Volunteering in Law Enforcement

Volunteers in Law Enforcement

Globally, law enforcement agencies are increasingly engaging the services of citizen out of the realization that they are valuable assets to the fulfillment of various goals. Individuals may volunteer willingly to give back to these agencies or to fulfill specific civic responsibilities. These actions end up being beneficial to the concerned agencies and staff, the volunteers, and the communities that they serve. Just like other organizations that face various difficulties in running their operations, volunteers usually experience strategic, financial, and personnel benefits. Different law enforcement agencies in the UK, UAE, and US have volunteer programs that have enabled them to save hiring costs, improve operational efficiency, and boost security and safety of the communities that they serve.

Benefits of Using Volunteers in Law Enforcement

It is a common occurrence in free societies around the world for community members to be involved actively in oversight of law enforcement activities. According to Dobrin (2017), a critical aspect of such oversight is citizens volunteering their services. Apart from the benefits to the policed communities and volunteers themselves, the agencies experience varied economic advantages, which can be determined by assessing the statistics of how volunteering has improved police agencies in different countries.

By 2014, it was estimated that about 9,000 volunteers were offering their time and services to different police departments across the UK. UNISON (2014) state that Kent Police engaged the largest number of volunteers at 850. Unfortunately, a majority of the police forces did not monitor the number of hours that they put in. Thames Valley and Surrey forces recorded the highest number of volunteer hours in 2014 at 70,459 and 32,000 hours respectively. Surrey and North Yorkshire registered the highest hours per volunteer at 266 and 156 hours. The costs of maintaining the volunteers varied across the forces due inconsistent costing templates. For example, Norfolk incurred £229,714 for 162 volunteers while Thames Valley incurred £76,816 for 536 volunteers. According to Matthew, Pepper, Cahalian, and Britton (2019), nationally, the volunteers program led to about 3.5 million hours of contributions every year with an estimated value of between £50 and £100 million. Callender, Cahalin, Cole, Hubbard, and Britton (2018) state that it is necessary for police leaders to recognize the importance of the volunteers to enhance strategic commitment to enhance the value of the program towards the delivery of law enforcement services. Therefore, there is no clear evidence of operational impacts, the volunteers have made considerable impacts regarding time and savings.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has always stressed the significance of volunteering and its economic and social benefits across the country, which has also extended to law enforcement. According to (UAE, 2019), the Abu Dhabi Police have an initiative called ‘We Are All Police that encourages citizens to undergo short training to become community police officers who volunteer to support regular officers. Salama (2018) states that the program was developed to promote communication and engagement with community members to enhance overall security. It began with 1,000 individuals from different professions such as lawyers, doctors, and university professors. The initiative has attracted widespread support with some meeting the financial liabilities of 7,800 inmates to enable them to enter the program. In 2018, there were about 34,000 police officers in Abu Dhabi, which implies a ratio of one officer per 81 people. The aim of the program is improving the ratio to one officer for every 58 people by 2021, which will be achieved by recruiting more regular and support officers. The effort has been successful in reducing the murder rate to the fourth lowest globally at 0.7 per 100,000 people. Besides, the UAE has the lowest robbery and sexual crime rates in the world. Its deaths due to traffic accidents declined from 13.5 per 100,000 in 2008 to 5 per 100,000 in 2018, and it anticipates to lower it further to 3 per 100,000 by 2021.

Most agencies in the United States have not maintained consistent records of volunteers. However, recent research put the number of sworn reserve or auxiliary volunteer officers and sheriff’s deputies across the country at 58,500 while the unsworn ones are approximately 19,000 to make a total of 77,500 volunteers (Dobrin, 2017b). Volunteers help police departments to meet the demand for their services without significant cost implications. For instance, in 2018, the El Paso County Sheriff benefited from the services of 440 volunteers who provided about 74,094 hours of services. The resultant financial benefit to the county was about $2,018,351 (El Paso County Sheriff's Office, 2019). They also have an impact on police operations. In 2018, volunteers in Pittsburg helped law enforcement officers to adopt and utilize better policing strategies such as focused deterrence, legitimacy policing, and problem-oriented policing that led to a decline in gun crime by over 25 percent from incidents reported in 2017 (Giglio, 2018). Such achievements have been replicated nationally.

