Why Do We Need Community Policing?

• Crime and demands for service continue to increase.
• Budgets and resources continue to decrease.
• We live in a rapidly changing environment, where flexibility in problem-solving becomes critical to the success of our organization.

Citizens are becoming more involved in government and want a say in how resources are applied.

Police agencies traditionally spend only 20-30% of their time responding to actual crimes. The remaining 70-80% of their time is spent on civil and social issues. The philosophy of Community Policing does not abandon the strategies of traditional policing. Our organization has been very successful in responding to, investigating, and solving serious crimes, and we will continue to employ traditional strategies to solve criminal problems. Community Policing and problem-solving strategies give us the opportunity to:

• Identify problems
• Analyze problems
• Develop long-term solutions to problems
• Evaluate progress and adjust solutions as necessary

By making an effort to develop long-term solutions to problems, our organization will reduce the amount of time spent on non-criminal solutions, thereby reducing demands for service and increasing the amount of time that officers can spend on community problem-solving efforts.