Finding Your Community Leaders

Finding Your Community Leaders

Joshua Abbott
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Police and community relations have likely never been more critical than they are now.

Current events have tested the trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they

serve so that even departments who have little to no problems with their citizens find themselves

being questioned due to the actions of officers in other areas of the country and even the world.

While actions speak louder than words, words can still be invaluable to ensure activities are

understood and noticed. With this being said, there is a case to be made for the importance of

adding dedicated Community Liaison Officers within the Central Point Police Department.

Historically the Central Point Police Department has enjoyed an overall positive

relationship with the community of Central Point. From 2010 to 2019, the City of Central Point

conducted several surveys asking citizens and businesses a series of questions to determine their

satisfaction with numerous local government divisions and projects. In 2019 the Northwest

Research Group, an independent firm, released the results of their comprehensive survey. In this

survey, 67% of citizens stated their police department was completely professional, and an

additional 26% responded that the police were somewhat professional. In addition, 58% of those

surveyed said they were completely confident in their police department, and 35% said they were

somewhat confident (Central Point, 2019). These are very inspiring numbers, but the police can

still do more to build trust with all community members.

Central Point is not a very diverse community. However, there have been increases in

ethnic diversity. Central Point had a white population of 86.3% in 2013 and 80% by 2019. In that
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same time frame, the Hispanic population grew from 7.2% to 13.3% (Datausa,2019). While other

racial groups did not see this level of change, the county in which Central Point resides, Jackson

County, has seen more diverse growth. With this in mind, it is valuable to consider how the

police department might respond to this continuing trend in demographics. While there are not

currently many problems with community relations, why react to a situation when it occurs if the

negative situation could potentially be avoided altogether?

Community Liason Officers have shown to be a great way of building trust and

transparency in agencies worldwide. Primary responsibilities of these officers include

(Touro,2018):

 Crime prevention education for citizens.

 Assisting in investigations by knowing their community better.

 Conflict resolution.

Though many police see themselves as warriors and guardians, many surveys show that

the majority of the public considers police officers' roles as servant-guardians. Survey

respondents also rank ends goals such as maintaining and improving quality of life within the

community (IACP,2021). While that sort of end goal can be open-ended on its own and thus not

incredibly useful, a Community Liason Officer (CLO), appropriately given the time and

resources, can translate this into actions for the police department. CLO's will have a direct line

to various community groups and effectively communicate their desires back to the police

department and vice versa.

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The benefits of instituting Community Outreach programs, especially those that include a

dedicated CLO, have many benefits to police departments and the community. However, many

departments might resist or hesitate to accept something that seems less about data-driven police

work and more complex to measure metrics like prevention. Over the years, data and research

have shown how valuable women in policing can be. Yet, while the benefits are mostly accepted

at this point, there has still been a stagnation in the overall percentage of women serving

(Roman, 2020). If this data is available and the benefits obvious, what could explain the

resistance to attracting more women to the profession? One answer to this could be the difficulty

in changing the culture within agencies.

Instituting positive cultural change outside the department is less likely if the culture

within is not also addressed. While no single organizational metaphor is without flaws and

limitations, it is appropriate to consider the police department as a culture to understand a CLO's

role better (Morgan, 2006). If there is likely to be a paradigm shift within the police department

to accept the positions of CLO's and seek out those roles, then the likelihood of the community

doing the same will likely increase.

However, developing cultural change is not likely if forced. In an article titled Your

Company's Secret Change Agents, the author speaks of the importance of looking within the

agency to find hidden talents and ideas for making positive change. Using the steps provided in

this article would help understand how to change the culture within the department to accept a

focus on community relations and identify those who might have a desire and talent for leading

such an endeavor (Pascale, 2005).

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The steps listed in this article suggest finding likely candidates through the group rather

than simply assigning leaders. Cultural buy-in is more likely to occur when leaders are seen as

members of a group. Looking for potential CLO's that can transition into both the particular

community group and the police department will be more likely to institute positive change and

connections. Of course, these CLO's will need to have a safe place to learn and adapt to facilitate

trust and transparency with their peers and citizens. The article also emphasizes providing

feedback on results and empirical evidence that ideas have a positive and desired impact

(Pascale, 2005).

Changing culture both inside and outside a department is challenging. However, it is

worthwhile. Considering the benefits that have already been proven through increasing the role

of women in policing, we can also extrapolate the benefits of engaging with other diverse groups

of our public. Studies also show that community policing and community relations programs

substantially improve a community's trust in police (Cummings, 2019). The Central Point Police

Department has shown this to be accurate. Still, The Central Point Police can make more efforts

to solidify the confidence in the department by the city's ever-growing and diverse communities.

Rather than reacting to potential problems, it is better to keep them from ever happening.
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References

Central Point. (2019). 2019 survey. Retrieved October 25, 2021, from
https://www.centralpointoregon.gov/community/page/2019-survey

Cummings, M. (2019, September 16). Study finds community-oriented policing improves

attitudes toward police. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from
https://news.yale.edu/2019/09/16/study-finds-community-oriented-policing-improves-
attitudes-toward-police

Datausa. (2019). Central Point, or. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/central-point-or/#demographics

IACP. (2021). Prevention-Focused Community Policing Building Public Trust. Retrieved

October 22, 2021, from https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/prevention-focused-
community-policing/

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organisations. London: Sage Publications.

Pascale, R. T., & Sternin, J. (2005, May). Your Company's Secret Change Agents.

Roman, I. (2020, April 22). Women in Policing: The Numbers Fall Far Short of the Need Police
Chief Online.

Touro. (2018, May 01). Career profile: Community liaison officer. Retrieved October 22, 2021,
from https://www.tuw.edu/academics/health/online-bachelor-arts-social-work/community-
liaison-officer-career/