Characteristics of Community Policing While community policing has been ushered into police departments across the nation, studies have illustrated that few understand the underlying concept. For example, one national survey of law enforcement agencies found that only about 50 percent of the police chiefs and sheriffs queried had a clear understanding of what community policing means.8 Therefore, it should not be surprising that com- munity policing has come to mean different things to different people. Popular strategies include instituting foot or bicycle patrols, establishing neighborhood police substations, identifying neighborhood problems, dealing with disorder, organizing community meetings, or conducting community surveys.9 In fact, because the label of community policing has been attached to such a variety of activities and programs, some reformers express concern that community policing has come to mean anything that is new and innovative in American policing.10 Despite this confusion, there does appear to be a consensus about some of the basic elements of community policing, and how it differs from previous policing strategies. The most important difference is that community policing represents a major change in the role of the police. While the police have traditionally defined their primary mission in terms of crime control, community policing seeks to broaden the police role to include dealing with such issues as fear of crime, order maintenance, conflict resolution, neighborhood decay, and social and physical disorder as basic functions of the police. Mastrofski argues that this shift in primary mission of the police from serious crime to order maintenance is justified in two ways. First, reducing minor disorder may lead to a decrease in serious crime. The broken windows hypothesis, as discussed earlier, asserts that an increase in community decay produces an increase in serious crime, and only by redirecting police services toward neighborhood deterioration and disorder can a community prevent crime. Second, he asserts that order maintenance is “justifiable in its own right in that it contributes to the establishment of a civil, livable environment in which citizens may, without fear, exercise their right to pursue their livelihood.”11 In an ideal sense, then, community policing seeks to change the basic tenets most Americans, including the police, hold regarding police functions and priorities. Because the implementation of community policing involves a number of philosophical, organizational, strategic, and tactical changes,12 it is helpful to focus on the three most commonly discussed targets of community policing reform: (1) community partner- ships, (2) organizational change, and (3) problem solving. Community Partnerships Community-policing advocates assert that the most effective way of reducing commu- nity decay and disorder is through a collaborative relationship between the police and the community. This broadened view recognizes that cooperation between the police and the public will give police greater access to information provided by the com- munity, which in turn will lead the police to be more responsive to the community’s needs.13 Accordingly, the community-policing model stresses greater interaction be- tween the police and the public, so that both entities act as coproducers of crime control and prevention.14 Such a model, in an ideal sense, seeks to create a two-way working relationship between the community and the police, in which the police become more integrated into the local community and citizens assume an active role in crime control and prevention.15 Bayley, in his seminal book The Police for the Future, maintains that two ele- ments are needed to successfully implement community partnerships between the police and the public: consultation and mobilization. Consultation Under community policing, agencies have sought to improve the quality of their crime control and prevention efforts by consulting with citizens in their community. This strategy is intended to help the community and police define and prioritize problems. Consultation between the police and the public, usually done in the form of community meetings, serves four functions: (1) it provides a forum for citizens to express their problems and needs, (2) it allows the police to educate citizens about crime and disorder in their community, (3) it allows citizens to express complaints in- volving the police, and (4) it provides a forum for the police to inform the community about their successes and failures.16 Most police agencies meet with community groups of one type or another (see Exhibit 10–2).17 For example, the Miami-Dade Police Department created the Marine Advisory Support Team (MAST) project as “an effort to facilitate community participation . . . and to bring together concerned parties to provide input and identify ways to improve service to the boating public and related interests.” Representatives on the team in- cluded residents and businesses that lived and operated in and around Biscayne Bay as well as federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies that had jurisdiction over the bay. Once a month, MAST team members meet to discuss crime and disorder. Aside from making agencies aware of problems, the meetings have also led to the prioritization of community problems and to the sharing of resources to address the problems.18 While ideally all four of the functions are fulfilled, research has found that partnerships between the police and the public vary in terms of the level of involve- ment of each partner and the expectations that each has of the other. In some agen- cies, community members are simply encouraged to act as the eyes and ears of the police. In other agencies, police officers speak at community meetings or work along- side citizen volunteers. In