Styles of Policing by

Overview

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:22:28 UTC

Law enforcement may implement various styles of policing in response to an offense. These include watchman, service, and legalistic style and they all differ in terms of their goal as well as their procedural implications. Although traditional methods may have served us better in the past, there are several factors to be considered such as police-community relations as well as rehabilitation to consider before selecting the appropriate style.

Watchman Style

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:27:08 UTC

Watchman style is often considered a "loose" style of policing as it is reactive rather than proactive in its response to crime. This style focuses less on rigid enforcement of the law but on organization, resolving disputes, and community policing. When engaging in this style, law enforcement officials are allowed a significant amount of discretion, enabling them to be creative in their response to crime.

Pros and Cons: Watchman Style

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:38:56 UTC

The watchman style of policing has a few benefits, one being that it is budget-friendly as they aren’t spending money on resources and two being they have a fast response to 9-1-1 calls as they are trained to react to situations. However, this style of policing is superficial and doesn’t allow us to understand deeper social issues and the underlying causes of crime. Lastly, it can also be detrimental in areas with high crime rates as reactive policing will not be nearly enough to combat this.

Service Style

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:40:01 UTC

This style of policing is primarily concerned with providing services to the community, allowing law enforcement officials to better understand the underlying causes of crime. The cooperation between both law enforcement, as well as the community, allows for an enhanced sense of trust between parties as well as an improved relationship.

Pros and Cons: Service Style

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:40:40 UTC

The service style of policing has significant pros as it can improve the community’s view and trust toward law enforcement, which is especially important in modern times. It will also allow officers to take a deeper look into the underlying causes of crime and enable the community to proactively fight it themselves. However, officers may feel overburdened by additional responsibilities and the resources needed for this style may be expensive or difficult to obtain. However, because this style doesn’t have a major focus on enforcing the law, it can also be detrimental to areas with high crime rates.

Legalistic Style

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:41:13 UTC

The legalistic style of policing is primarily concerned with the rigid enforcement of laws and doesn’t allow for much discretion as officers are forced to follow cut-and-dry procedural policies. In this style, even slight infractions may warrant a ticket or citation.

Legalistic Style: Pros and Cons

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:41:50 UTC

One of the benefits of the legalistic style is crime prevention, as law enforcement officials are strictly enforcing the law and actively trying to make arrests. However, because this style relies on threats of arrests or actual arrests, this in turn worsens police-community relations and trust in certain neighborhoods. Additionally, this style of policing doesn’t allow for much creativity or discretion as it is very by-the-book.

Video Summary

aes63222 — 2024-11-04 19:42:33 UTC