There is no one commonly recognized definition of community policing, and there is an uncautious tendency to label anything and everything as community policing. However, a good working definition would be "a department-wide philosophy of full-service, personalized and decentralized policing, where citizens feel empowered to work in proactive partnerships with the police at solving the problems of crime, fear of crime, disorder, decay, and quality of life." After a brief overview, all the components (in italics) of this definition will have their meanings explained, and an attempt will be made to suggest some ways in which they can be measured.
Community policing broadens the nature and number
of police functions compared with traditional policing. It emphasizes
organizational change, active problem solving, and external partnerships to
address issues that concern both the police and citizens. Community
policing shifts the focus of policing by placing equal emphasis on crime
control, order maintenance, and service
The Police Executive Research Forum (Fridell & Wycoff 2004) probably has the best summaries and predictions of the community policing model in action over years past and years ahead. In a nutshell, community policing has a long way to go before it becomes a truly democratic form of policing which is as open and inclusive (and thereby as powerful) as it can be. In much of contemporary policing, there's a shortage of nonarrest strategies and nonarrest strategic thinking. Technological advances like e-government (web based services) complicate yet dovetail much of community policing's development, but the problem here may simply be that few departments are willing to link satisfactory job performance to the application of technology to field work. Since September 11, 2001, there has been an increased awareness of the need to integrate community policing principles with homeland security efforts. Enhanced (and automated) SARA-type problem solving (SARA stands for Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment) may very well be only one of the many tactical web-based technologies in the future. More local law enforcement information-sharing when it comes to intelligence systems (e.g. IACP 2002) will likely be another development in the coming synthesis of community policing and homeland security. Stephens & Hartmann (2002) go a step farther and say that community policing can help prevent and mitigate terrorism.
COMPONENTS OF THE DEFINITION
Component #1 -- philosophy -- No one knows exactly how to implement a philosophy, or how best to obtain employee buy-in to a philosophy-like vision, and furthermore, few theoretical rationales exist for community policing. It seems to have emerged from reflection over the ill-fated community relations movement. The predominant criticism of that 1970s-era community relations movement was that too many programs were small, add-on components while the rest of the department went about business as usual. Community policing as a philosophy requires a department-wide commitment to "zero tolerance" of officer insensitivity, incivility, and discourtesy, and expects the whole department to eventually change its attitudes toward the community. Those new attitudes should include a recognition and acceptance of the community in influencing the philosophy, management and delivery of police services. This has also been called the police/community collaboration theme running through any definition of community policing.
Some ways to measure
implementation of a philosophy might include:
(a) training for all employees, primarily in communication skills
(b) motivate employees via incentives or awareness of opportunity costs
(c) solicit employee input; democratic management
(d) enhance/improve employee assistance programs
(e) consult communities about the kind of policing they want
(f) employee attitude surveys; pre/post-test scores
(g) psychometric testing results
(h) MBWA (Management By Walking Around)
(i) executives practice what they preach
(j) community satisfaction/input survey results or town meetings
(k) flatter, less hierarchical organizational chart
Component #2 -- full-service -- Departmental styles can be characterized as legalistic, watchman, or service. Legalistic departments are the most militaristic and the watchman style is based on the "buddy" or "who you know" system. Although there are some concerns that community policing is another expression of the watchman style, community policing as a service style implies more openness and individualism. Full-service means proactive, 24-hour a day public assistance, and implies "experimental policing" which involves the department as a central information/help broker for the community (e.g., if we can't do it for you, we'll refer you to someone who can). It's moving away from crime fighting as the primary function and toward a broader function that incorporates fear reduction and order maintenance (social control and domestic tranquility).
Some ways to measure
implementation of full-service might include:
(a) more civilianization
(b) rewrite job titles and job descriptions
(c) analyze calls for information/assistance
(d) publish informational brochures
(e) welfare checks (random house calls)
(f) use of web pages/internet technology to provide information to public
(g) survey of officer attitudes toward "garbage calls"
(h) inspection of dispatcher logs/requests for information
(i) evaluation of brochures/public seminars/etc.
