Community Policing
Another emergent method of modern Police work is Community Policing. Community policing is a philosophy based on the idea that interaction with the community and enlisting its support helps to control crime and reduce fear. Community members help to identify suspects, apprehend vandals and give tip-offs to the Police (Committee on Law and Justice, 2004).
Community policing is comprised of three main aspects. The first is community partnership. This involves collaboration between the Police and the individuals and organisations they serve to build trust and develop solutions collectively to problems of crime. The second component is Organisational Transformation which involves the structural and functional reorganisation of the Police to fit in with the demands of the community. This enables the emergent Police force to serve the community more effectively. The third component is primarily problem solving. This involves the analysis of the success of problem solving programs and adjustment to cope with any emergent scenarios. The Police tend to achieve more cooperation and success when they approach the solution of problems together (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented policing Services, 2010). In addition, community members understand better the role they are supposed to play in this process of problem solving and give them a status in society (Beito, 1999).
The development of community policing has been steady and progressive over the years as the realisation dawned on the police that it is not effective to continue trying to monopolise security service provision. In fact the police have always depended on the general public for information on crime and provision of evidence to help in establishing the guilt of offenders and secure convictions. So the idea of community policing is not exactly something new, but is rather a way of ensuring that there is a structured and organised approach to the method (Beito, 1999).
Crowd Control
Police officers have always had the responsibility of crowd in situations where large groups of people suddenly share a collective uncontrolled anger. In many cases such anger is provoked by political policies that the public find unacceptable. Crowds of people may choose to express their disquiet through demonstrations which may turn unruly hence the police have to come in to disperse them. A good example is the mass demonstrations that hit the city of Copenhagen in December (2009) over climate change. Over 600 people were arrested (Henry, 2009). Other forms of crowd violence may emanate from gang violence or even a faceoff between rival religious groups as was the case in January - March 2010 in Jos Nigeria (Smith, 2010).
The police are therefore always called upon to control such crowd situations. However in the context of modern policing they have to ensure that they do not use unnecessarily excessive force in order to achieve their objective since that may be regarded as human rights abuse by the victims and wider society. Whereas it was common in the past for the police to even shoot people dead on such occasions, human rights campaigners have rigorously opposed such police brutality thus forcing the police to review their methods in view of such complaints (Siegel, 2005). Illustrating those plural policing methods may (in instances such as this) reduce hostility and remove the wedge between policing officials and the wider community by acting as a catalyst and improving societies experience with the law.
Emergent Crimes
In recent times the most problematic emergent crime for the police all over the world has been organised crime. This area has been especially problematic since they come up with new challenges that police organisations did not anticipate before. They also keep changing as the criminals, like any others, become more sophisticated in their mode of operations (Neocleous, 2004).
This refers to illegitimate groups of persons who operate using organisational rules similar to those of legal entities to propagate crime. Such organisations are in most cases unregistered but may run several legitimately registered businesses to aid them in crime or as a means of investing their criminally acquired proceeds. In some cases they are registered but pursue objectives other than those stated in their articles (Sullivan, 2002).
Organised crime includes extortion gangs, drug trafficking groups, terrorism practitioners, pimping groups that organise prostitution and street gangs. Like any other organisation they have rules, organisational structures and financial management systems. However they ruthlessly enforce these rules and break the law regularly in pursuit of their objectives. Events such as murder, assault and gang shootouts are a common feature among them (Sullivan, 2002).
A common form of organised crime is the variety known as ‘paramilitaries’. Originating in Northern Ireland as a protector of the community, but now a day’s refer to a highly structured profit driven business, organisations that involves itself in underground criminal activities while holding a visible front. They seem to involve themselves in merchandising assassinations, extortion, drug trafficking among other ills while threatening their own members and the general public with death to ensure they toe the line (Sullivan, 2002).
