Community policing is a program being instituted in more and more police departments across the country, and it requires special training for the officers if it is to be effective. 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.
Community policing has been adopted by police agencies across the country, and according to a national survey of police departments in areas with a population of more than 50,000, over one half of the agencies have implemented community policing while an additional 20 percent indicated they planned to do so. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 provides funding for 100,000 new police officers and has also motivated many police departments to create programs encompassing various elements of community policing in an attempt to receive additional funding. One concern is that there is no clear definition of community policing so that questions are raised as to whether new programs fit a community policing model...