This one’s fairly simple. Some communities are more cohesive than others. You’d be surprised how much a prosperous suburb with engaged residents has in common with an inner-city estate with a dominant (often minority ethnic) community. Sure, there are points of tension, but local officers at least know who to speak to. In places where there’s actually a community to begin with, a neighbourhood policing team can make a difference.
On the other hand, some ‘communities’ are chaotic, transient and divided. They’re riven by gangs and organised criminals. As tactics like stop and search and use of force become hotly contested, these communities become abandoned by police officers worried about losing their jobs. The community leaders who do exist are often hostile. A neighbourhood policing team’s at an immediate disadvantage – their role becomes more like counterinsurgency than policing. George Dixon wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Well, he would, until the IOPC had him up for assault.
These are places which, unfortunately, politicians like to ignore. They pretend they’re policed by consent. It’s easier to blame the police for societal problems law enforcement can never, and will never, solve.
If you are interested in policing in the UK and all things Plod, I recommend Dominic Alder.
Wasn’t Michael Corleone also a “Community Leader”?
NickM – yes he was, a fictional one – but based on real persons, criminals who had power in communities, and were treated as honoured persons.
As for “minority ethnic” communities – in Britain that normally (but not always) means Islamic communities, and Islam (contrary to the false claims of the Western establishment) had a fundamentally different, opposed, philosophy and body of laws (Islamic law).
Policemen can “talk with community leaders” – who will, if honest, inform the policemen (they are unlikely to bother talking frankly to policewomen – why would they?) that people who leave Islam should be killed, and that people who mock Muhammed should be killed. Do the police intend to help with these tasks? How about in the collection of the infidel tax?
As for “chaotic communities” – does Mr Adler mean black?
If so, a sad change has come over black communities – for example in the 1950s Jamaica had a low murder rate, later on it had a very high murder rate.
A few years is not long enough for there to have been a major genetic change – so the change in black communities has been cultural, their breakdown is NOT genetically predetermined. Yes black people tend to have higher testosterone – but a person can control their reaction to that, they do not have to give in to it.
The same is true in the United States – where, within living memory, the black communities in cities such as Philadelphia were fairly law abiding.
Once it was the Irish in America who had a reputation for short tempers and violence – which is why (for example) advertisements for coachmen in New York City in the early 1900s often said “colored man preferred”.
You did not want to employ an Irishman – who (so it was believed) might get into arguments with other road users, or with you (his employer).