Teresa A Moore, Community Policing, Missouri 2024

Missouri’s Western District Strives for Community Policing Harmony

As a community member and a career prosecutor, Acting U.S. Attorney Teresa A. Moore recognizes that local, state, and federal law enforcement officers play a vital role in the welfare of our community. Law enforcement, however, can’t solve public safety problems alone. Protecting the safety of our community, preventing and reducing crime, and preserving peace and justice, is a collaborative effort between law enforcement and the entire community.

With National Community Policing Week, Oct. 3-9, 2021, the state of Missouri reaffirms its commitment to supporting and advancing the practice of community policing. Community policing is a public safety philosophy based on partnership and cooperation between law enforcement and the communities that they are sworn to protect. At the center of community policing is the idea that all members of the community, both officer and civilian, have a stake in the safety of their neighborhoods where they live and work.

Unfortunately, those relationships become strained at times. Although most of the community shares the goals of public safety and crime prevention, we aren’t always working well together as a team. Perhaps National Community Policing Week would be a good time to take steps toward building and maintaining trust between officers and community members. This is critical to addressing both the concerns of the community and needs of law enforcement.

Community policing encourages interactive partnerships with community groups, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders in the community. Indeed, police officers are members of many of these groups, and share their vested interest in the well being of the community. It is equally important for police officers to be honored for their sacrifices and supported by their communities as it is for the members of those communities to feel they are being served fairly and justly by our men and women in blue.

The U.S. government has invested heavily in the concept of community policing. For example, it provides resources to the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for hiring police officers across America, including police departments in this district, and advancing 21st-century policing efforts. The government provides millions of dollars in grants to agencies that demonstrate robust community policing initiatives.

National Community Policing Week is a timely reminder that solutions to the problem of crime and violence will only be as healthy and long-lasting as the relationship between law enforcement and the community.

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