​Community policing is an approach to policing that decentralizes police operations and leverages collaborative efforts between police officers and community members to foster public safety. In this model, police departments embed active participation in societal problems into their core objectives and form community partnerships designed to facilitate shared and proactive problem-solving. Officer responsibilities extend to preventing crime and resolving neighborhood issues, rather than focusing on response and patrol. Beyond a decrease in local crime rates, community policing can directly or indirectly engineer other positive outcomes.

The advantages of community policing stem mostly from its emphasis on maintaining community ties and applying a proactive, bottom-up approach. For instance, these endeavors promote enhanced problem-solving and higher efficiency. By seeking input from diverse civilian populations and partnering with other civic service organizations, police departments can develop more creative solutions and stronger de-escalation methods. Congenial relationships within each neighborhood enables them to acquire more reliable assessments of residents’ needs and concerns, as well as potentially identify root causes of local crime.

Collaboration with the community and local organizations also improves police department efficiency in terms of resource use and availability. Understanding the community’s most pressing issues lends to better resource allocation, and civic participation can serve as an asset in preventing and solving crime. There is a higher probability that officers will receive valuable information about criminal activity in the area when they can engage the local population.

Additionally, resident involvement in community policing programs and projects with the assistance of law enforcement can free up police resources. Examples include recruiting civilians for non-police roles and placing police and other civic services under one roof at co-location venues, wherein police interactions are largely handled by citizens or local volunteers. To assist in keeping crime out of residential neighborhoods, there are initiatives like Neighborhood Watch, citizen police academies, and community policing units.

This manner of uniting the police and the community toward common goals underscores the role of community policing on one of policing’s most defining elements: police-community relations. In recent years, law enforcement in the United States has experienced widespread decrease in public confidence and growing tensions between police agencies and their communities. Community policing creates opportunities for community outreach, better cross-cultural understanding, and positive interactions between police officers and the community. These efforts are instrumental in rebuilding public trust and reversing public opinion.

By improving police-community relations, community policing also helps increase officer retention rates. Support and appreciation from their community goes a long way toward boosting the morale of officers, which in turn makes them less likely to leave their job. Furthermore, it reduces the degree to which national trends compromise morale because officers who earn the trust and respect of the citizens they serve can avoid shared blame with bad actors and departments.

While community policing has many advantages, alignment with its principles in practice relies on addressing challenges and concerns regarding the model’s application and implementation. For example, poor cross-cultural understanding may contribute to practices that only benefit majority populations or upper-class residents. Critics have also highlighted the potential for community policing to function as a cover for placing additional officers in areas where there is already a high level of distrust of the police. This serves to increase police presence and policing, rather than repair relations between community members and law enforcement.

​The origin of the Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation, shortly the Reid Technique, traces back to 1947 when Chicago, Illinois-based John E. Reid, and Associates, founded by a former police officer and recent law graduate John E. Reid, started developing interviewing and interrogation techniques. Applicable in any context which requires interviewing and assessing a subject’s credibility, the Reid Technique is the preeminent interviewing and interrogation method recognized by courts and used by representatives of various professional fields, including auditors, corporate security and human resources personnel, government personnel, law enforcement officers, military personnel, and school administrators.

The Reid Technique rests on eight core principles. These include always treating the subject with dignity and respect, adhering to the guidelines set out by the courts, avoiding making any promises of leniency, and restraining from threatening the subject with physical harm or more severe consequences. In addition, interrogations should not last for unduly prolonged periods. Also, interviewers and interrogators should not deny the subject their rights and the opportunity to fulfill their physical needs. And they should question juveniles or people with mental and psychological disabilities by exercising due caution.

The Reid Technique comprises three stages: fact analysis, investigative interview, and interrogation. During the fact analysis, the investigator examines the case facts and information to establish who they should interview as potential perpetrators. If the case involves victims or witnesses, they will talk with them to learn what, how, and when they say happened.

In addition, they will look at the crime scene and seek any evidence that implicates a particular person or consider whether the way the crime was committed requires any special knowledge. For example, whether it involved a code to switch off an alarm system or a combination to open a safe. Based on the information gathered from the victims, the witnesses, and the crime scene, the investigator builds a description of the potential offender and determines the scope of individuals they will interview.

The investigative interview proceeds as a non-accusatory, non-confrontational session, during which the investigator acts as a neutral, objective fact-finder. It is the first contact with the subject and aims to develop investigative information. The investigator starts by asking the subject standard open-ended questions to gather personal information about them and evaluate their normal verbal and non-verbal behavior. For example, they may ask them to tell their story about what happened and what they did during the specified time.