(j) phone recontacts/service satisfaction surveys
(k) analysis of hits on web pages
Component #3 -- personalized -- This refers to the breakdown of anonymity. Officers and citizens should know each other, or as many as humanly possible, on a first-name basis. It does not mean that police service is personalized or tailored to provide better service to one area than another. The issue of equity is addressed on the basis on need, not by extrajudicial considerations. There is, in fact, a good deal of research devoted to the study of whether some communities are "too far gone" for community policing. Community policing recognizes neighborhood variation and dictates that police follow the "will of the community" when dealing with situations and enforcing the law. Serious crime, of course, must be enforced uniformly, but police must also be cognizant of neighborhood variation when policing minor infractions. It is important, however, to established fixed geographic responsibility. Officers or deputies are assigned to fixed geographic areas for extended periods, based on social and cultural considerations and on the assumption that this fosters better communication with residents; increases the police officers’ ability to understand, prevent, and respond to community problems; and enhances accountability to the citizens in that area.
Some ways to measure
implementation of "personalized" might include:
(a) name tag changes
(b) pictures of officers published in media and on web pages
(c) require familiarity at orientations/community block meetings
(d) train employees in name/facial recognition
(e) require employees to live in area they work in
(f) attendance at meetings designed to increase familiarity
(g) survey of citizens' familiarity with police officers
(h) evaluation of officers' skills at recognition
(i) study residential living patterns of employees
(j) knowledge of community/neighborhood standards
Component #4 -- decentralized -- Decentralization can mean several things; permanent shift assignments; geographic beats; allowing first-line officers the autonomy and freedom to act and make "executive" decisions; job enlargement and enrichment; grass-roots decision-making and policymaking. One of the major problems is that, with the exception of patrol, almost all divisions of a police department (detective, dispatch, records, etc) presumably have to be centralized. Chief executives are also accustomed to policy from the top-down. Community policing is "bottom-up" management, with implications for the elimination of rank structure (like the Team Policing experiments of the 1970's). At the very least, it involves "participatory management" and allows policy to be driven by custom (a term that exposes departments to greater liability) and conventions established by first-line officers. The "ministation" concept has been used to help decentralize recalcitrant divisions, with volunteers used to staff full-service substations in geographic zones. Bicycle and foot patrol are also hallmarks of community policing when it comes to breaking down the isolation of central headquarters, patrol cars, and dependence on radio contact.
Some ways to measure
implementation of decentralization might include:
(a) bicycle/foot patrol
(b) participatory management initiatives
(c) identification of community zones
(d) establishment of ministations
(e) establishment of "mastering" program for lower-level career employees
(f) evaluation of policy & procedures
(g) involvement of "headquarters" staff
(h) mapping of zones (GIS overlays)
(i) citizen trust in the "can-do" of first-line officers
(j) sociometric analysis of employee friendships in community
Component #5 -- empowered -- Empowerment means Community with a capital "C". Self-esteem, responsibility, and maturity levels are expected to increase as community policing helps people become more active at taking charge of their life. It means that those people who have least benefited from police services in the past (victims, vulnerable populations, minorities, etc.) now feel protected and enfranchised. In this sense, community policing means identifying and prioritizing the needs of special populations as clientele, so that these groups feel they have "input". It also means that as a result of respect shown them, they are more willing to cooperate when the police need it, and are more willing to accept responsibility for the things they can "police themselves". Crime is a product of social conditions and cannot be eliminated entirely through police actions. Therefore, the police must find ways to encourage communities to address the social conditions that form the "breeding ground" for crime. Community engagement must take place with the police encouraging, motivating, or otherwise inducing citizens to become involved, and that may mean building a community (by identifying leaders) where there is none. Each neighborhood must have a strong infrastructure.
