The Minneapolis and Saint Paul Police Departments are vastly different in their approach to community oriented policing. I work with the MPD regularly and have opinions based on years of observation and experience.
Basically Saint Paul has community oriented policing and Minneapolis doesn't. "In the storefronts, I put a picture of every ACOP cop, I put his squad number and his pager number there, so if you had a favorite cop you could page him any time you wanted toâbecause you get favorite cops and you are not afraid to ask them for a favorâ. When something went wrong we got tipsâwe had a lady that calls Jim and says, âthis guy just ripped off this other guy and stole his TV and they are selling it for crack down the hallwayâ. Send Ray, because he is black and these guys are black.â So Ray went down and talked to herâand we ended up taking her pop money (from the pop fund where we sell pop to our employees) to buy the TV back. I had to call another team to find a black female to make the buyâand she was four months pregnant and on the desk, and she volunteered. Then I had to call the FORCE Unitâbecause they have undercover guys that do all these stings. So this was a cooperative effortâ. But I got in a little trouble because I did not turn the TV in, I gave it back to the guyâwell, he was handicapped, and the only entertainment was his TV, and they wanted to hold it down in the property room for four months for trial. The city attorney gave me a good _____, and then the county attorney gave me a good _____, and I said well, the guy was really happy, he got his TV backâ. We photographed it, took affidavits, serial numbers, everything we had to haveâ." This is from: http://www.ncjrs.org/nij/cops_casestudy/stpaul2.html a study of the history of Community oriented policing in Saint Paul. In the Seward Neighborhood I put together a community oriented policing forum and we had Commander Harrington and (then) Inspector Lubinski as presenters. Now that Harrington is likely the St. Paul Chief, I think it is interesting how differently they spoke about community oriented policing. I have great respect for Deputy Chief Lubinski. Her idea of community policing was to be there for the community to answer questions and work with the community (which she has done in even the most difficult of times). When Commander Harrington spoke he talked about what we (the SPPD) do to train every police officer in what it means to practice community oriented policing and he gave examples of how officers would have strategies to carry out that mission. So to put it oversimplify: the MPD community efforts are focused from the top down and from the side with CCP/Safe.There is no approved definition of what community oriented policing is at any level, and talking to the community at public meetings is regarded as the main thrust of C.O.P efforts. In Saint Paul community oriented policing has for a variety of historical, cultural, and political reasons been an integral part of policing from the bottom up, top down, and from middle management. It is ingrained and central to the mission. I think that this is why Saint Paul could nominate a chief from within its ranks and why Minneapolis chose someone from the outside" who can change things". Community policing focuses on crime and social disorder through the delivery of police services that includes aspects of traditional law enforcement, as well as prevention, problem-solving, community engagement, and partnerships. The community policing model balances reactive responses to calls for service with proactive problem-solving centered on the causes of crime and disorder. Community policing requires police and citizens to join together as partners in the course of both identifying and effectively addressing these issues. Specifically, what Minneapolis doesn't have is: Philosophy adopted organization-wide: Department-wide adoption of community policing is evidenced by the integration of the philosophy into mission statements, policies and procedures, performance evaluations and hiring and promotional practices, training programs and other systems and activities that define organizational culture and activities. Organizational systems support and value a service orientation, and stress the importance of different units within the agency working cooperatively in support of community policing. Implementation of the community policing philosophy may occur incrementally and within specialized units at first, but a defined path leads towards full, department-wide implementation. http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=36 source for last two paragraphs. Thanks and good luck to our new chiefs, Scott Vreeland Seward REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? 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