Collaboration is fundamental to effective law enforcement in the 21st century, but community-police collaboration is not a new concept. As long ago as 1829, Sir Robert Peel, who created the first professional police force in London, England, viewed collaboration as critical to policing and included it among his nine principles of law enforcement…
Recent open conflicts between law enforcement and communities highlight the necessity of yet another shift in policing priorities—one that rebuilds and strengthens the cooperative bond between communities and law enforcement and puts collaboration at the heart of police work.
In response to this trend, the Smart Policing Initiative—a program of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) that promotes effective, efficient, and innovative policing strategies—set out to examine the history, challenges, and successes in community police collaboration by bringing together law enforcement officials and community members from diverse jurisdictions to discuss the topic in three regional workshops in 2016. The workshops, hosted in cooperation with the BJA Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation program and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, included a range of perspectives, presented innovative examples, and set a clear path forward—one that centers on community-police collaboration as the organizing principle for law enforcement agencies (collaborative policing).