Some ways to measure
implementation of empowerment might include:
(a) survey of citizen safety
(b) victimization survey
(c) victim recontacts and second-hand victim referrals
(d) citizen input survey
(e) self-defense training for citizens
(f) citizen patrols
(g) citizen ratings of police department
(h) amount of citizen cooperation
(i) number and extent of citizen-based initiatives
(j) survey of youth
(k) political mobilization of community
Component #6 -- proactive partnerships -- Police departments have traditionally been reactive rather than proactive. That is because traditional policing has been driven "by the numbers"; e.g., response times, clearance rates, number of patrol cars, miles driven, etc. To become proactive, departments must shift away from a bean-counting mentality and adopt qualitative rather than quantitative standards of effectiveness. While long-term crime prevention (solving problems before crime occurs) is the most commonly-known standard, community policing implies that other long terms goals, such as legality, legitimacy, equality, equity, merit, comfort, quality of life, positive impact, etc., should be just as important. The problem is that most of these goals are immeasurable and don't look good on budget requests. This is where "partnerships" play a role, with citizens helping the administration come up with creative yet sensible ways to measure effectiveness and impact. At a basic level, this means allowing citizens to decide upon the police role and mandate. On a more cursory level, it means having citizen advisory boards, citizen academies, citizen review boards, and the like. It implies an end to the current system of classifying calls by police codes and a search for new, creative ways to classify, record, process, and evaluate police activities, even if this means abandoning FBI consolidated reporting. Above all, it necessitates a change in the way employees are evaluated in their performance. Merit and promotion should be based on community policing standards rather than seniority. Police should form external partnerships in recognition of other agencies’ unique strengths, tools, and expertise that can be leveraged when addressing community problems. The police are only one of a host of local government agencies responsible for responding to community problems. Under community policing, coordination with other government agencies in developing comprehensive and effective solutions is essential. In addition, the police are encouraged to develop working partnerships with civic and community groups to accurately survey community needs and priorities and to use the public as a resource in problem solving and in developing and implementing interventions. Encouraging citizen involvement in neighborhood watch, youth education, and cleanup programs can increase social cohesion among citizens and has been found to result in decreased fear of crime.
Some ways to measure
implementation of proactive partnerships might include:
(a) creation of citizen boards
(b) adoption of qualitative standards
(c) new employee performance appraisal criteria
(d) enhanced neighborhood watch and cleanup programs
(e) enhanced crime prevention efforts
(f) citizen perceptions of justice-based achievements
(g) citizen satisfaction with employee performance
Component #6 -- problem-solving -- Criminal justice recognizes only a handful of social problems that the police can reasonably do something about. These are crime itself, the fear of crime, disorder, decay, and quality of life. With crime itself, there should be clear and consistent information dissemination, involving citizen understanding, for when charges will be filed and when non-arrest options will be utilized. Community policing is not "soft" on crime, and by no means does it intend to circumvent statutory law or mandatory "get tough" initiatives on assault, guns, drugs, or juveniles. The problem that appears daily is lack of citizen understanding on why an officer arrests one person and not another in an assault situation, for example. Citizens also fail to understand "questioning" and a number of other criminal procedures. A bit of explanation at the situational level (i.e., Miranda-style policing) goes a long way, but more important is community input on police discretion. This avoids individual "reciprocator" styles. Each neighborhood in a community has its own network of diversion resources, its own ideas about what ought to be prosecuted harshly, and its own customs and folkways determining when something is more deviant than criminal. For example, in some neighborhoods, the presumption of guilt is on the person losing a fight rather than standard police procedure for arresting the least injured person as the assaulter. Community policing requires that departments see arrest as one tool among many. Therefore, departments need to know what the community prefers as nonarrest options, advise what legal ground these