Attitudes and experiences of students at Basic Police Training Centre on community policing in Serbia

Abstract

Community policing, as a new system of police organisation and functioning, which is based on the concept of police and community working together as equal partners in identifying, prioritising and problem solving, has been gaining more and more attention among researchers and scientists over the past few decades. Empirical research based on the premises of the new concept of policing is the focal point of this paper. In this paper, the authors present the study of attitudes and experiences of the students of the Basic Police Training Centre (hereinafter: BPTC) in Sremska Kamenica, Serbia, related to community policing. The survey conducted over 265 respondents from 8 regional police directorates in Serbia determines their attitudes and experiences related to community policing, as the new concept of policing. It is important to note that the research was focused on the attitudes of students as citizens, based on experience they gained before they entered the BPTC. The research has produced significant findings, since the starting point was that one of the basic principles of community policing is visibility and accessibility in the wider community. However, the data collected showed that about 2/3 of the respondents had never seen a pedestrian patrol in his/her community, and a little less than half of them had not seen a car patrol in his/her community for more than a month. The paper, apart from the introduction and conclusion, consists of four parts: the conceptual framework of the research, the methodological framework of the research, the research results and analysis and discussion.