Police Perception In My Community Essay

INTRODUCTION AND precept per penny sequencenership orientated Policing is a ism and non a unique(predicate) tactic, It is a proactive, decentralized approach, designed to reduce criminal offense, put out, and by extension, fear of crime, by intensely involving the same officer in the same biotic company on a long-term basis, so that residents impart develop trust to encourage with constabulary by providing information and assistance to achieve those terce essential goals (Trojanowicz  and Carter,1988) The Violent horror Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act) is widely recognised as a significant milest unmatch adapted in familiarity policing. It was think by President Clinton and Attorney General Reno as the changing of policing. The regulation provided the funding vehicle for an additional 100,000 law of nature officers to boost lawfulness enforcement efforts in a climate of nationwide anxiety most crime. The Act gave the mathematical functio n of union Oriented Policing Services (OCOPS) the task of supporting a major drive toward rooting familiarity policing in solid foundations to become the usual orthodoxy in American law enforcement.(Nicholl, 1999)Law Enforcement Agencies finishedout the country tone to Office of association Oriented Policing Services to improve their avow services. consort to OCOPS, every(prenominal)iance policing foc subroutines on crime and social disorder through the rake of guard services that includes aspects of traditional law enforcement, as well as prevention, problem-solving, company engagement, and partnerships. The community policing model balances reactive reactions to calls for service with proactive problem-solving pertain on the causes of crime and disorder. lodge policing requires patrol and citizens to join together as partners in the course of both identifying and effectively addressing these issues.            It is impo rtant to note accordingly the familiars apprehension of the jurisprudence force is an essential element for the advantage of union Policing- ground strategies. Throughout the country, studies have been do that correlate law of nature wisdom and Community Policing.During the former(prenominal) 20 divisions, there has been an expanding body of chief examining citizens attitudes toward the police. about of this enquiry has been directed at assessing the determinants of these attitudes. In contrast, less attention has been pore on the reasons why citizens hold trustworthy attitudes (Frank et al,2005)The author past, as a member of the Chesterfield police force Department, has a special interest in Community Policing and law of nature recognition, most especially in his aver community. This research them founds to theater law of nature science oddly in the Community of Chesterfield Township, a part of The County of Macomb in the state of land mile. It is worth mentioning that The  Chesterfield law Department s aim is embodied in its thrill rehearsal  it is committed to providing the highest quality of earthly concern service and crime prevention while maintaining the publics heed and protecting the rights and dignity of everyone. The Chesterfield Police Department is dedicated to strong community relationships while providing a safe environment to enhance the quality of brio for our citizens and visitors, which is very much in line with the fantasy of Community Policing.This is except supported by this Police Departments value statement , abbreviated as POLICE, which includes developing an everlasting PARTNERSHIP among the Community, having a dedicated to the OATH of protecting and serving all battalion ,recognizing the wideness of all Department members and Citizens, treating each other with fairness, LOYALTY and respect , maintaining  the highest class of INTEGRITY, being responsible and accountable for th eir own actions and decisions , believing that COOPERATION and teamwork will modify them to achieve all goals of this Department and having a commitment  to EXCELLENCE in the perfor worldce of their  duties (http//www.chesterfield townshippolice.com/values.htm)            The Chesterfield Police Departments Mission and Value statements parcel out the same elements with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services which aims  to help law enforcement agencies implement and enhance community policing, defined  as a policing philosophy that proves and supports organizational strategies to address the causes and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem-solving tactics and police-community partnerships. (C.O.P.S. http//www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=36/ )            Chesterfield Township is located in Macomb County, Michigan and encompasses an argona of approximately 26 square miles. The macrocosm at the 2000 census was 37,004.  