stand on, and find out what resources the community has or needs to have. The second social problem is fear of crime. Fear of crime is inversely related to crime itself due to vicarious experience and media contagion. Numerous programs exist to combat fear of crime, with property engraving and neighborhood watch programs the most popular, but community policing usually goes further in setting up citizen patrols, safe houses, and yes, even self-defense training (despite the risk of liability). As a society, we need to get away from the "snitch mentality" of Crimestoppers-type programs which reward cooperation with money. The third social problem is disorder. Disorder refers to "people problems"; e.g., strangers, outsiders, gangs, noise, drugs, intoxication, parking, etc. With the exception of parking, this area has traditionally been handled by establishment of some kind of neighborhood watch program, but community policing usually deals with these problems by outreach (i.e., social work-style policing). School liaison programs, tutoring/mentoring, gang summits, and intramural recreation have all been used successfully in many cities. An example of what not to do would be contests on who has the loudest sound system in their vehicles, and police departments ought to work with audio system installers in curtailing these kinds of promotions. The fourth social problem is decay. Decay refers to "physical problems"; e.g., litter, vandalism, graffiti, abandoned buildings, broken windows, dark alleys, etc. These have usually been handled by lighting, phone boxes, or surveillance equipment, but community policing addresses it by organizing and coordinating citizen clean-up efforts, much like National Night Out programs. Graffiti removal is one of the hallmarks of community policing. The fifth and final social problem is quality of life, a sociological term meaning pride, loyalty, and stewardship in one's community. If a person thinks that their children are growing up in a valuable, growing community, and would live here all over again given the chance, that person, for example, expresses a quality of life. Much of this is handled via public relations as efforts to show that the community is becoming a better and not worse place to live, but some of the most successful "turnaround" stories in community policing involve police-initiated educational and economic improvement programs. In some cities with ministations, police have taken the lead in organizing academic remediation/preparation programs, job fairs, and career days. Fear, disorder, decay, and quality of life make up the four underlying social problems that are the breeding ground for crime. Community policing deals with these directly or indirectly.
Some ways to measure
implementation of problem-solving might include:
(a) obtain legal advice/prosecutorial/procedural guidance
(b) ascertain community resources and predicted needs
(c) train officers in community-based nonarrest options/community resources
(d) establish fear of crime reduction programs
(e) expand "watch"-type programs; community organizing
(f) put citizens to work cleaning up their neighborhoods
(g) conduct quality of life campaign
(h) list of community contacts/resources
(i) training session scores
(j) reduction in fear of crime
(k) citizen perceptions of safety, ownership, quality of life
(l) levels of citizen problem awareness
(m) complaint reduction
INTERNET RESOURCES
Police Executive Research Forum (enter as
guest)
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
Sample
Community Policing Programs
Carolina's Institute for Community Policing
Omaha
Institute
Michigan State
CP Pages
ICJIA Big Book
CP Consortium
PRINTED RESOURCES
Fridell, L. & Wycoff, M. (Eds.) (2004). Community Policing: Past, Present,
and Future. Washington DC: Annie E. Casey Foundation and Police Executive
Research Forum.
Greene, J. & S. Mastrofski (1988). Community Policing: Rhetoric or
Reality? NY: Praeger.
IACP (International Association of Police Chiefs). (2002). Criminal
Intelligence Sharing: A National Plan for Intelligence-Led Policing at the
Local, State, and Federal Levels: Recommendations from the IACP Intelligence
Summit. Alexandria, VA. August.
Rosenbaum, D. (1994). The Challenge of Community Policing. Thousand Oaks:
Sage.
Stephens, D. & Hartmann, F. (2002). "The Policing Challenge." Pp. 15- 22 in
Beyond the Beltway: Focusing Upon Hometown Security: Recommendations for State
and Local Domestic Preparedness Planning a Year After 9-11. Cambridge, MA:
JFK School of Government, Harvard University. September.
Thurman, Q. & E. McGarrell. (1997). Community Policing in a Rural Setting.
Cincinnati: Anderson.
Trojanowicz, R. & B. Bucqueroux. (1990). Community Policing: A
Contemporary Perspective. Cincinnati: Anderson.
Trojanowicz, R. & B. Bucqueroux. (1994). Community Policing: How to Get
Started. Cincinnati: Anderson.
Last updated: 03/22/05
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