Homeland Security and Community Policing: Competing or Complementing Public Safety Policies
This article was originally published in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. It is posted here with the permission of the author.
Abstract
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist atrocities in the United States, a new organizational policy was introduced as “Homeland Security.” Both a concept and a governmental department, homeland security became the “in” policy, and as such invented a new organization and a new approach to public safety. As a result, however, the dominant policing policy up to that time — Community Policing — was largely sidestepped by homeland security efforts as well as budgets. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the two public safety policies actually have a great deal in common, and that homeland security is to benefit from integrating principles of community policing in its localized strategies.