Essay Sample on Police Visibility: Essential Tool for Effective Law Enforcement

Introduction

The dynamic societal issues and priorities present new challenges to law enforcement agencies. Enhanced police visibility is necessary to ensure a reduction in crime rates, drug use, and traffic-related fatalities. The agencies are, however, faced with the problem of limited resources and budgets in the execution of their duties. It is, therefore, recommendable for the agencies to engage proactively law enforcement as a key tool to ensure effective and efficient service delivery to the public. The paper is, therefore, premised on offering solutions to questions related to policing issues.

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Major Characteristics That Identify the Proactive Police Agency

Proactive policing is characterized by several qualities. Firstly, the approach community-focused, and it mainly aims at combating a crime before it occurs. Secondly, it targets the improvement of the lives of citizens by creating and enhancing a positive relationship between law enforcement agencies and the people being served (Harmon & Manns, 2017). This builds a conducive environment for communication and promotes trust between law enforcement officers and the community. It also enables the police agencies to put into practice a wide range of tactics in dealing with the dynamic nature of societal issues.

Prioritized Changes within the Police Department

Several reforms ought to be undertaken within the police departments to convert them from their reactive nature into more proactive agencies. Every transition is, however, accompanied by certain obstacles that must be overcome. It is, therefore, advisable to prioritize and categorize the reforms in their order of importance. Much effort should be focused on training the police agencies to make them problem-oriented (Williams, 2015). This is a systematic strategy that allows law enforcement agencies to utilize research, analysis, and thorough assessments in the process of addressing matters which concern the police departments.

Moreover, community policing must also be enhanced. This involves community partnerships, which entail creating an environment of trust which allows the community members and the police to share information freely and openly (Williams, 2015). Organizational management strategies, policies, and structures should also be transformed to facilitate community policing effectively.

Major Impediment to Implementing Proactive Policing Style

The proactive policing approach is associated with several challenges. The biggest impediment involves recruitment, hiring, and retention of officers in every police department. To be effective, all the enforcement officers must uphold the proactive policing practices. It may be difficult during the recruitment process to get qualified applicants who possess positive characters that are necessary to uphold proactive policing practices (Harmon & Manns, 2017). It may also be costly and time consuming for an organization to go through all the checks and process which are necessary to come up with the right kind of law enforcement officers.

Benefits of Implementing Proactive Policing Style

Proactive policing has several benefits. It is useful in the establishment of a closer relationship between the law enforcement officers and the community members being served. The approach also provides a better mechanism that enables the police agencies to solve current societal issues amicably and comprehensively (Harmon & Manns, 2017). The law enforcement officers are, therefore, in a position to diagnose and provide proper and lasting solutions to issues which may enhance criminal cases in a given community.

Conclusion

In summary, the law enforcement agencies should abandon the reactive ways of policing and adopt proactive policing mechanism. The mechanism is effective in handling the current dynamic issues in society. It equally has its share of disadvantages, but the advantages are many, as shown herein.

References

Harmon, R. A., & Manns, A. (2017). Proactive policing and the legacy of Terry. Ohio St. J. Crim. L., 15, 49. Retrieved from https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/85585/1/OSJCL_V15N1_049.pdf

Williams, L. M. (2015). Beyond enforcement: Welcomeness, local law enforcement, and immigrants. Public Administration Review, 75(3), 433-442. Retrieved from http://perpustakaan.unitomo.ac.id/repository/Beyond%20Enforcement%20Welcomeness,%20Local%20Law%20Enforcement,%20and%20Immigrants%20(pages%20433%E2%80%93442).pdf