This increased to 446,962 in the division 2006. (Muller, 2006) The Township was established in 1842 and became a Charter Township in 1989 by Resolution. (Pall, 2002)  In Chesterfield, The shape of violent crimes recorded by the FBI in 2003 was 28. The number of murders and homicides was 1. The violent crime rate was 0.7 per 1,000 people. Meanwhile, in the whole Macomb county, of which Chesterfield is included, a total of  22,395 were reported for the division 2000 , a majority of reports were for Larceny and Motor vehicle theft. Sixteen of the reports for that year were on murder, 309 for rape and 384 reports on robbery for that year (Federal potency of investigating to the field of study Archive of Criminal legal expert Data, University of Michigan)            It is in from scope then that the author gathered info for the completion of t his research Guided by feedback from other researches undertaken on Police erudition of the community such as these   Gathering data on crime and community policing at the local anaesthetic anaesthetic level not muchover supplements our national data, but also allows local officials to identify their particular crime control motifs, said Bureau of Justice Statistics Director Jan Chaiken.  As part of the Justice Departments emphasis on police working with residents in their neighborhoods, we are giving local law enforcement agencies tools to learn much about crimes and public opinion that may not be reported to the police.Community policing is a crime battle strategy that encourages law enforcement to work in partnership with the community to ferment crime problems. The high degree of citizen support for Americas neighborhood police officers is a testament to the dedicated men and women who work twenty-four hours in and day out to establish relationships wi th residents in their communities, said replacement Attorney General Eric Holder.  These relationships help citizens and police work together to promote community safety. (Smith et al, 1999)            In light of these statements, this research was undertaken to determine the Police Perception in the Community of Chesterfield Township, whether it is arrogant or negative through the use of a Police Perception survey adapted from earlier studies made by other police department in certain cities, particularly Portland (C adeninebell De long, 2005) , Pasadena (Police Assessment preference Center, 2006). lucre (The simoleons Community Policing Evaluation Consortium, 2004) and Kentucky (Kentucky Crime Prevention Coalition) it also aims to provide demographic disruption of survey respondents in relation to their Police Perception in Chesterfield Township.            Such information will ena ble the Chesterfield Police Department to continue living out their mission statement and embody the philosophy of Community Policing by either maintaining or improving their performance based on their communitys police percept, as will be determined by the survey make for this submit.            It is the hope of this author that this research will also lead to the macrocosm of other studies concerning his community and the other areas in the County of Macomb, and even the State of Michigan to further improve the Police Departments public service performance to check the safety of the citizens.REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUREThe idea of examining Police Perception is not new. The communitys lore of the police department has been linked to the success of police programs to promote safety in the neighborhood. A lease made by Gallagher. Et al in 2001, summarizes the studies made count oning Police calculate and Communitys perceptual exp erience of the Police in a The Public Image of the Police Final Report to The international Association of Chiefs of Police. explore findings speckle out that Polls of the adult population in the coupled States since the 1960s prove that the majority of the public has an over-all positive view of the police. Depending on the year and the particular measure used, the percentage of respondents with a positive saga city of police has been between 51 and 81 percent. When asked to assess service to their own neighborhoods, respondents tend to produce even higher evaluations. Relatively few citizens offer a negative assessment of police. (Gallagher et al. 2001).            Research also recognizes that Police Perception has a great shock absorber on the success of the promulgation of Community Policing. Trojanowicz & Carter(  1991) discuss the philosophy and role of community policing. It points out that Community Policings unique contribution is a radical departure from the past and the present. While todays community policing efforts retain the best elements of the human foot patrol programs of the past, they are intended to avoid both the old organisations abuses and shortcomings.            In Community Policing, Community Justice, and Restorative Justice Exploring the relate for the Delivery of a balance Approach to Public Safety Nicholl in 1999 with a report funded by Grant No. 98-CK-WX-0059 awarded to the National dupe Center by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. It discusses the concept of Community extensively, in a indemnity-makers perspective. Liou & Savage make the connection between Community Policing Strategies and Public Perception of Police through their research Citizen Perception of Community Policing ImpactThis pick up analyses the impact of community policing by analyzing citizens light of crime and police work before and after implementation of a community-oriented policing program in collar neighborhoods in the city of West Palm Beach, Florida. The study reveals very positive findings about the community policing, including lore of decreased local crime, increased perception of police performance, neighborhood improvement, and police-community relationship. Implications concerning the relationship between the community and the police, and citizen satisfaction and public services are discussed.