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Transforming Community Policing: Mobilization, Engagement, and Collaboration, Second Edition

By Hugh C. Russell and Sulaimon Giwa

ISBN: 978-1774622131

Policing and police leadership have, arguably, never been more complex than they are right now.  Community policing has been evolving for decades, leading police agencies and their community partners to develop new skills and competencies, and to re-shape their organizations and methods to be able to meet the expectations placed upon them.

In Ontario, for example, municipalities are now required to create, implement, maintain and measure the results of community safety and well-being plans. These plans shift responsibilities among local governments and agencies to enhance community wellness, and thus demand more cooperative, preventive work by police and their partner service providers.

At the same time, recent events have impacted the trust and confidence the community has in its police, who must now redouble efforts to enhance public trust while ensuring safe neighbourhoods and positive work environments for their own members.

How can communities and their police meet these challenges? What do they need to know, and what must they be able to do, to enhance community well-being meaningfully? How will they know when and if they have succeeded? How can community trust be enhanced?

Transforming Community Policing will help police practitioners, community partners and students understand what is required for the community to police itself – that is, to keep itself safe and healthy. In clear, plain language, it leads readers through the background information they need to understand current community needs and priorities and the rationale for community-wellness efforts. It then provides practical, understandable strategies and methods to meet those needs, and to create partnerships and relationships that will enable effective policing and promote trust. Thought-provoking review and discussion questions, real-life stories and meaningful graphics help to crystalize the concepts, and to help practitioners navigate the complexities of their work.

The important concepts and practices in this book make it a practical handbook for people, both within police services and across the community, who are involved in promoting community safety and wellbeing, which are the goals of community policing.

Based on research and experience and expanded and updated for the rich but complex environment of 2023, the second edition of this practical and comprehensive text is an essential source for practitioners of collaborative community policing, and for people learning the craft.

– Peter Lennox, Superintendent (Ret’d), Toronto Police Service; Facilitator, Trent University Certificate in Senior Police Leadership; Partner, Consilium Public Sector Services