Question

What programs would you suggest to rebuild trust between the police and the community?

Answer 1

• While rebuilding that trust can be hard, it’s not impossible, and police and law agencies across the nation have taken measures to improve their relationships with the communities in which they serve.
• Through specialized training, community outreach programs and by recognizing the importance of internal affairs and interdepartmental accountability, police departments are once again bolstering the trust and communication within their communities.
• The mission of Strategies for Youth is to improve police and youth relations through interaction. Through constructive dialogue, each side learns about the other and in the process decreases tension and hostility toward the police.
• There are several things police departments can do to build trust and legitimacy, beginning with departmental transparency. When the community knows the policies and procedures the police use, and when the police follow those established procedures and hold their officers accountable when the procedures are not followed, the people in the communities begin to again trust the police force hired to protect and serve them.
• Police have to get out in the community they serve and engage in non-enforcement activities showing they are the guardian of the people and not a warring faction with the people. In diverse communities, the police force should mirror the population as far as cultural and race dispersion.
• This may entail hiring a more diverse police force that supports the race, gender, language, life experience and cultural background of the people they serve.
  
• When the police work with members of the community to establish how they want to be policed, it not only builds trust within the community as they have part ownership of the policy and procedures agreed upon but opens lines of communication. It strengthens the ideal that the police and people of the community should be partners, not opponents.
• Police and community working together to develop comprehensive violence prevention plans