Police Community Relations and the Administration of Justice

by Hunter, Ronald D.; Barker, Thomas; Mayhall, Pamela D.

• ISBN13: 9780131118829
• ISBN10: 013111882X
• Edition: 6th
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

For one-semester courses in Police/Community Relations, Police and Society, Policing within American Society, or Issues in Policing in two- and four-year or proprietary schools. The sixth edition of this overview of police-community relations continues the theme that citizen participation is critical to the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. It focuses on the importance of and strategies for positive interaction which affect crime control in America today. It addresses the internal and external communities served by the police and discusses past, present, and future practices that can create and sustain meaningful and successful police-community relations.

Table of Contents

Police-Community Relations: An Overview

Public Relations and Community Relations: A Contrast

Community Policing

The Public and the Police: A Consortium of Communities

Relations Within the Police Organization

Police Role Concept in a Changing Society

Coping With the Human Experience of Being a Cop

The Communication Process

Police Discretion and Community Relations

The Media Link

Special Populations and the Police

Community Relations in the Context of Culture

The Dilemmas of Dissent and Political Response

Conflict Management

Community Control: A Continuum of Participation

Police-Community Relations in the New Millenium

Appendix: Case Studies

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Policing society, especially a free society, is too important an aspect of public policy to be left solely to the police. For that matter, the operation of the justice system is too important to be left solely to the practitioners. Citizen participation is crucial to the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. Every edition of this book has been organized around the same theme: Each criminal justice system (the police, the courts, and corrections) must develop and maintain meaningful, two-way communications among the agency, its service area, and populations served. As the gatekeepers of the criminal justice system and the most visible representatives of our form of government, the police have a unique responsibility to engage in partnerships with their communities. These partnerships once developed can create a sense of safety, problem solving, and good quality of life for all served. This book addresses all the communities the police serve and discusses past, current, and future practices that can create and sustain meaningful and successful police-community relations. This text is designed for use in a one-semester course on Police and the Community, Police-Community Relations, or Police and Society. It is an overview of the topics covered, and much more can be said about every topic. We address the topics in the context of community relations and encourage the reader to pursue further study in areas of special interest. Every edition of this textbook has had its friends. The current edition was written because much has changed since the fifth edition. The riots in Seattle in 1999 and in Cincinnati in 2001 and the specter of racial profiling have shown that police-community relations need improvement in many of our communities. Also, our nation is now at war. The tragic events of September 11, 2001, will affect police-community relations long into the future. We have addressed these issues in this sixth edition. The sixth edition was also written because many of our friends suggested that we include more examples of programs used by criminal justice agencies, particularly police agencies, to address specific problems. Thus, we have included examples from throughout the nation and from agencies of all sizes. In addition, we have revised every chapter and added a chapter on police-community relations in the new millennium. This revision provides the most up-to-date information we are aware of on these topics. It is our fervent desire that this edition continue the tradition established by Pamela D. Mayhall of providing both instructors and students with an interesting and challenging overview of many issues relative to police-community relations. Ronald D. Hunter State University of North Georgia Thomas Barker Eastern Kentucky University