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Community the New Focus of Cambridge Policing

* Police officers listen, respond to citizen's complaints at a series of community meetings

Wilson says the task of the police officer to engage the community he or she works in is just as important as fighting existing crime itself.

Instead of remaining in a police cruiser, Cambridge officers often patrol neighborhoods on foot.

"People like to see a policeman because it allows them to come up and establish a relationship," Watson says.

The idea of a relationship between police officers and citizens is not new and is in some ways a return to a means of policing that is as old as most American police departments.

As cities grew and crime became more mobile, "policing evolved," Williams says.

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"There was a dramatic increase in calls for service. Crime became mobile so we had to go mobile," William says.

Pinned to one wall of the community relations office at Cambridge Police Headquarters is a series of statements made in 1849 by Sir Robert Peele referring to the London Metropolitan Police's "bobby on the beat" system.

"Police should strive to maintain relationships with the public so that the police in reality are the people and the people in reality are the police," the poster reads.CrimsonGrigory TovbisLt. STEVEN WILLIAMS, the Cambridge's community policing coordinator

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