Keeping people safe & well

 

NCLB Implementation Guide
Community Policing

 

Implementation Process

The steps required for implementing community policing programs in the selected neighbourhoods closely parallel the steps for the NCLB process implementation. In fact, planning for community-policing programs is a simultaneous process, borrowing extensively from the NCLB implementation process.

Step 1:         Creating a Community Policing-Neighbourhood

Partnership
Successful implementation of community policing in the designated neighbourhoods greatly depends on the involvement and commitment of various government agencies, neighbourhood community members and other institutions. Commitment grows from involvement. The various entities with interests in the neighbourhood have unique goals, objectives and missions that must be considered and blended through a collaborative process in planning implementation of community policing.

The following are some responsibilities that the community policing neighbourhood partnership between the community, OPS and other agencies/partners undertake:

1.  Creating the community policing implementation plan;
2.  Developing goals and objectives, and identifying neighbourhood problems and alternative solutions;
3.  Helping to bring resources to bear on the problems;
4.  Coordinating with others on problem solving activities (e.g., Steering Committee, other city agencies).

The partnership group meets regularly during the implementation process. Care is taken to document plans, problems, attempted solutions, and outcome.

Step 2:         Determining Neighbourhood Characteristics
In the NCLB implementation process, the Steering Committee selects the neighbourhood(s). The NCLB Coordinator and partners also conduct a participatory neighbourhood needs assessment. This step builds on the community assessment and develops more details, specifically related to crime, fear of crime, and community safety.

Much of the needed socio-demographic and crime-related information is collected during the needs assessment from official records, including citizen complaints, calls for service, and crime reports. The necessity of this step is to collect new and more detailed information on neighbourhood characteristics. A door-to-door census of the neighbourhood, including all businesses and a representative sample of residences, is needed. The size of the residential sample depends on the number of residences in the selected neighbourhood.

The coordinating CHRC takes the lead in conducting the survey. Some agencies might prefer to use civilian police aides, volunteers and other city personnel to assist with surveys. A survey instrument is developed in conjunction with the community partnership and pilot tested to ensure its validity and reliability. All members of the survey team are trained and given a protocol for conducting the survey.

The purposes of the survey are to:

1.  Identify crime and other quality-of-life issues;
2.  Advise community members of the new community policing program and how they can contribute to its success;
3.  Determine whether community members are willing to participate in some capacity and support the new program;
4.  Identify the neighbourhood’s assets (e.g., people willing to take a leadership role and public resources) and liabilities (e.g., signs of decay and neglect such as abandoned vehicles, code violations, graffiti, neglected children, and homeless people). Determine whether the Steering Committee is already doing this task before this step begins.

The information obtained from the survey is recorded and carefully analyzed to develop trends and patterns.

Step 3:         Developing an Information and

Communication Network
Some of the most important building blocks for community engagement and problem solving are information and communication. Police need to develop new information sources and merge existing sources into a network applicable to community policing. While care is taken to protect sensitive personal information,  information is communicated to the partnership group and other neighbourhood members. Community members contribute facts and insights to the information base that might be helpful to the police.

The information network includes intelligence (e.g., tips from community members or from members of the neighbourhood watch) and routinely collected records (e.g., calls for service, crime reports, field interrogation information). Several police agencies have automated information networks that provide useful data to neighbourhood officers for problem solving and community engagement.

The communication of information is as essential as its collection. Community policing officers develop ways to communicate information such as repeat calls for service and reported crimes, police and other resources committed to the NCLB process, and programs planned for the community members. Providing these data to community members enhance police credibility and improve the prospect of community members reciprocating by giving useful information to the police.

Step 4:         Assessing and Developing Resources
This step is identification of resources and developing additional needed resources. The list of resources is prepared with community policing in mind. This information is readily available to the community policing partnership group. The group reviews the resources list and adds to it as needed.

Step 5:         Developing an Implementation Plan
This step mirrors other steps in the NCLB implementation process: identifying goals, objectives and implementation activities, and developing an implementation schedule. The emphasis on prevention, especially youth crime prevention, is fundamental to effective community policing in the NCLB sites.

Working with youth clubs, youth councils and other outreach agencies, community-policing officers have served as positive role models and mentors for many troubled youth in the four communities in south East Ottawa.

Step 6:         Collaborating on Problem Solving
Community policing officers, while engaging neighbourhood community members through partnership, work with the community and partnering agencies, particularly OCH and its security staff, on problem-solving. The group scans and identifies neighbourhood problems, analyzes the problems together, discusses and reaches a collaborative decision on programs or activities to respond to the problems and help implement them, and assess the results of the programs or activities.

The key to making community-policing work is consistent engagement, regular interaction, seeing the community member more often and involving the community in a collaborative relationship with the police and other agencies.

For effectiveness, the group begins with small problems that are nonetheless significant to the community. Initial successes are critical in developing and maintaining community support. Graffiti removal, trash cleanup and neighbourhood sporting events or cookouts are examples of small joint activities.

Early successes communicate a sense of hope to the community. The problem-solving process and the partnership’s implementation of new programs and activities is an ongoing effort that is continually coordinated with other NCLB activities.

Early community policing efforts to build trust and work with the community on crime prevention goals and objectives is coordinated with traditional enforcement such as sweeps and the execution of search warrants. All efforts involve cooperation. Police initiatives conducted without input from community members may not engender great community support for those initiatives and may actually foster hostility against the police. If not developed in collaboration with the community, these enforcement efforts undermine the credibility of the community policing effort.

Step 7:         Monitoring and Assessing Success
The final step in the implementation process is to monitor and assess the results of the community policing implementation. This is an important role for the Steering Committee, which collects the information to determine whether community policing is successful. The Steering Committee is in constant contact with community members, continually taking the “pulse” of the community in terms of working with the police to implement community policing.

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© 2005-15 South - East Ottawa Community Health Centre
Centre de Sante Communautaire du Sud Est D'Ottawa

Contact: Abid Jan Tel./ Tél: (613) 737-5115 Ext. 2403  Fax/Télé: (613) 739-8199

NCLB matters because neighbourhoods matter