( Liou & Savage)Many other studies have been done to examine Police perception and these take into consideration different variables, being done in various settings.            Frank, Smith and Novak (2005) focused on the reasons why citizens have certain attitudes towards police officer. Their study uses the survey responses of 613 residents of a Midwestern city to examine the information accessed by citizens when responding to questions regarding their general and specific attitudes toward the police. The findings suggest that citizens focus on attributes of agencies and encounters, some focus on the behavior of officers during interactions, and others base their attitudes on general perceptions of the occupation of policing.            A comprehensive look at  Police perception issues can be found in Brown & benedicts article Perceptions of the police Past findings, methodological issues, conceptual issues and policy implications which is a  research updates and expands upon Deckers article Citizen attitudes toward the police a canvass of past findings and suggestions for future policy by summarizing the findings from more than 100 articles on perceptions of and attitudes toward the police.Initially, the value of research on attitudes toward the police is discussed. Then the research pertaining to the impact of individual level variables (e.g. r ace) and contextual level variables (e.g. neighborhood) on perceptions of the police is reviewed. Studies of juveniles attitudes toward the police, perceptions of police policies and practices, methodological issues and conceptual issues are also discussed. This review of the literature indicates that besides four variables (age, contact with police, neighborhood, and race) have consistently been proven to affect attitudes toward the police. (Brown & Benedict,2002)            In wrong of application, several police departments have made their own studies on Police Perception. Community Policing in Chicago an Evaluation of Chicagos Alternative Policing Strategy  Prepared by The Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium was done in through a view as awarded to  award to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority in 2004. The Portland Police Bureau 2005 Community Assessment Survey was conducted forCity of Portla nd, Bureau of Police by Campbell de long resources Inc in August 2005Police Assessment Resource Center and  Vera Institute of Justice completed Assessing Police-Community dealings in Pasadena, calcium in 2006 . The Kentucky Crime Prevention Coalition, meanwhile, adapted the use of a Community Policing Survey.HYPOTHESISH0= on that point is no significant percentage of Chesterfield Residents who have a have a positive perception of the Chesterfield Police DepartmentH1= There is a significant percentage of Chesterfield Residents who Have a positive perception of the Chesterfield Police DepartmentMETHODOLOGY            Taking into consideration the demarcation lines in man mightiness and resources for this research, a simple random sampling method was employ to come up with the survey results.            establish on the calculation for a 95 per cent confidence level and confidence interval of five, the stress size was 275.  The survey was conducted by distributing survey forms in several households  rough the Township of Chesterfield. Respondents were limited to Chesterfield residents above 18 years of age. Only one respondent per household was accepted.            These survey forms, consisting of eight simple questions pertaining to the residents perception of the police, which was based on survey forms used by other Police Departments as stated in the literature review. Only eight questions were included in the survey, because these questions focused on Police Perception. This is due to the scope and resource limitation stated earlier. A copy of this questionnaire is included in the appendix atom of this paper            This studys objective is to present data about Police Perception of the residents of the Township of Chesterfield in Macomb County in the State of Mi chigan. This research is done to show that the general perception of police in the experiment population perceive the police positively.            The try out size was 275 respondents in the township of Chesterfield, which has a population of 446,962 in the  latest census in the year 2006. found on a confidence level of 95 and a confidence interval of 5, the sample size is sufficient to estimate the response of this community regarding their perception of the Chesterfield Police Department.            