still other agencies, formal relationships are established between the police and citizens in which the community works alongside the police to identify problems, develop possible solutions, and actively participate in respond- ing to problems.19 Regardless, a distinctive characteristic of the police under community policing is that the police seek to reposition themselves so that they become an integral part of community life rather than remain distant and alienated from the community as in years past. By embedding themselves within the community “it is asserted that the police and public actually co-produce public safety.”20 Mobilization Because the police have recognized their own limitations in preventing crime and disorder, police agencies that have embraced community policing have mobilized the mobilization community for assistance. Mobilization comes in the form of such programs as Neighborhood Watch, Operation ID, and Crime Stoppers. These community organi- zation strategies not only are a deterrent mechanism but also increase neighborhood cohesion and provide a forum for the police to inform the community of crime prevention techniques.21 Bayley adds that while the majority of mobilization efforts have dealt with the general public, other municipal agencies can play a critical role in the prevention of crime: “Sanitation departments can haul away abandoned cars, parks and recreation agencies [can] open facilities at night or develop programs for young people, [and] fire and building inspectors [can] condemn abandoned buildings.”22 Accordingly, under community policing the police expand the number of tools available to them, taking them beyond a reliance on arrest to solve problems. For example, they also use civil and administrative law to broaden their capacity to ad- dress quality-of-life concerns in neighborhoods. Many police agencies today work closely with zoning inspectors and other city officials to deal with problems related to local businesses that detract from a neighborhood’s quality of life (e.g., commercial sex shops, bars) as well as landlords and homeowners who fail to properly maintain their property.23 In many communities today it is not unusual for the police to part- ner with another agency within the city to address city code violations such as weeds, debris, inoperable vehicles, and graffiti to ensure the quality of life in neighborhoods. For instance, in Portland, Oregon, the police department saw the number of drug houses increase from just a few to more than 200 in a single year. The police department did not have the time, or the resources, to address the problem using traditional methods such as undercover work. As an alternative strategy they decided to mobilize landlords, the individuals who would be able to evict drug-dealing rent- ers. In particular, the police department embarked on a program that educated and trained landlords about their rights and responsibilities. They taught landlords how to screen applicants, identify drug activity, evict tenants, and work with neighbors and the police. Over a two-year period more than 5,750 landlords, who oversaw 100,000 rental units, had received training.24 As such, community policing is largely focused on establishing and maintain- ing relationships between the police and the community—whether it be with citi- zens, community groups, or other public or private agencies—to address neighborhood crime and disorder problems. The police seek to broaden their role to one that is “seen as shifting from first government responder to social diagnostician and community mobilizer.” Building linkages and relationships with others in the community allows the police to bring together a variety of services to address a spe- cific issue or problem that may affect community safety.25 The Effectiveness of Community Partnerships Foot Patrol One of the most common ways police agencies have attempted to bring the police and citizenry together while at the same time attempting to reduce crime has been through the use of foot patrol. A number of evaluations that examined foot patrol in the 1980s reported that while additional foot patrol did not reduce crime, it did in- crease feelings of safety. Moreover, citizens generalized these positive feelings to the police department—and not just to the foot patrol officers but to the department as a whole.26 This finding has led some researchers to speculate that while the police might not be able to reduce crime, perhaps they can reduce fear of crime. And if people are less fearful, they might not withdraw from the communities, and the pro-cess of neighborhood deterioration might not begin.27 Other studies examining police efforts at increasing police–citizen interaction, however, have found that such strategies can be effective in reducing crime. For example, in Oakland and Birmingham researchers found that both fear of crime and violent crime substantially decreased in beats where police officers made door-to-door contacts with residents.28 In Houston, researchers examining com- munity policing found that home visits by the police led to a decrease in violent crime and disorder in the city.29 Most recently, in Philadelphia, researchers found that violent crime was reduced in locations were foot patrol officers engaged in problem-oriented policing. Neighborhood Watch Neighborhood Crime Watch programs are another popular community partnership strategy. Neighborhood Watch programs, however, have repeatedly been found to have little impact on crime.31 Research conducted in Britain, where some of the most comprehensive studies have taken place, has shown that “there is no strong evidence that Neighborhood Watch has prevented a single crime in Britain since its inception in the early 1980s.”32 These studies have found that Neighborhood Watch programs are typically more active, and