Self Check Q&A

Consider the below questions to check your understanding of topics covered in the book. Click on the question to reveal the answer.

1. What three elements did Skolnick (2006) suggest characterise community policing initiatives in the United States?

Answer: citizen involvement, problem-solving, and decentralization

2. How did Weatheritt suggest the term ‘community policing’ had been used in Britain?

Answer: ‘to denote projects of which authors’ approved’

3. Identify four aspects of Alderson’s model of community policing

Answer: To contribute to liberty, equality and fraternity; To help reconcile freedom with security and to uphold the law; To uphold and protect human rights and thus help achieve human dignity; To dispel crimonogenic social conditions, through cooperative social action; To help create trust in communities; To strengthen security and feelings of security; To investigate, detect and activate the prosecution of crimes; To facilitate free movement along public thoroughfares; To curb public disorder; To deal with crises and help those in distress involving other agencies where needed.

4. What was the name of the policing model introduced alongside panada cars, two-way radios and other innovations in the olate 1960s?

Answer: Unit Beat Policing

5. What legislation required that the police, in partnership with other agencies, conduct audits to establish the community safety needs of local communities?

Answer: Crime and Disorder Act 1998

6. How many people was it estimated lived in areas covered by Neighbourhood Watch schemes?

Answer: 3.3 million

7. What did a 2001 HMIC report establish as the three core features of reassurance policing?

Answer: visibility, familiarity and accessibility

8. What features of police work explain the tendency for officers to be culturally isolated from the wider community?

Answer: according to Reiner 1978, the boredom, unsociable hours, occasional periods of danger, and the routine exposure to shocking and traumatic events

9. Why might local residents’ perceptions of crime risks not be reliable?

Answer: they might not correspond to objective risks facing them

10. What trend appears to contradict moves to devolve policing closer to local communities? 

Answer: the apparent increase in central control over the direction of policing