The investigator will then continue with more detailed investigative questions to get a more comprehensive picture of the incident’s five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why) and how. They will also ask behavior-provoking questions (BPQs). BPQs are questions to which practical evidence has shown truthful people answer in one way, while deceptive ones answer distinctly differently. The interviewee’s responses to the investigative and the BPQs provide investigators with objective insights into their credibility and enable them to form an opinion about their truthfulness.

The third stage, the interrogation, only becomes appropriate if the investigative information from the interview and evidence from subsequent investigations indicate the probable involvement of the subject in committing the crime. The goal of the interrogation is to learn the truth. To that effect, it passes through nine steps.

The first is the positive confrontation, during which the investigator tells the subject that the evidence has shown they are guilty. Then comes the theme development when the investigator presents the subject with different moral justifications (themes) for the offense. They may blame another person or external circumstances that provoked the subject to commit the crime. The investigator may offer several themes and alter them to find the one to which the subject is most responsive.

The third step is handling the subject’s denials, which the investigator should try to keep to a minimum. The fourth step deals with overcoming objections. After unsuccessful attempts at denying the investigator’s accusations, a guilty subject usually proceeds with making objections and explaining why they could not or did not commit the crime. The investigator should avoid arguing with the subject and empathically accept their reasoning. During the next step, they should reinforce sincerity to retain the subject’s attention and ensure receptiveness.

During the sixth step, as the investigator gets the subject’s attention and they become quieter and listen, they should move the discussion toward presenting alternatives. The seventh step is when the investigator poses the alternatives. They give the subject two choices, one offering better social justification than the other. For example, they may ask the subject whether they had a plan or whether all happened spontaneously. The subject usually opts for the easier alternative, but regardless of which one they choose, they have admitted guilt. And the eighth and ninth steps are about obtaining an oral review of what happened and converting the oral confession to a written or recorded one.

​Hawaii is home to 50 parks and hundreds of hiking trails. Visitors can use these trails to explore unique forests and beaches. That said, travelers would do well to educate themselves on the various kinds of wildlife they may encounter, as the state’s fauna differ from the animals found in the continental United States.

While travelers may associate Hawaii with large sea life such as great white sharks, some of the state’s dangerous creatures are hardly bigger than a fly. The brown violin spider, for example, is a pale brown arachnid with long, thin legs and a distinct violin-style marking along the body. Its bite is poisonous, and hikers need to take note.

Brown violin spiders are nocturnal and are not very aggressive. However, they will bite if they feel threatened. The venom is not fatal for humans, but can result in severe pain, vomiting, and dizziness, which can be particularly challenging on the trail. Hikers should be especially vigilant when exploring damp locations, such as under rocks or in sheds.

The brown violin spider is one of four venomous arachnids that hikers may encounter. The other three are the brown widow, the Western black widow, and the Southern black widow. Tourists and beachgoers may not encounter these very often, but hikers in wooded areas should always be on the lookout.

Spiders are not the only venomous threat to hikers in Hawaii. While the state has no native snakes, a number of species have found their way to the islands. Few invasive species have had as large an impact on Hawaii as the brown tree snake. Native to Guam, the snake, while relatively rare, is a major threat to Hawaii’s birds, and while its venom is non-fatal to human adults, it can be deadly for children.

It is illegal to own a snake in Hawaii, and government officials have taken several steps to curb their spread. In 2018, several specimens were used to train canine helpers to assist their handlers in locating and removing brown tree snakes. Like spiders, these snakes prefer dark, secluded spots, such as under logs or in woodpiles.

Many of Hawaii’s parks and hiking trails can be found along the state’s beautiful beaches. The state consists of approximately 750 miles of coastline. Unsurprisingly, many of Hawaii’s most notable – and dangerous - animals can be found in the sea, so swimmers need to be alert too.

Several carnivorous sharks are native to the waters of Hawaii, including tiger sharks and great whites. It is important that swimmers and waders follow all lifeguard instructions and posted signs when it comes to shark safety. But some other creatures pose a hazard as well, and again, one of them is a snake. While it is also non-native, the poisonous yellow-bellied sea snake has been reported in Hawaiian waters. It has short fangs that inject a small amount of neurotoxic and myotoxic venom with each bite. The venom is extremely potent and can cause paralysis and death. Fortunately, this snake usually doesn’t come up on the beach.

The single most dangerous creature in Hawaii may be the box jellyfish. The animal’s 10-foot-long body is covered with thousands of venomous barbs that can paralyze humans, resulting in death by drowning or cardiac arrest.