Functions of Volunteers in Law Enforcement

The roles of volunteers in police departments in the United Kingdom include specialized or complementary duties. Home Office (2019) state that police support volunteers (PSVs) conduct duties that allow trained law enforcement officers to focus on critical operational duties. They include counter services and monitoring crime reports and incidents. Trained volunteers work as special constables who work alongside regular police officers. They are trained teachers, accountants, taxi drivers, and from many other professionals who work for at least four hours every week in the nearby police departments where they provide crucial links between law enforcement officers and community members. Therefore, volunteers can contribute to the police service in the UK in various ways.

The UAE has opened its police volunteer program to individuals who are ready to service the community. According to Government of Abu Dhabi (2019), they first undergo training covering the best policing standards in areas such as first aid, crises and disaster management, manning events, problem solving, public speaking, and dealing with diverse individuals. WAM (2018) states that the trainee volunteers can then take up roles in community policing, traffic, information technology, crises and disaster management, and security information.

In the United States, the culture of volunteering has been inculcated across various areas of society. According to Wolf, Holmes, & Jones (2016), different initiatives have encouraged citizens to volunteer their talents and time to government agencies including those in law enforcement. Koziol (2019) states that volunteers in the US mostly benefit law enforcement organizations with constrained hiring budgets. Ideally, they must fulfill certain eligibility requirements to enter the programs and sign agreements before starting their duties. Alexandria City Hall (2019) states that the most common responsibilities for police volunteers include data entry, copying reports, filing, translation, interpretation, finger-printing, record-keeping, and inventory control. However, sworn volunteers in the US usually handle traditional law enforcement duties. Consequently, based on the skills, volunteers handle support activities.

Conclusion

Police volunteer programs in the US, UK, and UAE have had different levels of effectiveness in supporting law enforcement agencies to achieve their objectives. The agencies have experienced financial and personnel benefits. The agencies allow specialized volunteers to conduct traditional law enforcement duties while others perform support tasks.

References

Alexandria City Hall. (2019, January 24). Volunteers. Retrieved from Alexandria City Hall: https://www.alexandriava.gov/police/info/default.aspx?id=9470

Callender, M., Cahalin, K., Cole, S. J., Hubbard, L., & Britton, I. (2018). Understanding the motivations, morale, and retention of special constables: findings from a national survey. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, pay058.

Dobrin, A. (2017a). Voluntteer police: History, benefits, costs and current descriptions. Security Journal, 30(3), 717-733.

Dobrin, A. (2017b). State-level estimates of the number of volunteer police in the United States. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 19(2), 81-88.

El Paso County Sheriff's Office. (2019). Volunteer program. Retrieved from El Paso County Sheriff's Office: https://www.epcsheriffsoffice.com/sections-administrative-support-bureau/support-services-division/volunteer-program

Giglio, K. (2018, December 14). Helping police find better strategies to fight crime. Retrieved from RAND Corporation: https://www.rand.org/blog/articles/2018/12/helping-police-find-better-strategies-to-fight-crime.html

Government of Abu Dhabi. (2019). The program. Retrieved from We Are All Police: https://weareallpolice.adpolice.gov.ae/#!/program

Home Office. (2019). Volunteering in policing. Retrieved from Home Office: https://www.police.uk/volunteering/

Koziol, J. (2019). Police use of civilian volunteers. Retrieved from Police Chief Magazine: https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/police-use-civilian-volunteers/

Matthew, C., Pepper, M., Cahalian, K., & Britton, I. (2019). Exploring the police support volunteer experience: Findings from a national survey. Policing and Society, 29(4), 392-406.

Salama, S. (2018, April 17). UAE police forces to become community police. Retrieved from Gulf News: https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/uae-police-forces-to-become-community-police-1.2207110

UAE. (2019). Volunteering. Retrieved from UAE: https://www.government.ae/en/information-and-services/charity-and-humanitarian-work/volunteering

UNISON. (2014, October). 'Home guard' of police support volunteers to fill in for police cuts. Retrieved from UNISON: https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2014/11/TowebUNISON-report-on-Police-Support-Volunteers2.pdf

WAM. (2018, April 5). New members of ‘We Are All Police’ undergo training. Retrieved from Gulf News: https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/new-members-of-we-are-all-police-undergo-training-1.2200570

Wolf , R., Holmes, S. T., & Jones, C. (2016). Utilization and satisfaction of volunteer law enforcement officers in the office of the American sheriff: An exploratory nationwide study. Police Practice and Research, 17(5), 448-462.