Community engagement
What is it? in policing
A picture of effective community engagement will look slightly different for each group, area, force or authority. The Home Office is working with the following description (included in the White Paper Building Communities, Beating Crime, published in November 2004, which covers some of the common concepts.
A police service which is engaging effectively with the community will:
- Have a detailed, neighbourhood level understanding of the demographics of the community it serves;
- Have a detailed - and regularly updated - picture of the interests, needs, priorities and preferences of every section of that community;
- Establish and facilitate an ongoing and consistent dialogue with all sections of the community by regularly discussing and sharing information about policing and community safety issues, and listening to and acting on feedback from the community;
- Understand how, and the extent to which, different sections of the community feel most comfortable in interacting with the police, and take this into account in tailoring their engagement strategies;
- Use a range of different, locally adapted means and strategies to facilitate ongoing dialogue and partnership working with all sections of the community;
- Allow its priorities and service delivery strategies to be influenced, changed and, where appropriate, driven by community concerns and priorities;
- Provide ongoing feedback to the community about how their input has impacted on local policing;
- Identify and maximise opportunities to deliver policing services in partnership with the community, both groups and individuals; and
- Understand that effective engagement with the community is core to the successful delivery of all police business, and not a "bolt-on" or a specialism.
It may be difficult to achieve this initially. With the best of intentions, operational, resource and other issues will prevent organisations from being able to deliver what the public want in every circumstance. There is also an issue surrounding differential capacities and willingness for involvement within and between communities. Nonetheless, all organisations can work on continually improving their community engagement work.
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