Traditional Policing vs. Community Policing

Traditional policing is the standard law enforcement model in all of our communities.  As members of our communities and therefore contributors to the crime rates/statistics in one way or another, it is our civic duty to assist in keeping our communities safe.  According to Wikipedia, traditional policing and community policing are defined as follows:

"Traditional policing is generally concerned with solving crimes with the most value, responding to incidents swiftly, and clearing calls. Many officers working busy shifts only have time to respond to and clear 911 calls. In contrast community policing is concerned with solving the crimes that the community is concerned about, and solving citizens concerns by working with and gaining support from the community." (1)

Traditional policing is commonly recognized by the iconic dark uniformed individual with the silver badge pinned over the left shirt pocket, driving around in a Crown Vic', Impala, or Charger emergency response vehicle with red and blue lights (a.k.a. cherries) on top.  The community-oriented policing is usually seen as the neighborhood watch patrol driver, or the community policing or advisory meetings held at the local city hall, or the families who put neighborhood watch yard signs or stickers on the windows and doors of their homes.  

The question I find myself asking is: Why haven't we as a society come up with a model which allows us as individuals and communities to recover some of our civic duty as citizens by directly effecting the efforts of traditional policing?  I'm not talking like chasing down bad guys, tackling them to the ground, and performing civil arrests.  But I am saying I would like to be able to have a way to tip off police officers when things are happening in my neighborhood in an effort to keep the environment in which my children play, safe.  Why haven't we been able to create a model which will allow us to take on more opportunity to assist, and combine the traditional policing and the community policing efforts?  

There are probably app developers out there who have created possible solutions but only time will tell if they are suitable for civilian use and if they can actually allow us to take on some of the action and assist with the cracking down on crime in our local towns and neighborhoods.  If this were possible, what kinds of features would you like in a smartphone, or web app?  What kind of options would you like, who would you want the app to connect to?  What would you like to see after you submitted the information?  Would you like a 'return and report' situation where the police department or company called, emailed, or texted you with an outcome of what happened?  Please leave me your comments below. 

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Community_policing