What is different about this program is the commitment. Community policing will not happen overnight. It will require time and the full participation of both deputies and citizens. The following principles of Community Oriented Policing will help guide managers, supervisors and deputies in developing a partnership with the community. Enforcing the law is the primary responsibility of a deputy.
POP is designed to have deputies focus on the problem.
COP provides deputies with the tools to attack the problems that reoccur in a neighborhood and to work on finding a more permanent solution. Community Oriented Policing is both a philosophy and an organizational strategy that allows the deputy and community residents to work closely together in new ways to solve the problems of crime, fear of crime, physical and social disorder, and neighborhood decay. The philosophy rests on the belief that law- abiding people in the community deserve input into the police process in exchange for their participation and support. It also rests on the belief that solutions to contemporary community problems demand freeing both the people and the police to explore creative, new ways to address neighborhood concerns beyond a narrow focus on individual crime incidents. Community Policing, as an organizational strategy, first demands that everyone in the Department, sworn and classified personnel, must investigate ways to translate the philosophy into practice.