Community Policing: To Serve, Protect, and Solve Problems, Part III

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Workingwith the community also means utilizing discretion and taking reasonableactions when dealing with the public. Officers who are familiar with theresidents of the development where they work may be more inclined to returnjuveniles to their parents if they are engaged in minor, nuisance activity,such as breaking housing authority rules against riding bicycles on the grass,staying in the park after the posted closing hours, or other minor infractions.Parents appreciate the discretion the officer exercises, and the rewards ofappealing to the resident’s sense of empowerment in maintaining order andcontrol in their living environment becomes tangible. A parent’s reprimand maydo the child offender more justice than a juvenile report filed at theprecinct. Residents who return home from work on a hot, summer evening and sitoutside with an open container of beer may be better served with a request to concealthe container or to drink indoors rather than face a fine. An officer knowsthat any action he takes can escalate to an arrest in spite of his bestintentions, but an experienced community police officer applies his discretionbased on his knowledge and experience with the people her serves. Officersoperating under the community police model will investigate criminal activityto a wider extent than officers on routine patrol. If there is a suspectedgambling location on his beat, drug sales, or other persistent illegalenterprises, the officer may call upon other specialized units at the precinctlevel or within the department after performing observations and preparingreports. In addition, the officer may be the source of intelligence for outsideagencies who wish to execute a warrant or arrest a suspect. On differentoccasions, my partners and I reported our findings to the Organized CrimeControl Bureau, detective units, and other narcotics units. Also, I provideddetailed information to Postal Inspectors given to me by a member of thecommunity who trusted me because of my history of fairness and effectivepolicing in his community. Special Agents of the Secret Service visited outPolice Service Area satellite to consult with us concerning a suspect whothreatened former President Bill Clinton’s life. Because the officers I workedwith and I knew the suspect and where he lived, he was arrested withoutincident by the Secret Service, and with Housing Police present at the scene.On numerous occasions, when responding to nine-one-one initiated calls forpolice assistance, we would knock on a resident’s door, and when the occupantasked who is was, we’d answer “It’s the police.” The follow-up question wasalmost always, “Are you Housing?” Then, we would respond with a reassuring,“Yes.”Themethods of community policing employed by the former, New York City PoliceDepartment, briefly outlined here are still utilized by the NYPD’s HousingBureau created in 1995 after the merger of the Housing Police into the NYPD. Whilerelationships between the police and the community can often times be strainedor contentious, community policing, as exemplified by the NYPD’s Housing Bureauand the other housing police departments in cities across the nation, remainsan effective and enduring model of policing.  
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Aboutthe Author: Michael J. Kannengieser is theauthor of the police thriller, The Daddy Rock. He is a retired New York City policeofficer who lives on Long Island with his wife and two children. Michael workedas the Managing Editor for Fiction at The View from Here magazine, a U.K. basedliterary publication. Currently, he is employed at a performing arts college asan Instructional Technology Administrator. He has been published at The Viewfrom Here, and in Newsday, a Long Island newspaper. Michael is a contributor to CriminalJustice News. Click Here to buy a copy of Michael J.Kannengieser's new novel "The Daddy Rock."