Most organised crime is difficult to deal with for modern policing agencies since there sphere of operation is in many cases internal and external thus requires cooperation and coordination between different police organisations alongside other outside agencies. This cooperation is severely limited by the differences in laws governing the different countries (Sullivan, 2002). This demonstrates that policing this type of crime at a community level can prove to be quite difficult, especially as well as demonstrating a sign of danger for those involved at a community level.
Another emergent crime which has been established in recent decades is computer crime, cyber crime involves the use of computers or computer based networks to break the law. Though there are several forms of computer crimes, the two that immediately come to mind are bank fraud and hacking.
Bank fraud occurs when mostly insiders conspire to draw money illegally from private accounts held by individuals and transfer it to their own accounts. International wire transfer has the disadvantage that once money is wired it is very difficult or even impossible to wire it back to the source. Though Banks always take precautions with strict regulations on wire transfer, such rules differ from country to country and thus those countries with the negligent laws become easy targets for fraudsters on the international arena. Fraudsters have also been known to acquire bank information of unsuspecting targets using false pretences and then using the same to empty the accounts of the unfortunate targets (Siegel, 2005). Therefore policing officials have had to acquire information of banking officials in order to solve these types of crimes, once again illustrating that the police need other outside agencies to deal with this type of crime.
However there is a variety of hackers popularly known as crackers who break into computers to gather classified information for clandestine and unlawful purposes. Their aim is to sell the information to willing buyers or even illegally transfer cash that belongs to other people on money transfer sites. Crackers have been known to break into classified information of governments, intelligence networks, banking organisations, media houses and international non- governmental organisations (Hafner, & Markoff, 1991). On June 1 1994, Kevin Poulsen also known as Dark Dante was convicted in the United States after pleading guilty to seven counts of mail, wire and computer fraud; as well as money laundering and obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to 51 months in prison and ordered to pay US $ 56,000 in restitution (Gissel, 2005).
Relevance of the Police in Modern Society
Difficult as it may be to imagine, policing in today’s society faces challenges that sometimes boarders on the consideration that this long standing institution should be done away with altogether. Though that is extremely radical, it is quite obvious that the police have always been forced to bend over backwards in order to accommodate the ever changing laws in an increasingly freedom oriented society. With the emergency of strong human rights advocacy groups always pushing for more freedom of individuals and constant laws by increasingly restive members of the public, the police are definitely on the spotlight at all times (Schulte, 1996).
First of all, the Police as a force have become extinct in many countries having been replaced by a Police Service, such as Northern Ireland. The reason for this was because a ‘Police Force’ seemed as if it was a forcing legislator whereas a ‘Police Service’ is seen as a community provider (Newburn, 2007). The role of the Police as enforcers of the law is slowly becoming reinvented as that of service to the community by inventing other local agencies and using them as a lower level crime prevention scheme. In its rich history, the Police were at one time regarded as the protectors of capital owned by the rich against a populace bent on acquiring it for themselves. This role is no longer relevant as it has emerged that they are public servants paid by all in the service of all. Demonstrating that the public want a police service who adopt a more civilised approach in terms of appearance and attitude; with the police declaring that it makes it difficult for those Police who handle a force, who has been trained to enforce the law mostly by targeting the low class citizens as the main potential law breakers. The Police Chief has therefore been called upon to reform the force constantly to maintain its relevance in modern society (Schulte, 1996).
However, with retraining on issues such as protection of human rights and equal enforcement for the public, many modern police forces have emerged out of the morass in which they operated in the past. Methods such a torture as a way of retrieving information from suspects for instance have long been outlawed with only moderate methods being advocated. Police officers therefore constantly face the challenge of retrieving information using moderate methods that involve persuasion and bargaining rather than force (Neocleous, 2004).
