History Is Peeling Back The Answers…
Why Lawlessness Is Rampant From Chicago
To Port Of Spain, Bahrain to Baltimore & Columbus to San Antonio.
By Nicholas Ashton, CEO/CIO, CommSmart Global Group
Mayor Emanuel has specified areas he'd like the federal government's help -- including gun control, gun tracking, prosecution for gun crimes and help increase funding for more police officers.
Government relies on statistical information collection which by the time the report comes out, it is too late! Information and data is demanded now and that is why CommSmart Global Group, a LexisNexis Risk Solutins Partner, has approached from a totally different direction!
WE ARE IN THE NOW AND KEEP YOU; IN THE KNOW...
No single person knows all the answers! It is the collective information from yesterday, today and tomorrow that paves the way forward for a safe and harmonious society.
Firstly, let us look back in history, in 1829, Sir Robert Peel created the Metropolitan Police when he served as Home Secretary of England. According to Peel, the real key for policing is "the police are the people and the people are the police".
Peel believed that prevention of crime could be accomplished without intruding into the lives of citizens. With the development of the Metropolitan Police, Peel established nine principles to his theory of policing. These nine principles are as relevant today, if not more important with the events worldwide, as they were in the 1800's.
Community policing is based on Peel's concept of prevention. Community policing has been embraced by many law enforcement organizations across the world and in most cases, it has been forgotten from whence it came.
Community policing is based on its goal to prevent crime and promote better police-community partnerships.
Community policing requires an investment in training with special attention to problem analysis and problem-solving, facilitation, community organization; communication, mediation, and conflict resolution, resource identification and use, networking and linkages, and cross-cultural competency.
Let us look at what the Peelian Principles stated:
- The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
- The ability of the police (public safety) to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
- Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
- The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
- Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to a public or political opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
- Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and the warning is found to be insufficient.
- Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public is the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
- Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
- The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
Now the Honesty Test, how many of those nine principles are you abiding with? Do not excuse your answer by saying “times have changed” that is not acceptable!
Disgusting isn’t it! Not one of you got the majority of the questions correct and you expect the public to trust you?
Whether this is a corporation or a public safety department, the principles are the same and must be adhered to. For us, all to get back to doing the job we accepted in the first place is understanding the realms of law enforcement from top to bottom. Yes, the commissioner on down needs to uphold the laws and the principles set forth. There is no wiggle room for lawlessness, corruption, and conspiracy in the duty of a peacekeeping officer, no matter what rank has been bestowed on them. We are all servants to the cause of upholding the law!
Let remind ourselves, in an overview of Sir Robert Peel’s understandings:
Prevention
Sir Robert Peel's first principle was that the "basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder". Peel established the police, also known as "Bobbies".
The introduction of "beats" was performed by Bobbies as a form of patrolling. Our law enforcement agencies still have police patrolling the streets with the goal of preventing crime. CommSmart US, like others, have called for the use of "Broken Windows principle with a previous article "Broken Windows, No, Not Broken Windows", (http://tip2tap.blogspot.com/2013/03/broken-windows-broken-lives-both-will.html) an article that called for a "return to the nineteenth-century style of policing in which police maintained a presence in the community by walking beats, getting to know citizens, and establishing the feeling of public safety and trust. Others asked Police administrators to get their officers out of depersonalized patrol cars and play an active role in the community by identifying the neighborhoods' problems and needs and set a course of action for an effective response.
Public Approval
Public approval and cooperation are the basis of Sir Robert Peel's next five principles of effective policing. Peel stated that the ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions and they must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public. In our diverse society, it is necessary for police to understand the different cultures that make up the communities that they patrol.
This can be accomplished through multicultural training and education. It is formal training that today can allow us to understand the drug/gang cultures that have broken communities and left a trail of despair and mistrust with the citizens.
If police can relate to and understand the different cultures of the community, they will be able to successfully gain public approval. Public approval of the police will increase the effectiveness of law enforcement.
The next two principles deal with force. Peel stated "the degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force and that police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient."
We wonder why citizens are concerned when the police turn up with military equipment and look more like an army that a local policeman. The criminals are using more sophisticated techniques and technology and we do have to fight fire with fire, albeit that the community has never been informed why.
We think they already know what the issues and solutions are, they do not!
This is very relative to our society when full force is used by law enforcement.
Excessive force has been a public concern and the first sign of community mistrust in the police.
It can take years to gain the trust of a community and one incident to lose that trust. It is necessary for the police to have the cooperation of the public in order to function effectively. By providing adequate training on the use of force and having the public's trust and respect can ensure that force is only used to the extent necessary.
