Changing Paradigms in Policing: The Significance of Community Policing for the Governance of Security

• NCJ Number: 178516
• Author(s): Clifford Shearing
• Date Published: August 1998
• Length: 9 pages
• Corporate Author: Institute for Security Studies
• Sale Source: Institute for Security Studies
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: South Africa
• Note: ISS Paper 34

Annotation

This paper examines the significance of community policing to modern law enforcement.

Abstract

The paper discusses the relationship between community policing, and the more established style of policing and reasons why the latter should be replaced-- or at least complemented--by community policing. It reviews the means and ends of policing and presents two arguments attempting to explain the failure of theory and strategy to produce security. Model 1 claims that while deterrence is the appropriate basis for the provision of security, the police, prosecutors, courts and prisons have not been doing a good enough job. Model 2 claims that the best way to create security is to identify and reduce opportunities for crime; ordinary people, not police, are in the best position to reduce and eliminate opportunities for crime; and physical force is not particularly useful in identifying and eliminating opportunities for crime. Police need to form partnerships with people and institutions that have other complementary resources. The paper discusses the challenge of community policing and “The Way Forward.” Figure