Another front of change for the police lies in the fact that they increasingly deal with a populace that is well aware of their rights. Such individuals keenly observe that such rights are observed to the letter every time they have a run in with the police. Conversely though, this newfound power of the lawbreaker over the police must be delicately balanced with the danger facing the police officer. Criminals don’t like being arrested and the possibility of them beginning to shoot their way to freedom is nearly always a grim reality. Since no Police Chief wants his officers to end up as statistics of deaths on the line of duty, all these guarantees of rights must be delicately balanced with the ever present need to use force before the criminal dies. If this is the dilemma facing the society; balancing the right to life of the criminal and that of the officer; the direct victims of this dilemma are the police officers themselves (Neocleous, 2004).
The modern police officer is also an integral member of the society in which he operates. He has to partake in collective community activities in order to maintain the touch with their surroundings necessary to help them gather all requisite information relevant to their work (Beito, 1999). Yet their duty calls upon them to immediately apprehend any member of society who breaks the law. It is another dicey balance between duty and building trust. It is no secret that the long arm of the law is the last thing a member of the public wants nosing around once they has committed a crime (Schulte, 1996). This point regards the state as a ‘meddler’ as it is a figure seen as intervening in people’s lives (Newburn, 2008).
Another of the main challenges posed to policing is the emergence of private security firms that offer their services at a local level. Those who can afford such services tend to prefer this type of refuge as they have an element of leverage in the control of these organisations. Private security even as a protecting agent still have to abide by certain regulations, such as The Private Security Act (2001) which ensures moderation by a Security Industry Authority to create a better formation of security. All security firms report to the police when they apprehend criminals activity as they require legal action, they are the preferred mode of security on petty maters that can be resolved locally. In addition, the fact that these organisations are locally based gives them an advantage over the police who operate on a larger scale (Beito, 1999).
However, all and sundry know that these forms cannot replace the Police. Whenever local crimes are committed by larger gangs with more fire power and a wider organisational level, the only organisation large, experienced and equipped enough to deal with them is the Police Service. So rather than replace the Police locals prefer to work in cooperation with them (Beito, 1999).
Private firms have also developed the tendency to buy policemen since they operate on a smaller scale and charge highly for their services thus they are able to pay better. This is also coupled by criminal elements compromising uncommitted police officers by paying them to perpetrate crimes. Luckily, in most cases this situation is unsustainable since any police division that involves itself in such kinds of deals with criminals soon find themselves being victims of the very crime they are perpetuating. Those who join security firms also realise that their scope of operations, availability of equipment and back up is so limited that they have to resort back to the thin blue line for support (Neocleous, 2004).
Emergent crimes have always posed challenges to the police as well. The officers are called upon to constantly devise ways of dealing with these new crimes and then request for the enactment of laws to ensure that convictions are made. The main difficulty always stems from retraining officers to be able to deal with new and more sophisticated forms of crime. The areas of concern include detection of the crimes, investigation and the kind of evidence to be gathered and finding of credible witnesses even in areas where it may not be so easy to find any, like in cyber crime. Nevertheless, the Police always have to endeavour to do all these so as to remain relevant (Gissel, 2005).
The emergence of technology has also rendered the police either minimally required or even irrelevant. The police beat is still useful in apprehending criminals on the spot, but the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) is now able to play the role of crime detection in areas where only the eyes of the policeman could be relied upon before. In fact, CCTV also helps in gathering accurate and convincing evidence in certain crimes which make it easier to achieve convictions. This is because it actually records the crime in progress, keeps exact appearances of the criminals and even records the time and place of the crime. In a sense this makes the investigative work of the Police easier, but it also renders irrelevant the need for their hawk eyed presence of neighbourhood watch. The connection CCTV to satellites has also made it impossible to erase evidence of crime on the spot by the criminal. As technology advances, the police maintain a delicate balance with it alongside their regular services (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented policing Services, 2010).
White collar crime still poses a major challenge to police officers in many countries. The line of command of the Police is such that politicians and other leaders are privy their internal secrets, plans, activities and problems. When the public leader becomes involved in crime therefore, he tries his best to keep the information from the police thus making these crimes pretty hard to detect. Even though the truth will always come out, it sometimes does when it is too late to prevent the damage from happening. Enforcing the law against white collar crime therefore remains a constant challenge to the police. Unfortunately, the disgruntled public often judges the performance of the police not against how many muggers they pick off the streets, but by the one white collar criminal they fail to apprehend. This is understandable since white collar criminals tend to steal in millions (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented policing Services, 2010). This is a clear demonstration where the police need assisted by other organisations in order to stop this type of criminality.