have a closer working relationship with the police, in affluent suburban areas with little crime. Residents who live in areas with more crime, and who live in inner-city minority neighborhoods, have been less willing to participate in Neighborhood Watch programs or any other activities that involve partner- ship with the police.33 Policing Where “Community” Has Collapsed One of the major questions surrounding community policing is whether it is a realistic strategy for the poorest and most crime-ravaged neighborhoods. Community organizing assumes that there is a viable community to help organize. The worst neighborhoods of many big cities— what some commentators call the “underclass”— are so devastated by unemployment, crime, and all the related social problems that no meaningful community remains. Most of the natural community leaders have left: those with stable employment, with families, and with a commitment to their neighborhood. In the absence of positive influences, gangs often become a focal point for young men’s lives. In their contribution to the Perspectives on Policing series, Hubert Williams and Patrick V. Murphy warned that “community-oriented approaches that are effective in most neighborhoods work less well, or not at all, in areas inhabited by low-income blacks and other minority groups.”34 Their point was confirmed by a University of Maryland report, Preventing Crime. Sherman and his colleagues found that pro- grams directed at families, schools, and communities tend to be most effective where they are needed least. They are least effective in the families, schools, and communities that need the most help.The Maryland report made a very significant contribution to our understanding of crime prevention by emphasizing the interrelationship among families, schools, neighborhoods, and economic opportunities (what it called “labor markets”).35 At the same time, communities in the traditional sense often do not exist in some newer and rapidly expanding cities. The Houston fear reduction experiment found that the city had an “almost nonexistent neighborhood life.”36 It may be that community-organizing efforts may help organize only the middle class. The fear reduction experiment in Houston and the community-organizing pro- grams in Minneapolis encountered the same phenomenon: They were more successful among middle-income people, homeowners, and whites than among the really poor, renters, and racial minorities.37 Successful community organizing among white homeowners may be motivated by racism: their fear of blacks and Hispanics moving into the neighborhood. If this is the case, police-sponsored community-organizing activities may heighten racial conflict. A review of community-organizing efforts, in fact, reached the disturbing conclusion that the strongest community organizations it could identify “arose in response to impending or actual racial change.” It would be tragic if community-policing efforts assisted resistance to equal housing opportunity.38 Community partnership efforts in Chicago have begun to challenge this often- cited criticism of community policing. New research conducted by Wesley Skogan suggests that after four years of intensive efforts by the police to partner with the community, residents in crime-blighted areas in Chicago are beginning to participate in neighborhood crime programs. They found that attendance at community meet- ings was highest among blacks who lived in high-crime areas and made less than $15,000 a year.39 Organizational Change Community policing also calls for organizational change. Eck and Maguire argue that organizational change in agencies moving toward community policing is necessary for two reasons: “first, to stimulate and encourage officers to perform community policing functions; [and] second, to make the organization more flexible and amenable to developing community partnerships and creative problem solving strategies.”40 The authors maintain that there are three organizational areas in which agencies need to make changes if they are to successfully implement community policing: (1) organiza- tional structure, (2) organizational culture, and (3) management. Organizational Structure While traditionally police departments have been characterized by a highly central- ized organizational design, community-policing organizations are decentralized. This means that they have fewer levels of management, have less specialization, and allow for more discretion on the part of the line officer.41 A key assumption of community policing is that police agencies must remain flexible so that they can handle a variety of problems in different communities. Therefore, to accomplish this, line officers are given a great deal of discretion in diagnosing local problems.42 The community-policing organization is also characterized by consistently as- signing officers to a particular neighborhood or geographic area.This strategy not only is intended to foster a sense of geographic responsibility but also is a means of holding officers accountable for what takes place in their beat. Community-policing advocates also argue that this tactic “is necessary in order to take advantage of the particular knowledge that can come through greater police involvement in the community and feedback from it.”43 Organizational Culture Traditional police organizational culture stressed the importance of crime fighting. As a consequence, the transition to community policing has largely been a battle for the hearts and minds of police officers.44 Many advocates of community policing articulate that with the implementation of community policing will come a “new breed” of police officers who will be much more knowledgeable about, and experienced in, problem solving and community interaction, and who will be much more productive and satisfied with their work.45 A number