When individuals have little or no respect towards the police, they are most likely to ignore the requests or demands of officers. This can lead to the officer having to use force in order to gain control of a situation. When police are faced with dispersing large crowds, it is necessary for the public to have the respect to follow police orders. When individuals lack trust and respect for the police, riots may occur, which can also lead to arrests, serious injuries, and even death.
Concerns are being shown by public safety as there is a campaign to place law enforcement in a bad light. The instigator's egg on police officers for reaction whilst videotaping and then placing it on YouTube for all to see. The video is being used as a weapon of mistrust and does not always tell the real story.
Community Policing
Sir Robert Peel's principles and Community Policing go hand in hand and share the same concepts and goals in policing. One of the distinct similarities between Peel's approach and Community Policing is that prevention of crimes is the number one priority. Community Policing has many underlying principles. It bases the theory that crime prevention is the responsibility of the total community and that police and the community share ownership, responsibility, and accountability for the prevention of crime.
When police work with the community and focus on their concerns relating to crime, they form an effective relationship when dealing with crime. It is necessary for the police to respect all different types of cultures that make up the community in order to gain the respect from those individuals that make up the neighborhoods they are working in.
Mutual trust between the police and the community is essential for effective policing. Community policing requires a large investment in training with special attention to problem analysis and problem-solving, facilitation, community organization; communication, mediation, and conflict resolution, resource identification and use, networking and linkages, and cross-cultural competency.
It is about intelligence gather at street level, ComSmart US's Atmospheric Noise Gathering or Chatter on the Streets is key in its ability to have information that is analyzed immediately and not placed in data silos. Along with Social Media Intelligence Gathering (SMIG), we then have full access to real concerns of the streets and places us in a far better position to act with authority.
Mistakes in Community Policing
In order to learn from the past, we must examine the mistakes made in community policing and correct them in the future. In some cases, lack of planning has been found to be a mistake in instituting community policing.
In many cases, programs are more determined by the availability of grant funding and the need to appease certain neighborhood groups. Appeasement is the worst excuse for a solution and needs to be stopped immediately! Providing this community policing programs without an effective plan of strategy or establishing them just to appease a certain group will never be effective due to lack of commitment and interest by the police.
Another mistake often made is when budgets are cut by politicians who have no earthly idea about policing whatsoever; the community policing programs are the first to go. Even though it is necessary to make cuts, if a program has proven to be effective, it could be more cost effective to keep it.
Communicating with our Diverse Population
CommSmart Global Group's coaching and mentoring provide the police officers, communicating skills with diverse populations and groups are among the fundamentals of community and problem oriented policing. The explanation of the importance of effective communication requires a shared base of experience and a common set of rules about the meaning of not just words, but how you sound when you say something, the order of your words, volume, pauses, facial expressions, and gestures.
This is also caused by not knowing or understanding other people's cultures and can, in turn, lead to distrust, loss of credibility, and an inability to work together effectively. Some of the tips for effective communication given in the training included eye contact, which can be determined in different ways based on different cultures. In the United States, it is considered to be rude when you do not give eye contact, but in other cultures such as Latin and Asian, averting your eyes is a sign of respect.
Another form of communication looked at was the use of facial expressions and gestures. Many expressions and gestures have different meanings among the diverse cultures in our society. Many cases of miscommunication are a result of not understanding what the other person meant. With proper training and the effectiveness to communicate, law enforcement will be able to achieve their goals.
Even the Metropolitan Police Section 66 (Stop, Search and Detain) is and was very useful as is New York’s Stop and Frisk policy or was we know SIP, (Stop, Interview, Process. A police officer must know who is in his beat area and community!
In Conclusion
Since Sir Robert Peel introduced his nine principles of policing in the early 1800's, for the most part, our world has continued to follow his ideas of effective policing.
Community policing has been the main focus in policing. Law enforcement has had many challenges throughout the years, including the increase of cultural diversity among our communities. Sir Robert Peel established that police and the people of the community are equal in terms of effective policing. It is extremely necessary to have effective communication between the two in order for any concept to be successful.
CommSmart Global group, a LexisNexis Risk Solutions Partner is a private company that has time proven experts in all fields, atmospherics, major crime, drug enforcement, contraband, counterfeiting, gang/insurgency understanding/solutions, cultural diversity, corruption, analytics and next event predictability within its vast tool box.
When working with a country or an agency, CommSmart Global Group is the conduit for solutions and resolutions which the citizens demand. It is our expertise working alongside the force and imparting our vast knowledge that once the solution is in place, the police continue with the plans that are working and succeeding.
- A tool to increase law enforcement’s odds of stopping crime
- A predictor of where and when a type of crime is most likely to occur
- A technology for any jurisdiction of any size
- A way to bring newer officers up to speed faster
- Easily accessible and available immediately where and when it is needed
All available and working in the prevention of crime...
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