Conclusion
The Police remain a relevant service in modern society just as much as they were in medieval times. The one thing that remains constant however is that their roles have kept changing and will keep on doing so in future. For them to continue remaining relevant and useful, they have to keep changing with the demands in the society. This of course applies not just to them but to any other institution that aids the police. Pluralisation has resulted in a method of mediation between the police and communities. With the changes from the Patten Report and the Morgan Report, it has made a significant change in feelings towards policing bodies, society does not hold as much hostility as community agents are working with the public to reinforce the law at a community level and reducing what would have been regarded as ‘bad’ experiences with the police and replacing with ‘good’ mutual feelings. Although even with these changes, the Police will continue to remain relevant and needed even as the society progresses. Everyone can rest assure that there will always be elements in society incapable of keeping to its norms without being forced to. Answering the question has the place of the public police become less important? On a personal note, yes it has but only to be reinstated by low level community and private security where policing officials cannot tend to 24/7; but we will always resort back to the Police, regardless whether they are a force or service or whatever other name shall be coined for them.
Word count
3,946
Bibliography
Beito L. R., (1999). Leadership Effectiveness in Community Policing. Indiana: Wyndham Hall Press.
Carmichael, P. & Knox, C., (1999). Towards ‘a new era’? Some developments in governance
Of Northern Ireland. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 65(3), 103-116.
Committee on Law and Justice (2004). Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing. Washington: National Academies Press.
Embar-seddon, A. & Pass A. D., (eds.). (2008). Forensic Science. New York: .
Gissel R., (2005). Digital Underworld: 23rd edition). Raleigh NC: .
Gregg, M., (2006). Certified Ethical Hacker. New York: Pearson.
Hafner, K. & Markoff, J. (1991). Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Henry, R., (2009). Copenhagen summit: 600 arrested at climate change protest. The Times on Sunday. 16th April, 2010. Accessed from:
Home Office, (2010). Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Available from: [Accessed on 4th May, 2010].
Interpol. (2010). About Interpol. India: Interpol. Available from: [Accessed on 18th April 2010].
Marcus, A., (1981). The Public Historian. , 3(1), 104-106.
Metropolitan Police, (2010) Timeline. United Kingdom: Metropolitan Police. Available from: [Accessed on 29th March 2010].
Neocleous, M. (2004). Fabricating Social Order: A Critical History of Police Power. New Jersey: Pluto Press.
Newburn, T. (2007). Criminology. Cullompton: Willan Publishing.
Newburn, T., (2008) Policing In comparative and Historical Perspective. In Newburn, T., (ed.). Handbook of Policing. Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 13-16.
Sanders, A., & Young, R., (2008) Police Powers. In Newburn, T., (ed.). Handbook of Policing. Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 281-312.
Schulte, R., (1996). Which Challenges will Police Managers have to Meet in the Future. Policing In Central and Eastern Europe. Available from: [Accessed on 16th April 2010].
Siegel, L. J. (2005). Criminology. New York: Thomson Wadsworth.
Smith, D., (2010). Hundreds dead as more religious violence hits Nigeria. The Guardian. 16th April, 2010. Accessed from:
Sullivan, R. ed. (2002). Mobsters and Gangsters: Organized Crime in America, from to . New York: Life Books
The Police Foundation, (2006). Police Governance and Accountability. University of Oxford: Oxford Policing Forum, POLICE0001
U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented policing Services, (2010). Community Policing Defined. Available from [Accessed on 16th April, 2010]
Walker, S. (1977). A Critical History of Police Reform: The Emergence of Professionalism. Lexington, MT: Lexington Books
