Community Policing to Prevent Crime
What is community policing? Wherever you find definitions for this term, there are some differences in the verbiage, but the underlying theme is the same – collaboration between the police and the community to identify and solve crime related community problems. The best definition found by this author reads as follows:
“Community policing is a policy and a strategy aimed at achieving more effective and efficient crime control, reduced fear of crime, improved quality of life, improved police services and police legitimacy, through a proactive reliance on community resources that seeks to change crime causing conditions. This assumes a need for greater accountability of police, greater public share in decision making, and greater concern for civil rights and liberties (Freidman, 1996).”
According to Community Policing: a Contemporary Perspective, there are ten principles of community Policing (Trojanowicz, 1990).
1. Philosophy and Organizational Strategy – People deserve input into the police process in exchange for their participation and support. New, creative ideas should be explored to address neighborhood concerns beyond individual crimes.
2. Commitment to Community Empowerment – The philosophy of power sharing must be translated from philosophy to practice. There will be more autonomy for line officers and more expectation of citizen involvement in the problem solving process.
3. Decentralized and Personalized Policing – There must be a new breed of line officer who becomes a solid link between police and the community. These officers must be in the community, not in their patrol cars-face to face contact in a defined area.
4. Immediate and Long-Term Proactive Problem Solving – Continued and sustained contact with the law-abiding people of the community to problem solve and plan together.
5. Ethics, Legality, Responsibility and Trust – There will be new “contract” between police and citizens to overcome widespread apathy while restraining vigilantism. This relationship is based on mutual trust and respect. It will require citizens to work to solve minor concerns while freeing the police to work with the community to develop solutions.
6. Expanding the Police Mandate – The role of police moves from reactive to proactive. While they will still respond to crises and incidences of crime, they will work to make changes today that will have an impact on the quality of life for tomorrow within the community.
7. Helping Those with Special Needs – Police will explore new ways to protect those who are most vulnerable -juveniles, elderly, minorities, poor, disabled, homeless.
8. Grass-Roots Creativity and Support – Never underestimate the possibilities of a small group of dedicated people. Technology is a tool, but human beings, talking and working together to solve a problem, have the potential to do great things.
9. Internal Change – Community policing requires a commitment to the approach that involves everyone in the department and hinges on the community policing officer who acts as the bridge between the community and the police force.
10. Building for the Future – Decentralization, personalized police service is the order of the day. Police cannot impose order and they must work with the community to create it. This cannot be a “flavor of the month.” It must be something that is initiated and worked toward every day. It is a new philosophy and organizational strategy for positive change.
While these ten principles have been paraphrased for the purposes of this paper, there is a clear picture of what community policing in the future should look like. It has a more familiar and friendlier face. It is cooperative, communicative and collaborative. It makes the police stakeholders in the community and the citizens stakeholders in the success of community policing.
There is research to support the idea of community policing. Increased Federal funding and growth in criminal justice education has resulted in rapid development of research on policing. Many findings challenged prevailing police practices and beliefs (Community Policing Consortium, 1994). In the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment the following contradictions to traditional thinking were found:
�· Random patrolling had limited impact on crime
�· Rapid response did not help solve crimes
This last finding prompted the Kansas City Police to begin call screening. In an interview with Officer X, an eleven-year veteran of the force, he was asked to define a typical day. It consisted of ten hours of answering calls, everything from accidents to domestic disturbances, and all types of service calls. There was no time in the course of this typical day to interact with members of the community. This typical day is supported by the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment. “More efficient dispatching of calls could make additional time available for patrol officers to interact with the community” (Community Policing Consortium, 1994). The Birmingham, Alabama, Police Department instituted a project to apply call response strategies. The study used call-prioritization codes, call-stacking, delayed response strategies and teleservice. The alternate strategies were successful in diverting non-emergency calls away from field units without a loss in citizen satisfaction.
In 1979, Herman Goldstein developed and advanced the idea of problem oriented policing or POP. It encouraged police to think differently about their work and see their role as problem resolver. Goldstein advocated that police identify root causes of problems with an eye toward eliminating or minimizing them, rather than just addressing the outcome. Much of the research in the 1970’s was focused on patrol issues, however, Rand Corporation examined the role of detectives. It was determined that only a small percentage of crimes analyzed were solved by detectives. Most of the solved cases hinged on information obtained by patrol officers. With appropriate training, patrol officers would be able to perform early investigating and take some of the load off of detectives who could then focus on more complex investigations.
