14 Jan It’s your call, officer.

JADM260 Community Policing

Week 6 You Decide

Scenario Summary

You are a fully trained and experienced police officer assigned to Beat Patrol Area 3, in the Second Sector of the 7th Precinct. You have patrolled this beat for more than one year. You are beginning to learn more about the community and its citizens. You know some residents by name and many of them know your first name. Often, you are greeted with a friendly “Hello, officer” or even the use of your name. You are still enforcing the criminal law as appropriate, using police discretion as you deem applicable to the incident, and responding to calls for police service. You have begun to make inroads at several of the churches’ men’s groups by being invited to attend their breakfast meetings, and you have even been invited to come to the local ladies’ garden club to be a guest speaker. You have engaged with the local schools and even taught a class or two on issues for which the school administrators had requested you make a presentation. You regularly attend the local civic and fraternal club meetings where you are requested to share timely data on local crime statistics. While the crime rate and arrest rates are not always as you would like them to be, sharing timely crime data with the public has endeared you to them. The community members know that they can trust you. You have worked on other problem-solving strategies with the public, including many that are more order maintenance or quality of life issues. Today, a citizen has asked to speak with you on a personal matter. This could be just another problem or an opportunity.

Your Role/Assignment

It’s your call, officer.

Should police officers become involved in non-crime problems in a community? What are the advantages and disadvantages behind assisting citizens with quality of life issues and orderly maintenance problems? How involved should police officers become in the lives of citizens?

As the trust continues to develop within the community for you and your colleagues on the police department through the police efforts with community policing strategies, you are approached while on foot patrol by a familiar face. An elderly citizen waves to you as you pass a row of apartments and asks you for help. You say hello since you recognize the person as someone you have spoken with before at a local tenant’s association meeting. From a doorway, the senior citizen asks to speak with you in private. Is involvement a problem or an opportunity?

The length of your paper should be between 1 to 2 pages.

Issue Dilemma

Taking appropriate action to prevent trouble.

Key Players

Grandma Jennings

Grandma Jennings

A Senior

Citizen

Police Officer Robert Jones

Officer Mickey

Assigned

to a Neighborhood Patrol Area

Mr. Sweeney

John Sweeney

Supervisor of Public Works

Ms. Nosey

Ms. Nosey

The Next Door Neighbor

Scenario

Female Businesswoman 1 Grandma Jennings asks if you have time to come inside to discuss a personal matter of great concern to her. She invites you in and asks you to have a seat in the living room. You agree and enter her apartment as she leads the way. As you do so you notice several small children playing inside of her unit. Grandma Jennings tells you the children are her grandchildren and she is their caregiver. She tells you her problem: she is unwilling to let the children play out of her sight and so they must play inside. In the past, they could play in the back alley that is within sight of her kitchen window. Since the alleyway is now filled with debris, refuse, broken glass, and abandoned refrigerators, she is unwilling to allow them to play there anymore. She says it is dangerous for children. The kids have no safe place to play in this apartment project and she is concerned. Previously, she had requested the landlord and the tenant association to remove the trash, but nothing has been done to fix this problem. She asks if you can help her get the trash cleaned up in the alley.

Female Businesswoman 2 You are the regularly assigned patrol officer in this patrol area. You ask to see the alley from Grandma Jennings’ back door. After Grandma Jennings leads you through the kitchen to the back door, you clearly observe the broken glass, trash, abandoned furniture and appliances. You recognize that it is indeed an unsafe place for children to play. While this is not a crime issue, it is a quality of life concern for the neighborhood. You recognize this matter as an opportunity to help solve a problem for a citizen. This is how trust is established in the community by the police. This is what you were trained to do in your community policing academy class. You pick up the telephone and call the city’s director of public works and ask to speak with a supervisor. When the public works supervisor picks up the phone, you identify yourself and tell him the problem in the alley. You ask for his help with this important community concern.

Female Businesswoman 1 Mr. Sweeney is aware that all city departments are to enable and support the city’s community policing philosophy efforts. Previously, he received a memorandum from the director of his agency that the mayor and city council recommend the community policing model for the entire city government. Mr. Sweeney recognizes that Officer Mickey’s request today is not a routine call for trash removal, but an effort to bond and establish trust with the community. Supervisor Sweeney immediately agrees to dispatch a dump truck and crew to remove the items in the alley. The crew arrives within the hour. They load the debris and trash, along with the old appliances, onto the truck. They use brooms and shovels to sweep the alleyway clean, and they are finished within three hours.

Female Businesswoman 2 When Officer Mickey returns the next day to check on the progress of the debris removal from the alley, he is met by Ms. Nosey, the next door neighbor of Grandma Jennings. Ms. Nosey greets you warmly. This is odd since she has always been somewhat aloof to you and your efforts to improve police-community relations in the past. Ms. Nosey says to you, “That was nice work in getting the trash cleaned up from our alley. My kids can play there again instead of in the street. Next time you need to know what is going on around here, just ask me. I know everybody and everything going on in the projects. It looks like you are really trying to help us around here.”

Activity

The length of your paper should be between 1 to 2 pages.

Top

Review the Week 6: You Decide page for the details of this assignment.

It’s your call, officer.

Should police officers become involved in non-crime problems in a community? What are the advantages and disadvantages behind assisting citizens with quality of life issues and orderly maintenance problems? How involved should police officers become in the lives of citizens?

As the trust continues to develop within the community for you and your colleagues on the police department through the police efforts with community policing strategies, you are approached while on foot patrol by a familiar face. An elderly citizen waves to you as you pass a row of apartments and asks you for help. You say hello since you recognize the person as someone you have spoken with before at a local tenant’s association meeting. From a doorway, the senior citizen asks to speak with you in private. Is involvement a problem or an opportunity?

The length of your paper should be between 1 to 2 pages.

Submit your assignment.