Neighbourhood Police Beat

Neighbourhood Police Beat policing is, in essence, problem-oriented policing adopting the most effective solution to the policing problem that is encountered. It places police in a unique position to adopt problem-oriented policing to everything they do.

The success of this program to date has been demonstrated by the high community acceptance of Neighbourhood Police Beats and the expressed desire of communities to have more of this service in their immediate area.

Evidence has also revealed that police officers involved in the Neighbourhood Police Beat program are generally achieving a high degree of satisfaction in performing their duties, and are performing their duties effectively, efficiently and in line with their sworn oath of office.

Definition

Beat Policing can be defined as:

"a philosophy of full service personalised policing, where the same officer works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralised place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems."*

'Police Beat' officers walk the beat, talk to people, solve problems, handle complaints, make arrests and so on. Most occurrences of a policing nature that happen to be in the confines of that beat area are handled by the police beat.

Objectives

The objectives of the Neighbourhood Police Beats program are to:

• Reduce repeat calls for service;

• Encourage problem solving;

• Develop problem-oriented and partnership policing (POPP) strategies targeting policing and community problems;

• Increase police-community interaction and information flow;

• Reduce the incidence of certain types of offending and undesirable behaviour;

• Increase community satisfaction with police;

• Increase the public's sense of safety; and

• Contribute positively to the Police Service Strategic Plan.

*Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux, 1994. Cited in Beat Policing Resource Kit, Criminal Justice Commission, 1995.