The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: community policing and accident investigation

Dave Barnes (DB375@aol.com)
Sun, 14 Sep 1997 22:18:08 -0400 (EDT)

I'm in total agreement with Ed, Al and Jim. Community policing is a feel good term for the politicians and quality accident investigation gets left behind as well as a lot of other necessary police functions. I retired a few years ago from a fairly large southwestern police department which had a cohesive traffic division and fatal accident investigation unit. Then community policing came in which requires substantially more officers if it is to be successful. The administration split up the traffic division where they were no longer a cohesive unit and assigned them to the various sub-stations so that they could say more officers were assigned to the sub-stations and "closer" to the neighborhoods. They were still traffic officers but the unit was fragmented and morale suffered terribly. Coordination on traffic problems and accident investigation is a real problem. Community policing requires officers spending a lot of time on non-police functions.

I predict that some brillant police administrator will come up with a "new" idea one of these days and suggest that we get back to basic police work. Patrol units answering calls for service and preventative patrol, a detective division investigating crimes and a traffic division investigating accidents. What a novel idea.

There are a number of police departments which have tried community policing and failed. Community policing requires substantially more officers and support from the rank and file if it is to be successful.
Dave Barnes
DB375@aol.com

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