So with all this research that shows things could be better and offers alternatives, why isn’t community policing everywhere? The key word in the answer would be change. Not everyone is comfortable with change. In fact, most people do not like change. They fear it, they worry over it, they like their comfortable, well understood ruts of “this is the way its always been done.” Community policing has been impeded by centralized management and traditional assumptions. Many in leadership of police organizations find it difficult to accept the challenges to exiting beliefs and practices. There seems also to be a lack of acceptance lower down in the ranks. In the interview with officer X, he was asked if he thought community policing had an impact on crime? His answer was no. He was also asked how other officers viewed the role of community policing. He said they had mixed emotions. It seems there may also be issues of mistrust between the community policing officer and fellow officers. He may appear as the “good guy” within the community, while his or her fellow officers are greeting with the usual less than receptive treatment (Bucqueroux, 2005). When asked how the department viewed community policing, it was quite a different story. “They are big on it.” Later in the interview, the officer stated that there simply wasn’t enough manpower to make community policing a viable option-at least in his organization. Interestingly, Officer X stated that he thought more civilian involvement was necessary to prevent, deter and address crime. When asked what might get in the way, he stated that people were afraid to participate and that anonymity in reporting would help to alleviate some of the fear.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the successful implementation of community policing is people. You have people on both sides of this equation that harbor their own beliefs, prejudices or grudges that must be cleared away before a trusting relationship can be developed and trust takes time. The leadership of an organization and how that leadership approaches change can make or break any initiative. There is an existing 20/60/20 rule that corporations use to define change capability. On average, within any organization, 20 percent of the people are ready, willing and able to change. Another 20 percent of the people wouldn’t change if their life depended on it. Then you have 60 percent of the people waiting to see “which way the wind will blow.” If an organization focuses attention on the 20 percent change friendly who make themselves part of the solution, the 60 percent will follow. If they focus attention on the 20 percent who have dug in their heels and won’t be budged, 80 percent of the organization will be fighting the change.
In the case of police organizations, internal communications need to reach to the lower level to break rigid chain of command, improve information flow. Supervision should enhance interaction between all levels. Officers should have greater discretion. Police deployment should be proactive, preventive and community-oriented while maintaining immediate response. Recruitment should emphasize higher educational and seek people-oriented, service/solution oriented officers. Training should expand on interpersonal skills and become more community-oriented. Performance evaluation should emphasize measurable community-oriented activities. The reward structure should acknowledge community-oriented efforts, offer tangible raises and intangible recognition for performing accordingly to the objective. Creating a workable partnership will require education, energy, creativity, understanding, and patience from all those involved. For this to happen, there must be a catalyst and a champion to keep the chemistry “perking.”
The idea of community policing was obviously before its time when it was first presented. However, today the “ruts” of the resistors are becoming a bit too tight as they fill with the legacy of the past and the demands of the future. There is more demand on fewer resources and the ability to recruit has been hampered because the work has lost its attraction and many feel the pay is too low for what is expected. Police management has no choice but to embrace change and build that “bridge” to the community. Let’s see that statement again, “Police cannot control crime and maintain order by themselves” (McCamey, 2003). This statement of fact cannot be ignored. It looks like the only viable solution.
Officer X made a very direct statement when asked if he thought community policing would continue or be replaced by something else. He said he thinks it will continue, but that in its present condition it was “good in theory, but bad in practice.” When asked to expand on this, he stated that it was like a “smoky mirror.” “The community tells us what they want us to know to make the community better, then in turn we tell them what they want to hear to make them feel better.” There is no real action or change. It is just a “feel good” event. The following statements from Robert Friedman echo these remarks. “Typically, these policies are ideologically driven and if they have any merit, there is a gap between what these programs propose and how they are being implemented. Community policing is one such example. Recently touted by public officials as a step in the right direction – some even suggest it as a panacea for solving crime – community policing has been either misunderstood or not well, or fully, implemented (Friedmann, 1996).
With all that has been presented here, it would seem community policing will be a part of future policing. What we will hope for is that it will not simply be a label placed on feeble attempts to mimic community policing for the sake of saying, “Yes, we have a community policing approach.” There are many pitfalls possible on any new road. Yet, as with any journey into new frontiers, each group venturing out will require a strong, dedicated, purposeful, forward looking leader to guide them.
References
William P., Scaramella, Gene L. and Cox, Steven M., (2003), Contemporary Municipal Policing, pg. 307.
Community Policing Consortium, 1994, Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action, retrieved from the
Internet March 20, 2005 from http://www.communitypolicing.org/framework.htm
Friedmann, Robert R, (1996), Community Policing: Some Conceptual and Practical Considerations, retrieved from the Internet, March 19, 2005 from http://www2.gsu.edu/~crirxf/considerations.htm
Trojanowicz, Robert and Bucqueroux, Bonnie (1990). Community Policing: a Contemporary Perspective, Anderson Publishing Company
Bucqueroux, Bonnie (2005), Community Policing for Line-Level Officers Online Training, retrieved from the Internet, March 21, 2005 from http://www.policing.com/train/week1/wk1-2a.html
