Rhode Island Beach City Concerned Over Community Policing Initiative

APB team Published on Sep 1, 2024 at 6:00am PDT

CCommunity policing is one of the most misunderstood concepts in law enforcement. While politicians, citizens, and officers alike like to use the term as a panacea for situations without easy answers, it is essentially a philosophy of working with the community to achieve public safety. As Peel’s principles stated many years ago, “The police are the public, and the public is the police.”

While many agencies give away free food or throw police-funded parties to emulate the concept, a truer expression is found in programs that actually work with the public to address law enforcement issues. Some communities allow citizens to integrate their business surveillance cameras so that law enforcement analysts can access them on demand. Others encourage and coordinate neighborhood watch groups.

In Charlestown, Rhode Island, a relatively innocuous decision by local police has some residents in an uproar. Charlestown, a small beach town with a population of less than 2,000, faces problems common to many similar towns. The town has a seasonal driving ban on certain stretches of beach, and the police department is tasked with enforcing it. This summer, police decided they would accept time-stamped photos of offending vehicles as evidence in issuing tickets for violations.

Steven Brown, the director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the policy “troubling.” He said the “…idea of ​​delegating citizens to engage in these types of law enforcement activities seems completely inappropriate.”

It may be unusual where Brown is coming from, but it certainly isn’t unprecedented in the United States. Many states still have citizen arrest laws, and some allow citizens to file criminal charges directly with a court or their local district attorney. Citizens providing photo evidence of a crime for local law enforcement to prosecute is hardly a new concept.

Charlestown resident Scott Keeley is an advocate for shoreline access. He says the policy creates “vigilantes.” The term originated in the “vigilance committees” that formed in many of the lawless frontier towns of the Wild West. Angry and concerned about the activities of lawless gangs, citizens often banded together to fight crime and disorder.

While residents may disagree with the law and anything that makes it easier to enforce, this type of collective effort is more akin to community policing than Wild West vigilante justice. Community policing was touted in 2014 by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing as one of the most important solutions to America’s persistent law enforcement problems. Since then, it has also been frequently cited as a laudable goal for law enforcement to implement. Given its increasing prevalence, this small town’s response may provide lessons in the unexpected pushback agencies can expect when implementing community policing programs and policies.

The reality in Charlestown is admittedly complicated, apparently stemming from an ongoing dispute among residents in the area. A local group (the Nope’s Island Conservation Association) owns land on part of the beach and is apparently behind much of the effort to restrict access to the beach. Keeley claims their intention is to “… privatize the beach.”

“I’m surprised the Charlestown police would support that,” he said.

It seems that both groups want the police to take sides in the issue. It may not be a vigilante, but maybe it is no different than the old west.