Peace in a free society depends on voluntary compliance with the law; therefore, the primary responsibility for upholding the law lies in the partnership between the people and their police. Since crime is a social phenomenon, crime prevention is the concern of every person living in society. Society employs full-time professional police to prevent and deter crime, and when that fails, to apprehend those who violate the law.
Crime is a symptom of ills within a society which are not the responsibility of the department to cure. The department is responsible, however, for interacting with the community to generate mutual understanding so that there may be public support for crime prevention. Community involvement is essential to facilitate a free flow of information between the public and the department so as to assist in the identification of problem areas and to inform the public of crime statistics and trends. Additional knowledge of the community is necessary so that each department employee may be instilled with a sense of concern for the crime problems and law enforcement needs to an assigned area of responsibility.
The prevention of crime remains as a basic obligation of society. When it becomes necessary to rely on police action to secure compliance with the law, society has failed in this responsibility.
Revised July 1, 2011