because of their belief that they are superior to the average citizen. Wilson and Kelling note of crime, "Most crime in most neighborhoods islocal: the offenders live near their victims" (Wilson and Kelling 46).This makes people in these neighborhoods feel less safe, just as they canbe made to feel more safe if police offices live in the neighborhood. Community policing, better recruiting and training, and betterintegration of the ranks would be a good beginning on reducing racialtensions, but such conflicts can only be eliminated over a long period oftime with concerted effort and careful monitoring. If crime is to be controlled, police must reach out to other local institutions, and indeed to the broader community at large, and create partnerships. "Justice: The Explosive Fuhrman Tapes Put the LAPD under New Scrutiny." Newsweek (June 2, 1997). "Poll: Cops Should Live Here." Newsday (February 13, 1997), A 5.Wilson, James Q. Police who live in a community clearly have a better understandingof the community. Therefore, the "system" is identified as the culprit (Wintersmith 2).The fact that the police are the most likely target for blackhostility and aggression, however, does not mean blacks do not have a realreason to fear the police or the rallying cry of "law and order": For Black Americans this slogan connotes oppression, police occupation of Black communities, inequitable and selective police treatment, disregard for human and constitutional rights of Black citizens, and continued denial of equitable opportunity (Wintersmith 2). Many minoritiesfeel that they are unfairly singled out by police for stops, searches,interrogations, and the like and that they are at greater risk for death orinjury at the hands of the police as a result. Police and the Black Community. "Psychological Tests Designed to Weed Out Rogue Cops Get a 'D.'" Wall Street Journal (September 11, 1995), 1, 7.McNamara, Joseph D. Lambert writes aboutthe use of psychological tests to weed out police who may havepsychological problems. "Interactive." Newsweek (September 8,1997),www.newsweek.com. Online: The Thin Blue Line.Reibstein, Larry, Andrew Murr, Jim Crogan, and Donna Foote. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.