With support from The Annie E. Casey Foundation and The New York Community Trust, Public Agenda investigated the potential for increased communication and dialogue between community residents and the police in San Antonio, Texas, New Haven, Connecticut, and New York City. Based on focus groups, interviews, and dialogue sessions with a mix of "regular" citizens and police officers, our research found both the public and the police to be potential beneficiaries of increased communication.
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL: Straight Talk/Street Talk Executive Summary
An interesting report. As a retired police officer, active from the early 1970s to mid 1990s, I saw how much better for the public community policing is. When a police officer gets to know the people in the community, both the good-guys and bad-guys, his/her job becomes easier and crime solving becomes more relaistic. As an Adjunct Instructor in the Criminal Justice Program of a private university in South Florida, I spend a great deal of time discussing with my students the concept of Victim-Oriented Policing which is if we think of everyone in our community as a potential victim, then the community becomes part of the local police agency as its eyes and ears. During my early days as a police officer, we were trained to segragate ourselves from the community. However, as I neared retirement, the concept of community policing was making its entrance into the department and I began to see a much better relationship between police officers and community members becasue of the increase of communications between the two.