1. Community Policing is a program that links the actions of the police with citizen participation. this is part of an overall effort to solve the problems of the community by involving the community. Among the features of such a program are integrated investigations, team and neighborhood rather than a shift and divisional basis for officer deployment, foot patrols, and community service as a focus along with problem-oriented policing instead of mere crime-fighting. Programs of this sort mean a different structure for the police as well as altered functions, allocations of resources, and general attitude. This can be a challenge to traditional police department structures because the traditional method is to respond to citizen demand rather than to try to ascertain the underlying forces creating patterns of problems. The community policing method is proactive rather than responsive. The approach also calls attention to the degree to which the police are dependent on the public for support, information, and cooperation.
2. Plea bargaining is a fact in our courtrooms because without it the system would come to a stop, yet it is controversial because the public perceives it as too lenient on criminals. One of the primary arguments for plea bargaining is efficiency, for it moves justice along and allows the courts to dispose of many cases without the necessity of an expensive and time-consuming trial. Related to this argument is the reality that without plea bargaining, the number of trials that would have to be held would indeed bring many jurisdictions to a halt because the courts are already overloaded. The kinds of cases most likely to result in plea bargaining are those where the evidence is self-evident and the defendant would have little hope of escaping from the system entirely. The arguments against plea bargaining begin with public dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system and with a certain public vindictive...