envision 1 shows the demographic breakdown of respondents by race. More than half of the respondents were Caucasians, which also reflected the actual population of Caucasians, 93 % of Chesterfield population, in the 2000 Census made by the US Census Bureau. In the sample population, 61 per cent was composed of Caucasian or pureness residents. Other races composes  14.5 percent and 12 p ercent were of African-American descent. Asians comprised 5.5 per cent and 4.4 % of sample population were Hispanics/Latino. Meanwhile, 1.1 per cent was  American Indians and Pacific islanders compose on 0.7 per cent. base on these figures, it can be surmised that the Chesterfield Township was predominantly Caucasian, in terms of the population. The relationship of this data to the results concerning Police Perception will be discussed later.            The study only included residents who were 18 years old of age and above. The data shows that  majority of respondents were from the 18-29 age group, with a percentage of 39 of the sample population. The age group with the least number of respondents was that of residents 50-59 years old, representing only 9 per cent of the sample population. This signifies that the Chesterfield township has fairly young residents, as seen by the bigger percentage of those below middle age. &nb sp          Given the limited man power and resources, the author opt to estimate Police Perception using only eight questions adapted from other studies stated earlier. The first three questions were on how the community perceived police officers, based on their encounters. The fourth question estimated the residents opinion about the adequacy of the number of police officers in the community. The fifth, one-sixth and seventh questions estimated residents perception of police based on three parameters- behavior, mightiness to assess needs and relationship of police officers to residents themselves. The last question asked the residents to take a shit their over-all perception by indicating their rating for the Chesterfield Township Police Department.            Figure 3 Police Perception Responses in Chesterfield Township Community shows the relationships of responses of residents to the first three s urvey questions. As evident in the chart, answers for the questions on police perception based on encounters follow a similar pattern, indicating that most respondents agree that police officers are prompt, professional and fair.            Figure 4 represents the respondents opinion on the need for more police officers in the community. Based on the results gathered, majority, 36.4 per cent , slightly agree that there is a need for more police officers in the community. As a whole, though, it can be seen that more residents disagreed and strongly disagreed, 14.5 and 7.3 per cent respectively, that there was further need for more police presence as compared to respondents who agreed,9.1 per cent, and strongly agreed,1.8 per cent to the augmentation of police visibility.            With regard to the Chesterfield communitys perception of Police based on three parameters, their responses follow a s imilar trend, as evident in Figure 5. In terms of behavior, 49 . 5 per cent rated police satisfactory. 32. 7 % gave Chesterfield police officers a rating of excellent. plumb was how 14. 5 per cent rated police in the community while 3.6 per cent did not know how to answer this question. In their ability to address the need of the community, Chesterfield police officers were  again rated Good by 54 . 5 per cent of  the residents.  An fine rating was given by 29.1 per cent, while plum was what 11. 6 per cent deemed appropriate. There were 4.7 per cent of the population, though, that didnt know how to rate their police officers. When it comes to relationships between Chesterfield residents and their communitys police, majority, 43.6 per cent chose to rate this, as Good, beauteous was give as rating by 27. 3 per cent of the population and 21.8 gave an Excellent mark. There were 7.3 residents, though that were still unsure how to rate the Chesterfield communitys relation ship with its police officers.            Based on this information, Police perception in  the areas specified were rated Good by a majority of Chesterfield residents. This point out a positive view of the townships police officers.            In relation to this positive response, the over-all rating of Chesterfield township community residents is seen in Figure 6. However, here, we see a shift of the rating from Good to Fair. Apparently, most residents, 40.4 per cent particularly, perceive the Chesterfield Police Departments performance as Fair. Thirty two per cent gestate that the townships police deserve a good rating. Approximately 25 per cent believe their Police force is ExcellentHYPOTHESIS TESTING            This limitation of this study has been presented in the previous chapters. It is important to reiterate that this is mainly, a descrip tive study. However, for research purposes, the Hypothesis that There is a significant percentage of Chesterfield Residents who Have a positive perception of the Chesterfield Police Department has been stated, with its corresponding null supposal There is  no significant lower percentage of Chesterfield Residents who have a have a positive perception of the Chesterfield Police Department. Based on the data presented, there is evidence to believe that on all eight questions, the communitys police perception leaned towards a positive image of the members of the Chesterfield Police department.            