Building Partnerships and Stakeholders

The earliest attempts to define and describe community policing emphasized partnerships and stakeholders. Although community policing pioneers did not have the luxury of 30 years of practical community policing experience, their vision of police and community as coproducers of safety was prophetic. Early iterations of community policing asked citizens to be the eyes and ears of the police. The police could then use citizen reports to “fight crime” and [Page 8]enhance community safety. Incredibly rapid societal, technological, and economic changes are forcing police to rethink their historically paternalistic and reactive roles. While in the earlier days of community policing, creating and maintaining partnerships were stated as desirable goals, building partnerships continues to be an objective of community policing, even in today’s harsh economic climate. This ...