The philosophy of the Rapid City Police Department is one of community policing. Community policing is a values based approach that plainly holds law enforcement, public order maintenance and public safety as the responsibility of every good citizen, not just the police. Crime is not just a police problem, it is a community problem. Sir Robert Peel, the Father of Modern Policing, said it best when he stated that the police are the community and the community are the police. Although policing is and will primarily remain the full-time paid duty of the Rapid City Police Department, it must also be equally recognized that the police are only an extension of the community's inherent responsibility to provide and care for the safety and welfare of its citizens.

The Rapid City Police Department’s philosophy therefore considers the citizens of our community as true partners in identifying, prioritizing and resolving the social and criminal problems that fall within the domain of policing. Every officer will sincerely cooperate and work with the citizens to the best of their ability to develop and maintain a community which has the highest quality life standards. In return, the citizens are asked to do their very best to sincerely cooperate and work with their police department to help fulfill the policing responsibilities within our community. The Department believes that only by developing a true partnership among the police and citizenry will everyone who visits and lives in Rapid City enjoy a safe, secure and wholesome community life.

The Rapid City Police Department pledges to its citizens that our officers will earnestly strive to be the most competent, committed and courteous officers in the world. Our Department affirms within its policing philosophy the ideal doctrine of community commitment. Community commitment means placing the best interests of our community first into every police service decision, allocation and action. This much our officers' pledge and more...

Community Policing Principles

The Rapid City Police Department will ...

1. direct police attention toward problem solving instead of simply responding to and reporting incidents.
2. place an emphasis upon decentralized geographic policing. Decentralized geographic policing serves to identify, prioritize and respond to specific problems found in specific city areas on a police officer and citizen level instead of a city-wide and administrative level.
3. provide designated geographic areas an assigned police officer who will cooperate and work with residents as a police team leader to help the community prevent and solve specific neighborhood problems.
4. establish a true partnership among the police and the community for the purpose of working together to solve specific social and criminal problem The community will be asked and encouraged to help set policing priorities and help make decisions how to mutually deal with problems in their respective neighborhoods and business areas. The police will therefore encourage dialogue among residents themselves and act as a catalyst to create an effective neighborhood response to social and crime problems.
5. help citizens recognize that crime by itself is rarely the problem, but a symptom of more socially endemic problems that need to be addressed by the community as a whole. As such, the police will remain concerned about improving the social and environmental structures and conditions of neighborhoods; especially as it relates to alleviating crime and quality of life problems that infringe upon the well-being of citizens.
6. take the responsibility for making the community aware of impending criminal and social problems that seriously threaten their well-being. The police will therefore make a reasonable effort to provide timely crime prevention information or education to help the public protect themselves, their property and how they can specifically assist the police.
7. perform problem analysis of specific areas and situations in the city and ac as a community resource broker by making appropriate referrals to those who are most apt to render effective assistance. Officers will follow-up and check on the progress in resolving the referred problems.
8. empower and encourage police employees to assume wider discretion in strategizing, facilitating and implementing remedies to address specific community problems, Participative management will be supported.
9. deliver police services by multiple means besides motorized patrol.
10. encourage the officers to make personal positive community contracts in order to build trust, rapport and understanding among the police and the community whom depend upon their services.