POLICE AS CRIME‐FIGHTERS 3
Policeas Crime‐Fighters
Policeas Crime‐Fighters
Itis worth noting that for a long time, policing has been surrounded byseveral stereotypes and myths. Of all these stereotypes and myths,the most enduring one is that the main role of police is to fightcrime. This is based on the premise that, comic strips, televisiondramas, news paper articles among other notable sources have alwayspropagated the myth of police as crime‐fighters(Walker & Katz, 2012). Consequently, this has enormouslydistorted the functions of police as well as given the publicunrealistic expectations towards the ability of police tosuccessfully solve crimes (Palmiotto, 2000). However, there islittle correspondence towards the reality and this kind of an image.
Asnoted by Palmiotto (2011), police spend about 80-90% of their timecarrying out service activities. For instance, in majority ofmetropolitan areas in the US where crimes rates are noted to behighest, above 50% of police officers operating in these localdepartments do not carry out any felony arrest in an entire year.Instead of this, the officers carry out social services activitiessuch as assisting those who need social services, as well asmaintaining order such as crowd and traffic control. Typically,above 50% of telephone calls made to police are those seeking forsocial services in comparison to less than 20% made relating toissues on crime (Palmiotto, 2011).
Basedon the above, I can clearly indicate that the myth about police beingcrime fighters is not valid. This is based on the fact that on annualbasis, the performance of police in solving crime impressive.Further, they engage in other activities mainly social activities.Therefore, there is the need for police departments to partner withthe community as this is the only way they can be able to fightcrime.
References
Palmiotto,M. (2011). CommunityPolicing: A Police-Citizen Partnership. Routledge
Palmiotto,M. (2000). CommunityPolicing: A Policing Strategy for the 21st Century.Jones & Bartlett Learning,
Walker,S. & Katz, C. (2012). ThePolice in America: An Introduction:Eighth Edition. McGraw-Hill Higher Education