Building Police/Community Relations through Virtual Communities

Abstract

Over the past two decades, police departments around the globe have been involved in a slow, but steady transition from call-based policing to community-oriented policing. The former approach, while effective at closing cases once a crime has occurred, does little to develop crime prevention partnerships between officers on the beat and the citizens of local communities. Community-oriented policing serves to increase awareness of issues and potential problems before they occur, thus assisting police departments to provide a more proactive approach to stopping crime within their communities.