of police departments have attempted to change their agency’s or- ganizational culture by implementing organizational reforms such as using participa- tive management styles that embrace police officer input in departmental decision making; providing formal training to officers on community partnerships, problem solving, and other community-policing tactics; changing promotional standards so that officers who embrace community policing are advanced within the organization; and changing departmental evaluation standards so that evaluations reinforce the value of community-policing activities.46 Management The adoption of community policing also affects police management. In the past, police managers focused primarily on issues of control through discipline by empha- sizing departmental rules and regulations.47 In community policing, managers are expected to assist the neighborhood officer in developing community contacts, counsel the neighborhood officer on political issues, assist the neighborhood officer in acquir- ing resources, and facilitate training opportunities for the neighborhood officer. Therefore, community-policing organizations are characterized by having more managers and fewer supervisors.48 For example, in St. Petersburg, Chief Goliath Davis made a number of management-oriented changes in an effort to enhance the department’s community- policing efforts. Prior to the changes, sergeants were responsible for supervising officers who were responding to calls for service, which coincidently conflicted with the sergeants’ responsibility for supervising community-policing officers. As such, the supervisors had little time to assist the officers with projects or train new community- policing officers on community policing. After a police and community retreat, Chief Davis made a number of organizational changes, including the addition of a shift community-police sergeant. This sergeant reported directly to the district major, policing is that police agencies must remain flexible so that they can handle a variety of problems in different communities. Therefore, to accomplish this, line officers are given a great deal of discretion in diagnosing local problems.42 The community-policing organization is also characterized by consistently as- signing officers to a particular neighborhood or geographic area.This strategy not only is intended to foster a sense of geographic responsibility but also is a means of holding officers accountable for what takes place in their beat. Community-policing advocates also argue that this tactic “is necessary in order to take advantage of the particular knowledge that can come through greater police involvement in the community and feedback from it.”43 Organizational Culture Traditional police organizational culture stressed the importance of crime fighting. As a consequence, the transition to community policing has largely been a battle for the hearts and minds of police officers.44 Many advocates of community policing articulate that with the implementation of community policing will come a “new breed” of police officers who will be much more knowledgeable about, and experienced in, problem solving and community interaction, and who will be much more productive and satisfied with their work.45 A number of police departments have attempted to change their agency’s or- ganizational culture by implementing organizational reforms such as using participa- tive management styles that embrace police officer input in departmental decision making; providing formal training to officers on community partnerships, problem solving, and other community-policing tactics; changing promotional standards so that officers who embrace community policing are advanced within the organization; and changing departmental evaluation standards so that evaluations reinforce the value of community-policing activities.46 Management The adoption of community policing also affects police management. In the past, police managers focused primarily on issues of control through discipline by empha- sizing departmental rules and regulations.47 In community policing, managers are expected to assist the neighborhood officer in developing community contacts, counsel the neighborhood officer on political issues, assist the neighborhood officer in acquir- ing resources, and facilitate training opportunities for the neighborhood officer. Therefore, community-policing organizations are characterized by having more managers and fewer supervisors.48 For example, in St. Petersburg, Chief Goliath Davis made a number of management-oriented changes in an effort to enhance the department’s community- policing efforts. Prior to the changes, sergeants were responsible for supervising officers who were responding to calls for service, which coincidently conflicted with the sergeants’ responsibility for supervising community-policing officers. As such, the supervisors had little time to assist the officers with projects or train new community- policing officers on community policing. After a police and community retreat, Chief Davis made a number of organizational changes, including the addition of a shift community-police sergeant. This sergeant reported directly to the district major, policing is that police agencies must remain flexible so that they can handle a variety of problems in different communities. Therefore, to accomplish this, line officers are given a great deal of discretion in diagnosing local problems.42 The community-policing organization is also characterized by consistently as- signing officers to a particular neighborhood or geographic area.This strategy not only is intended to foster a sense of geographic responsibility but also is a means of holding officers accountable for what takes place in their beat. Community-policing advocates also argue that this tactic “is necessary