Community Oriented Policing (COP) is a collaborative partnership between the law enforcement agencies, individuals and the organizations they serve to develop solutions to problems and increase trust in police (Dept. of Justice, 2013). As police departments moved away from traditional style of policing and moved more toward a community oriented policing, they realized that traditional style of transactional leadership would also have to change. They began to move to a transformational style of leadership. At the center of the switch to COP, agencies began to cultivate organizations that relied on imagination and creativity to address organizational concerns (Stojkovic 2012). When changing the goal of an organization like the police, it is not enough just to list the new goals. Leaders within the organization must transform the vision into action. The leadership within police organizations is unique in that even though they have a vertical hierarchy; decisions are often made at the street level. The switch to a more transformational leadership has to start with the officers on the beat. They have to accept the organizations new goals and work along with senior leaders to accomplish the agencies goal. Police organizations use words like duty, service, honor and respect. It is the hope of these organizations that by changing the way officers think, they can transform the culture within the organization. This can provide a new era of policing that is more involved in the community and focuses more on service and less on getting the bad guy. COP was a complete change in direction for police departments across the nation. The departments empowered their officers to go out and make positive changes within the community.
References:
Department of Justice (2013) Community Policing Defined retrieved from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=36
Stojkovic, Stan (2012) Criminal Justice Organizations, Sage Publications