Although specific statistical tools were not applied on the data, the descriptive statistics show that the Hypothesis should be accepted and the null hypothesis are rejected.CONCLUSION and RECOMMENDATIONS            This study aims to observe the Chesterfield communitys perception of its pol ice officers. Based on the data present, it is evident that most residents of this community hold a positive perception of their police officers. Descriptive Statistics show evidence of these, based on the percentages of positive responses.            This study, however is simplistic and there are a lot about Police perception these communities that should be evaluated so that they are translated into information that can improve the services of the Police Department.            The data gathered for this research however, can be a drag to others who will pursue such inquiry on Police Perception and who are interested in this area as a center on evaluation of Community Policing Programs, much like what other police  departments have done in their respective communities.            It is important to point out, however, that more resource be inves ted in such an endeavor to be able to come up with data that is comprehensive and more accurate.            It is the hope of this author, though that this simple research has given a glimpse of the Chesterfields communitys perception of its police officers, and serve as a give board to more advanced and relevant research. REFERENCESAnnan, Sampson O.(1995) NATIONAL SURVEY OF companyPOLICING  STRATEGIES, 1992-1993 Computer file. ICPSR version. Washington, DC The Police Foundation producer, 1994. Ann Arbor, MI Inter-university Consortium for Political and fond Research distributor,Brown, B. & Benedict W. (2002) Perceptions of the police Past findings, methodological issues,            conceptual issues and policy implications Policing An International Journal of Police               Strategies & Management, 25,543 580Campbell Delong Resources, Inc.(2005) Portland Police Bureau 2005 Community Assessment Survey Conducted for City of Portland, Bureau of Police RETRIVED  27 APRIL 2008from http//www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=105839Chesterfield, Michigan. Podunk, The Power of Place retrieved 29 April 2008from http//www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=21700 Frank, J, Smith, B.W., Novak, K.J. (2005)Exploring the Basis of Citizens Attitudes Toward                 the Police Police Quarterly 8, 206-228Gallagher, Maguire, E., Mastrofski, S., Reisig, D.(2001) The Public Image of the Police                      Final Report to The International Association of Chiefs of Police By The Administration                     of Justice Program George mason Unive rsity.  International Association of Chiefs of        Police retrieved on  28 April 2008 from       http//theiacp.org/profassist/ethics/public_image.htLiou,K.T.& Savage,E.G. Citizen Perception of Community Policing Impact                            Public Administration and Management An synergistic Journal. Retrieved on                            28 April 2008 from http//www.pamij.com/liou1.htmlMission Statement. 2007. Chesterfield Township Police Department, retrieved 27 April 2008from http//www.chesterfieldtownshippolice.com/mission.htmNicholl, Carolean G. (1999).Community Policing, Community Justice, and                      &nb sp                       Restorative Justice Exploring the Links for the Delivery of a BalancedApproach to Public Safety. Washington, DC U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,Police Assessment Resource Center &  Vera Institute of Justice. (2006)Assessing Police-Community Relations in Pasadena, California. retrieved on 28 April 2008 from http//www.parc.info/client_files/Pasadena/Assessing%20Police%20Community%20Relations%20in%20Pasadena%20California.pdfScaglion , R. & Condon, R.  (1980)  Determinants Of Attitudes Toward City Police.                               Criminology 17, 485494Sims, B., Hooper,M., Peterson S.A. (2002)  Determinants of citizens attitudes toward police         &nbs p      Results of the capital of Pennsylvania Citizen Survey 1999 Policing An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 25, 457 471The Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium ( 2004 ) CAPS at Ten Community Policing in Chicago An Evaluation of Chicagos Alternative Policing Strategy.        Institute for Police Research retrieved 27 April 2008 from             http//www.northwestern.edu/ipr/publications/policing_papers/Yr10-CAPSeval.pdfTrojanowicz R.C.  & Carter, D.  The Philosophy and Role of Community Policing.                     The National Center for Community Policing, Michigan State University.                                               retrieved on 28 April 2008. fromhttp//www1.cj.msu.edu/people/cp/cpphil.html