in order to take advantage of the particular knowledge that can come through greater police involvement in the community and feedback from it.”43 Organizational Culture Traditional police organizational culture stressed the importance of crime fighting. As a consequence, the transition to community policing has largely been a battle for the hearts and minds of police officers.44 Many advocates of community policing articulate that with the implementation of community policing will come a “new breed” of police officers who will be much more knowledgeable about, and experienced in, problem solving and community interaction, and who will be much more productive and satisfied with their work.45 A number of police departments have attempted to change their agency’s or- ganizational culture by implementing organizational reforms such as using participa- tive management styles that embrace police officer input in departmental decision making; providing formal training to officers on community partnerships, problem solving, and other community-policing tactics; changing promotional standards so that officers who embrace community policing are advanced within the organization; and changing departmental evaluation standards so that evaluations reinforce the value of community-policing activities.46 Management The adoption of community policing also affects police management. In the past, police managers focused primarily on issues of control through discipline by empha- sizing departmental rules and regulations.47 In community policing, managers are expected to assist the neighborhood officer in developing community contacts, counsel the neighborhood officer on political issues, assist the neighborhood officer in acquir- ing resources, and facilitate training opportunities for the neighborhood officer. Therefore, community-policing organizations are characterized by having more managers and fewer supervisors.48 For example, in St. Petersburg, Chief Goliath Davis made a number of management-oriented changes in an effort to enhance the department’s community- policing efforts. Prior to the changes, sergeants were responsible for supervising officers who were responding to calls for service, which coincidently conflicted with the sergeants’ responsibility for supervising community-policing officers. As such, the supervisors had little time to assist the officers with projects or train new community- policing officers on community policing. After a police and community retreat, Chief Davis made a number of organizational changes, including the addition of a shift community-police sergeant. This sergeant reported directly to the district major, instead of the lieutenant and captain as regular patrol sergeants were required to do, and was solely responsible for managing community-policing officers. This strategy, the chief argued, allowed the sergeants much more free time to work alongside officers and allowed them greater access to resources that were required to address neighbor- hood crime and disorder.49 Evidence of Organizational Change There has been very little evidence suggesting that police organizations have changed their organizational structure as a consequence of implementing community policing. One study of police organizations found that police organizational structures had not changed significantly since 1987. In particular, the study found that police organiza- tions were no more likely to have fewer rules or policies or fewer supervisory levels since the inception of community policing.50 Likewise, another national study suggested that the police have not changed their priorities to correspond with community policing principals. Zhao examined the organizational priorities and core functions of more than 200 municipal police departments. He reported that “the core functional priorities of American policing largely remain closely modeled after the professional model; these priorities were not affected significantly by changes such as the addition of officers, the provision of funds for COP training, or the adoption of COP programs.”51 On the other hand, altering the structure of the organization so that officers are permanently assigned to a beat has been found to have some beneficial effects. For example, permanent beat assignment in Chicago neighborhoods resulted in residents’ reporting increased levels of police visibility, which was attributed to increased officer activity taking place as a consequence of the officers becoming more knowledgeable about the areas they were policing.52 Similar findings were reported in Philadelphia, where police officers were permanently assigned to public housing areas. In particular, officers who were permanently assigned to a public housing site were significantly more likely to initiate investigations, indicating an increased sense of officer owner- ship and responsibility, than officers who were not permanently assigned to a site.53 Research has shown that the occupational culture in many police agencies has changed significantly because of the implementation of community policing. Zhao and associates surveyed officers in one northwestern police department that was well known for practicing community policing. He found that the officers’ occupational values changed significantly after the implementation of community policing. The researchers reported an increase in the values reflecting personal happiness, comfort, and security.54 Other studies have similarly found that after community policing has been implemented in an agency, police officers’ attitudes toward community policing gradually improve along with knowledge about community policing.55 Many police agencies have incorporated community-policing-related princi- ples in their academy training curricula to help facilitate cultural change. Haarr’s re- search examining training in Arizona