Maywood Police Department

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COMMUNITY POLICING

The decision to get involved in the community policing philosophy has been the popular trend in American policing during the past few years. With the inception of the New Jersey Regional Community Policing Institute in 1997, the Maywood Police Department "tested the waters" by sending a few seasoned officers to various training modules being offered. Immediately upon returning from the training, the feedback was positive and the often-time cynical "old salts" seemed to be enthused about the training modules they had attended. The training modules being presented by the Institute offered new concepts and creative approaches to the age-old problems that we had been encountering.

As the Chief of Police, the decision to jump into the community policing mode was an easy one. Our officers were cooperative and flexible in their scheduling. We set a goal of having each of our twenty-four officers attend all ten modules offered by the Institute. Over the course of the past three years we were able to have all of our members attend the Institute's training modules and then follow-up on their training by participating in a capstone project. Collectively our officers attended in excess of 2000 hours of Institute training. Our Agency accomplished this without overtime. The capstone projects allowed our officers to apply contemporary community policing theories to everyday situations within our community. The end result was twelve creative capstone projects that were implemented by our officers. Feedback revealed that each capstone project had a positive impact on police community relations within the Borough of Maywood. Each capstone project served in one fashion or another to solve a problem or helped to close the gap between police and the community we serve.

We are extremely proud of the recognition that we recently received from the New Jersey Regional Community Policing Institute. I wish to commend the members of the Maywood Police Department for their hard work and dedication towards this goal. I also wish to acknowledge the staff and instructors of the NJRCPL, for their refreshing instruction and creative presentations of the community policing related materials.

The New Jersey Regional Community Policing Institute recognizes Agencies who send more than 80% of their sworn officers through all ten training modules and complete individual capstone projects. On December l4, 2000, at the fifth graduation of the New Jersey Regional Community Policing Institute, the Maywood Police Department became the first police agency in New Jersey to be certified as a "Community Policing Agency."