Community-based Oriented Policing: An Old Yet New Thinking for Safer Neighborhood and Crime Prevention

 

Background

I wrote this article since I am aware that nowadays most people busy with their own life, gadget, and have less attach to their society. A theory offered by a German fellow, Ferdinand Tonnies known as Gemeinschaft - Gesselschaft give us a point of view to understand the social ties that exist in different setting. His theory lay on the concept of Wesenwille (Natural Will), which involves a judgment of the intrinsic value of an act rather than its practicality and which varies in degree of rationality. It is manifested in Gemeinschaft (Community) which is maintained by traditional rules and a universal sense of solidarity and which fits the organic theory of social union. Gemeinschaft tends to change into the Kurwille (rational will) based Gesellschaft (society) in which rational self-interest is the stronger elements. Gesellschaft must be held together by deliberately formulated prescription and may be expained in the terms of the Social-Contract theory. 

Now, the Social-Contract Theory views that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live. Therefore, you will find that there are some differences in rural and urban societies, where in the urban areas, the people are lack of awareness on their surrounding due to weak attachment. Whilst in the rural areas, they have a strong bonding and attachment one to another. This awareness can influence the persons' probability to be victimized in both setting. 

Indonesia's View on the Unity in Differences

Indonesia as a multi-cultural and ethnicities holds the principles of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika or Unity in Diversity that has been applied for centuries. It was introduced in Majapahit Era during the leadership of Wisnuwardhana in 14th century and written in the Old Javanesse Bible of Sutasoma wrote by Mpu Tantular. It was then adopted by the 1st Indonesia President, Soekarno, as the national motto. Hence, with the motto, the Indonesia societies are expected to hold unity beyond their differences. However, modernization, including massive access to information, and the growing of radicalism in this country trigger the degradation of the unity value. 

Nationalism and community movement are also other contributing factors that hold the union between different societies in Indonesia. The nationalism values are embedded in formal education through the civic education learning that was introduced starting at early child education level or playgroup. It is reflected through the introduction and practices of tolerance, solidarity, respect, kindness, and helping hands. Community movement is shown through community-based activities that are reflected in a more formal way, running by the community groups, such as: Children and Maternal Health Post (Posyandu), Tourism Village Programme (Desa Pariwisata), Disaster Resilience Village Programme (Desa Tangguh Bencana), Climate Village Programme (Kampung Iklim), Preparedness Community Unit Programme (RW Siaga), etc. Through these programmes, each of the community groups are assigned to assist the communities in their areas in order to improve the quality of live of the community, including: welfare, access to information, health services, education, etc. 

The community based approach has been a favorable approach for the government to implement their program and policies, due to effectiveness and efficiency, particularly in democratic countries. In the following parts below, we will have an outlook how the community organizational can help in preventing crimes in the neighborhood and help the authorities to build and engage the communities in their policing programme.

Crimes in Everyday Life 

There is a common misunderstanding in our daily life, concerning persons' behaviors or environmental setting that can led them to be potential victims of crimes. Such as the way how a woman dress, the night route that a man chooses when he returns from the works, the elderly or children who are walking around without supervision from adult or guardian, etc. The Victimology Theory covering the concept of victim precipitation, victim facilitation, and victim provocation are occurred by seeing victims as the wrongfully accused parties who cause the crimes happened. Victim precipitation means as the extent to which a victim is responsible for his or her own victimization, this should at least involves two people-an offender and a victim, i.e. a drunken person clash with a bar guest that initiates a bar fight. Victim Facilitation occurs when a victim unintentionally makes it easier for an offender to commit a crime, such as: a passenger accidently left her purse in taxi. Victim Provocation happens when a person doe something that incites another person to commit an illegal act, it is suggested that without victim’s behavior or provocation the crime would not have occurred, example can be taken from an armed robbery, if a person does fulfil the demand of the robber, he or she might end up being shot.

There are differences in the geographical setting of the urban and rural communities on the type of potential crimes that might affect the communities. The  study on the urban crime usually are  associated with  social disorganization, subculture, and conflict theories. Social disorganization theory (discussed earlier) is concerned with the way in which characteristics of cities and neighborhoods influence crime rates. The typical of crimes that are commonly occur in this setting, include:   criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, grand larceny, and auto theft. As for Rural Crime, the rurality and community size has an impact on the incidence of crime, types of crime, response to crime and access to related services. Rural crime is often linked to Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) who target and exploit rural communities across a range of crime types, for example organised plant theft, livestock theft, burglaries targeting firearms, poaching and hare coursing.