found that while being given training in community-policing principles has the desired effect, its impact quickly dissipates after the officer leaves the academy and is exposed to the work environment. The re- search also found that community-policing principles were not reinforced during the recruits’ field training experience. Generally, these findings suggest that training alone may not have an impact on fostering a police culture that is supportive of community policing, but they do suggest that police culture can change with the implementation of community policing, although the change will take a great deal of time. Studies examining the changing role of management in community-policing organizations have generally been positive. Mastrofski’s examination of community policing in Indianapolis found that community policing may have changed the role of supervisors. Sergeants in Indianapolis were found to believe that performing support- ive activities, such as helping officers work through problems in their neighborhoods, was much more important than performing constraining activities, such as enforcing departmental policies or monitoring officers.57 Problem Solving The last element of community policing is problem solving. Here, the police and the community engage in a cooperative effort to solve neighborhood problems. The defining feature of problem solving is that it requires the participants to identify the underlying causes of problems rather than simply respond to the problems themselves. Problem solving can be enacted in a number of ways: It can involve the police mobilizing and consulting with neighborhood residents, it can involve neighborhood residents (typically through neighborhood associations) identifying the root cause of a problem and mobilizing the police or another governmental service to address the problem, or it can be done by a neighbor- hood police officer who regularly confers with neighborhood residents as part of his or her regular duties. About 29 percent of local police agencies today encourage officers to engage in problem-solving projects, and 22 percent of agencies actually evaluate officers based on their involvement and success with problem solving (see Exhibit 10–3).58 Cordner notes that problem solving, as performed in the course of community policing, is often confused with problem-oriented policing (discussed in the next section). Problem solving, he articulates, was adopted as part of community policing as a neighborhood-level strategy to address chronic problems. As such, he argues that problem-solving activities tend to be small in nature.59 With this said, problem- oriented policing has become an important part of community policing in many police departments across the country. In practice, problem-oriented policing can be implemented alone or as part of community policing. Because problem solving and problemoriented policing are often intertwined and examined together, we discuss their differences, characteristics, and impacts in greater detail in the following section. Pulling It All Together: Implementing Community Policing at the Departmental Level While community policing has been said to be implemented in police agencies across the country, there has been little consensus about the extent to which community policing has been implemented on a departmentwide basis. Maguire and Katz, using data supplied by the Police Foundation, examined community policing in 1,600 police agencies. They found that agencies that claimed to have implemented community policing were more likely to embrace some elements of community policing than others. In particular, they found that police departments that had implemented community policing were more likely to perform patrol-level and organizational activities associated with community policing than they were to perform citizen and management activities associated with community policing. The authors conclude that “changes in the role of mid-management and citizens in community policing may be particularly difficult to implement because they require that police agencies make real and substantial changes in the way that they do business.”60 Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) Program Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) represents one of the most ambi- tious communitypolicing efforts in the nation. With more than 13,000 sworn officers, the Chicago Police Department is the second largest in the country. An ongoing evaluation by Wesley Skogan provides valuable insights into both the pos- sibilities and the problems of implementing a new policing philosophy throughout a big-city department.61 The CAPS Plan CAPS began with extensive planning, involving a number of experts from outside the police department. After much discussion and revision, CAPS was designed around six basic points: 1. Involvement of the entire police department and the entire city. Some community-policing programs, by contrast, involve specialized units separate from the basic operations of the department and/or particular neighborhoods. 2. Permanent beat assignments for officers. To enhance officer knowledge of and involvement in neighborhood problems, officers would be given permanent beat assignments. 3. A serious commitment to training. If community policing truly represents a different philosophy, it is necessary to train officers regarding the new expectations about their job. 4. Significant community involvement. One of the basic principles of community policing is that it involves a high level of citizen input and partnership with the police. 5. A close link between policing and the delivery of other city services. CAPS was intended to address neighborhood problems by helping citizens mobilize other city agencies to improve the delivery of services.
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