It has been a while since I have posted to this blog. Since shift change, things have been little hectic learning those things that one normally does not do when they are in a specialty unit.
Now that I am back in a radio car, they have changed some things. Many of us have joked about how life is like being on Star Trek or living in a Star Wars Community.
We have stepped away from the concept of beats. We have moved into a sector patrol. Each division is divided into two sectors for patrol. The concept is for us to move through the division and respond to calls. I am amazed at how this is working.
Some officer joke about flying within the Tulsa Galaxy, patrolling in Sector # ?. I can just hear some of those officers say, "Radio Log, star date 2009, 09 28...." Then signing out with some type of call sign.
In our sector, we are going to divide the area and have each officer in the squad responsible for an area. Getting back to basics? Speaking of basics, Sir Robert Peel has been credited for the concept of community policing. Putting officers (known as "Bobbies" on the street in an effort to prevent crime. This has often been linked to Community Policing.
Community Policing is know for many things. Often times people have a hard time defining what community policing is because of the broad usage that it has acquired. Basically community policing is working in your area, working with the citizens to prevent crime, stopping criminals and making the community a safe place to reside, work, and play.
The following is an article from the Internet describing someones take on Sir Robert Peel.
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" were performed by Bobbies as a form of patrolling. Our law enforcement agencies still have police patrolling the streets with the goal of preventing crime. James Q. Wilson and George Kelling's wrote an article, "Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety" and 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." (Siegel, 4th Ed.,) Wilson and Kelling 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. (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/435980/law_enforcement_sir_robert_peels_concept.html)
One should really investigate this concept that Sir Robert Peel started and then they will understand some fundamentals of police work. Maybe those inside should be doing so as well.
It is not about who is closer, its not about who can respond the fastest, and its not about trying to save money. We all know that if you look at these things, you will not make a difference in law enforcement.
Public Safety is a very expensive arrangement for any community. Public Safety has for many years been called a money pit. A sink hole if you will, and every time you turn around, money seems to fall in that hole and no body seems to know where it went.
Public Safety is about providing for the community. Having a beat officer know the area. The area is the business, the demographics, and the criminals and their M.O.'s. It is about learning a specific area knowing the crime trends in that particular beat.
It is about working that particular beat. Knowing that your responsibility is to that particular beat. Your next priority is to the squad that you are assigned. Then the division in which you work.
But we have gotten away from that concept of Sir Robert Peel. We have moved to sectors and dot creation. We are concerned with crime trends. We are mistakenly looking at information forcing a connection, creating a crime trend that may or may not exist.
WE need to step back, into the 1800's and re examine Sir Robert Peel's theories. We should develop a concept of knowing our businesses in a specific location. Knowing the people who visit those businesses. Knowing who resides in your beat and knowing if they are associated with criminals. Do they have criminal records? Once you know this, then you share information with other officers to defeat those who are a pain in the backside.
Then you can have those "Offices of Special Projects........" This office is created to spefically hunt for those who are being the problem to our backsides.
Live Long and Prosper, and don't let the galaxy police catch you in the wrong sector. That is if they are not busy flying from one end of the sector to the other sector.
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