The document discusses Officer Corey Morgan's experiences and insights on community policing at the Sacramento Police Department. It emphasizes the importance of building relationships between police officers and community members to enhance safety and quality of life, as well as the challenges faced in implementing community policing strategies. The Sacramento model of community policing encourages individual responsibility from officers, allowing them to adapt programs to meet community needs.

1. Mirela Lindboe1
Community Policing
AJ58
Day: Thursday
Date: 3 October 2013
Time: 10:30 am
Location: Sacramento Police Department
Purpose: Community Policing
The guest speaker was Officer Corey Morgan, who has worked
with the Sacramento Police department for ten years. Today, he
works with the Crime Suppression Unit (CSU), where he moved
from being a Chief’s Officer for a year before moving to the
CSU team. Officer Corey has been trained as a Marine Corp and
served in the military before joining Sierra College. He then
transferred to UC Davis before making the decision to become a
police officer. When he started out, like most rookie cops, he
was assigned to patrol, mostly to Oak Park Graveyard before
graduating to an undercover cop, a job he carried out for a year.
Later he moved to the Problem Oriented Policing (POP) Team
which is a form of Community Policing with a focus on solving
community problems. He worked with POP for four years,
before being moved to the CSU.
Community Policing is a mode of policing that seeks to form
relationships in the community. The police officer, rather than
police the community, seeks and builds relationships with the

2. people in the community. For example, if you do not put money
in the bank, you cannot expect to get anything in return; in the
same way, if an individual does not invest time and effort in
knowing and understanding the community, then one should not
be surprised when things happen in the community. Therefore,
Community Policing is vesting oneself into one’s community,
because when a police officer speaks to criminals as a person,
they are likely to respond better. The Sacramento Police
Department outlook of Community Policing is the formation of
partnerships with the community so that life and property are
protected, and community problems solved so that the quality of
life of Sacramento residents can be enhanced. Nonetheless, the
key to success in Community Policing is relationship building
with everyone; principals, criminals, locals and so on because
the policing is only as good as the contacts one has and “only as
good as whom you know”.
A major program that Sacramento Police Department makes use
of in Community Policing is using the Control and Seal
Document. This is a program that is meant to hide the identity
of people who send information to the police. In addition, the
department is trying to change the mentality of its officers so
that they become oriented to community. In the past, the police
were considered ‘badge heavy’ since they were considered rude
and controlling, but today they are friendly, and never too busy
to help residents. This is a deliberate act that officers employ so
that they can network, and assure residents that they are
accessible since they form part of the community. The outlook
of officers in Community Policing is that they are “The thin
blue link that separates good from evil”.
In addition, other community programs adopted by the
Sacramento Police Department is employing laissez-faire
tactics, where cops are not heavy handed and do not seek to
control the community. They give community members the

3. responsibility of knowing what is in their best interests and so,
offer them a chance to report crime. This tactic is also useful in
that rather than have specific programs, programs evolve with
needs, or with problems that crop each day, since Community
Policing involves all aspects of community. Helping gang
members’ reform, via educating, counseling and helping them
get jobs is also a program employed by the department.
The main challenges in Community Policing in Sacramento is
the negative mindset of police officers towards Community
Policing and staffing concerns. Some police officers are yet to
accept the aspect of Community Policing since it seems to lend
community members more power; and at the same time relating
to community members as equals is problematic to some
officers. Finally, the department does not have enough officers
to use in Community Policing, and so the program is not as
successful as it ought to be.
In summary, Community Policing in Sacramento is similar to
the models practiced in other parts of the country. This is
because it insists on community participation and a change of
attitude to police officers to view community members as
partners rather than the policed. However, the Community
Policing model practiced in this jurisdiction differs from most
models since it gives leeway to officers to create, modify and
change programs used. Thus, rather than have a specific means
of dealing with issues, individual teams or officers decide the
best program to use in that particular situation. This laissez-
faire approach is best summed by Officer Corey’s statement
“what can I do today, that’s going to impact people”, implying
that individual responsibility and action is important in making
the community safer and improving the overall quality of life
for its members.