Community-Policing, A Crime Prevention Approach

Community policing started when police decided to become more involved in local communities in order to deter and reduce criminal activity. It is implemented in most of the countries around the world under different names, such as in Japan it is called Koban, a type of community police station found throughout the country that is staffed 24 hours a day. In Indonesia, it is known as Bhabinkamtibmas. in overall, the concept of community policing is representing police officer, which is assigned in each foster area due to, preemptive, preventive, and provides early warning of a threat to the community.

In its early days, community policing was designed as a break from a bureaucratic form of policing that limited public interaction, focused on crime control, random car patrols, and a coordinated central and territorial organization of responsibility. Nowadays, the community policing mandate is broaden by addressing to wider security issues, including fear of crime, social/physical disorder and neighborhood problems; additionally, it aimed to enable officers to co-operate with residents to identify priorities and solve problem.

As there is a limited number of police officers to serve the communities, in some other countries, therefore it is important to build partnership between the police department and communities. Indonesia can consider as exceptional, as the 5th country ranked with the most amount of 579,000 police officers with the ratio of 222 police officers to protect 100,000 citizens, which is nearly reached the standard of ratio 225 police officers. 

The typical police community partnership can be reflected in easy model such as Neighborhood Watch with some activities that can be activated, including: Community Patrol, Crime Monitoring/Surveillance System, Community Early Warning and Alert, Community Meeting, and Radio Community. Taking into example in case of Indonesia, the police department as well as local military post assign their personals named Babinsa or Bina Mitra as focal point for community partner, in some districts there are also anti-drugs counsellors that assigned by the Province Narcotics Agency to educate the communities. These law enforcement and government agencies have community capacity building programme that enables the community representatives to gain knowledge related to specific learning subjects and on how they can implement those knowledge into their daily life. There is also a traditional and informal environment protection mechanism named Siskamling (Sistem Keamanan Lingkungan/Environment Security System) that implements mostly in urban areas, or in rural areas such as Bali, a community police named Pecalang also helps to ensure the security, safety and civil order of the local communities.

Having a group of people that are well trained in detect, identifying, understanding, communicate, and applying safety and security prevention measurement in their environment would contribute to reduce the crime rates at both urban and rural areas. This kind of policing, might be effective to be implemented in the societies, by adhering the nine original Peelian Principles, referring to the Robert Peel's Principle of Democratic Policing, which can be summarized as follows:

1. To prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to their repression by military force

2. To recognize that police power is dependent upon public approval of their behavior

3. To recognize that obtain the respect of the public requires securing co-operation

4. To recognize the extent to which public co-operation diminishes when physical force is resorted to

5. To seek public favor, not by pandering to public opinion but demonstrating impartial service

6. To only use physical force when persuasion, advice and warning is insufficient to restore order, and to only use the minimum degree of physical force necessary

7. To maintain a relationship with the public that maintains tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police

8. To recognize the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from overstepping powers of judiciary or avenging individuals

9. To recognize that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not visible evidence of police action in dealing with them

To learn more about Community Policing in practice, I would strongly recommend to visit the ICT4COP's website developed by EU in https://www.communitypolicing.eu/ where you can find the handbook, e-learning, and other sources that might be useful to set your own community oriented policing programme in your area. 

References

1. Crime Prevention and Community Safety, Adam Crawford

2. Crime and Urban Environment, Avebury

3. Crime and Everyday Life 2nd Edt, Marcus Felson

4. Five countries with the largest number of police officers, Goodstat, https://goodstats.id/article/5-negara-dengan-jumlah-polisi-terbanyak-di-dunia-indonesia-salah-satunya-VYghk#:~:text=Terakhir%2C%20Indonesia%20berada%20di%20posisi,standar%20ideal%20yakni%20225%20polisi.

5. Introduction to Victimology, SAGE. https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/83271_Chapter_1.pdf

6. ICT4COP - a European Commission Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation project exploring community-oriented policing and police reform in post-conflict, https://www.communitypolicing.eu/the-origin-of-the-concept-of-cop/

7.  Masalah Korban Kejahatan, Dr Arif Gosita, H

8. Rural Crime and Community Safety, Vania Ceccato. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281212618_Rural_Crime_and_Community_Safety/link/602c12b3299bf1cc26cf2501/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19