Which policing approach focuses on crime prevention through community engagement?

The approach that emphasizes crime prevention through community engagement is community policing. This strategy fosters a partnership between police forces and the community, encouraging collaboration to identify and solve neighborhood issues. By involving community members, this model aims to address the underlying problems that contribute to crime, rather than just responding to incidents after they occur.

Community policing is proactive, focusing on community involvement and the enhancement of public safety through building trust and relationships. Officers often engage with residents, gather input, and work on initiatives that reflect the needs and concerns of the community. This collaborative engagement can lead to more effective crime prevention strategies and a greater sense of community ownership over public safety.

In contrast, traditional policing typically relies on a more top-down approach, primarily responding to crimes rather than seeking to engage the community for prevention. Problem-oriented policing, while also proactive, focuses more on specific crime problems through analysis and targeted interventions, rather than broad community engagement. Reactive policing is fundamentally focused on responding to incidents after they have occurred, which does not utilize the community's input or foster the same level of engagement as community policing does.