The concept that police officers and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay.

Principles of Community Policing

1. Community Policing is both a philosophy and an organizational strategy that allows the police and citizens of the community to work closely together in new ways to solve the problems of crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay.

2. Community Policing's organizational strategy first demands that everyone in the department, including both civilian and sworn personnel, must investigate ways to translate the philosophy into practice.

3. To implement true community policing, police departments must also create and develop line officers who act as the direct link between the police and people in the community.

4. The broad role of community policing demands continuous., sustained contact with the law-abiding people in the community, so that together they can explore creative new solutions to local concerns involving crime, disorder and decay.

5. Community Policing implies a new contract between the police and the citizens it serves, one that offers the hope of overcoming widespread apathy, while also restraining any impulse to vigilantism.

6. Community Policing adds a vital proactive element to the traditional reactive role of the police, resulting in a full spectrum police services.

7. Community Policing stresses exploring new ways to protect and enhance the lives of those who are most vulnerable: juveniles, the elderly, minorities, new Americans, the poor, the diseased, and the homeless.

8. Community Policing promotes the judicious use of technology, but it also rests on the belief that nothing surpasses what dedicated human beings talking and working together can achieve.

9. Community Policing must be a fully integrated approach that involves everyone in the department.

10. Community Policing provides decentralized, personalized police service to the community.

Community Policing Neighborhoods

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