COMMUNITY POLICING
The community-policing concept is the idea of policing as a full service to the community.
It addresses specific concerns of the citizens, and provides the highest quality of police
efforts.
The community policing function is to get Police Officers and private citizens working together
in a creative way to help solve problems within their community. Those solutions include reducing
the fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood decay. It gives the law-abiding
citizens of the neighborhoods a greater voice in efforts to improve their own quality of life.
The policing philosophy shifts from handling random calls to problem solving. The key component
in community policing is that it is a team effort between Police and all other factions of the community.
The Southbridge Police Department has taken great strides in its community policing efforts over the
past years. Countless programs have been sponsored by the Police to reach out to our citizens. The
police department has refocused its objectives from call initialized response, to problem solving
objectives. Community policing is not a program within the Police Department, but it is a department
wide philosophy.
Within the Southbridge Police Department community policing is more than an Officer walking a foot beat,
or riding a bike which are the stereotypical images of community policing. Southbridge Police has maintained
a commitment not only to respond to calls for immediate service, but also we will do our best to try to
resolve long term problems which may hamper its citizens.
The premise behind community policing is to try to improve the quality of life for the residents who are in
need of services from the Police Department, and we accept nothing less from our personnel.
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