Author: Dvorak, Lisa
Title: Designing and Implementing a Citizen Police Academy
Summary: Police-community relations programs are typically established to help the community understand the role and problems of the police officer. In our ever-changing society the role and expectations of a police officer is not well-defined. This can contribute to misperception on the part of the police and the citizens. The police may be seen as inefficient or exceeding their authority and the citizens as uninterested or critical, wanting to exercise more control over police operations. To be effective, policing must involve a cooperative relationship between the citizens and the police. In his principles of law enforcement, Sir Robert Peel identified public approval, citizen cooperation, and crime prevention as necessary elements of policing. Police-community relations and citizen involvement programs attempt to combine these elements through a learning process. Historically, the learning process has been one-way geared towards educating the citizens. It is clear that citizen involvement programs should be expanded to ones that also include the education of the police. The police must gain a better understanding of the citizens’ needs and solicit their views, perceptions, and inputs. By creating a two-way learning process a much more effective cooperative relationship can be established. A program which may best define the total concepts of police-community relations, crime prevention and the two-way learning process between citizens and the police is the Citizen Police Academy. A Citizen Police Academy (CPA) is an interactive program that is designed to educate the public about its police department’s policies, rules, regulations, the criminal justice system, and crime prevention. Through blocks of instruction over a period of weeks the program allows citizens and police to meet and share ideas and information in a positive and proactive environment. The open dialogue fosters mutual understanding and respect. The idea of the CPA was developed in England in 1977 by the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, Middlemoor, Exeter. Originally known as the “Police Night School,” the program was designed to familiarize private citizens with the nature of police work and the organization of the police system in England. Police personnel taught the Police Night School on a volunteer basis. The success of the program inspired several other British police departments to imitate it. In 1985, the Orlando, Florida Police Department introduced the concept of the Police Night School in their agency and created the first CPA in the United States. With the success of the program, other U.S. cities have followed Orlando’s lead. The first Texas CPA was started in Missouri City in 1986. The theme of these and all CPA programs is to create better understanding and awareness between citizens and police through education.
Details: San Marcos, TX: San Marcos Police Department, 1995. 33p.
Source: Copies Available from the Don M. Gottfredson Library
Year: 1995
Country: United States
URL:
Shelf Number: 125621
Keywords:
Police-Citizen Academy (U.S.)Police-Citizen InteractionPolice-Community Relations |
