Community Policing

A Contemporary Perspective

Victor E. Kappeler, Larry K. Gaines, Brian P. Schaefer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429674952
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Criminologie

Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective, 8th Edition, provides comprehensive coverage of the philosophy and organizational strategy that expands the traditional police mandate of fighting crime to include forming partnerships with citizenry that endorse mutual support and participation. The first textbook of its kind, Community Policing delineates this progressive approach, combining the accrued wisdom and experience of its established authors with the latest research-based insights to help students apply what is on the page to the world beyond.

The book extends the road map presented by Robert Trojanowicz, the father of community policing, and brings it into contemporary focus. The text has been revised throughout to include the most current developments in the field, including discussions of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing and "Spotlight on Community Policing Practice" features that focus on real-life community policing programs in various cities as well as problem-solving case studies. Also assisting the reader in understanding the material are Learning Objectives, Key Terms, and Discussion Questions, in addition to numerous links to resources outside the text. A glossary and an appendix, "The Ten Principles of Community Policing, " further enhance learning of the material.

An excellent resource for any undergraduate Policing curriculum, this textbook is also suitable for introducing graduate students to the principles of community policing.

CHAPTER 1 The Idea of Community Policing

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.

—Abraham Lincoln

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading the chapter, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the ways in which the community impacts the police mandate when a department has implemented community Policing.
2. Describe why community policing encourages decentralized police service and changes in patrol.
3. Discuss the sources of confusion surrounding the implementation of community policing.
4. List and describe the four major facets of community policing.
5. Understand why community policing is an overarching philosophy, not a technique or program.
6. Discuss how community policing entails the use of discretion and working with other agencies to find other means of dealing with problematic situations.
7. List and discuss what community policing does NOT constitute.
8. Discuss how community policing is sometimes used as a cover for aggressive police tactics.
9. Describe how community policing affects officer activity.

The Community Policing Revolution

Community policing is the first substantive reform in the American police institution since it embraced the professional model more than a century ago. It is a dramatic change in the philosophy that determines the way police agencies engage the public. It incorporates a philosophy that broadens the police mission from a narrow focus on crime and law enforcement to a mandate encouraging the exploration of creative solutions for a host of community concerns— including crime, fear of crime, perceptions of disorder, quality of life, and neighborhood conditions. Community policing, in its ideal form, not only addresses community concerns, but is a philosophy that turns traditional policing on its head by empowering the community rather than dictating to the community. In this sense, policing derives its role and agenda from the community rather than dictating to the community. Community policing rests on the belief that only by working together with people will the police be able to improve quality of life for all members of a community. This implies that the police must assume new roles and go about their business in a very different way. In addition to being law enforcers, they must also serve as advisors, facilitators, supporters, and leaders of new community-based initiatives. The police must begin to see themselves as part of the community rather than separate from the community. In its ideal form, community policing is a grassroots form of participatory democracy, rather than a representative top-down approach to addressing contemporary community life. In this sense, police become active participants in a process that changes power configurations in communities. It challenges and empowers the police to work with ordinary people to bring their real-life problems to those governmental authorities with the capacity to develop meaningful public policy and provide needed services to communities.

Community policing consists of two primary components: community partnerships and problem solving. It is a partnership or enhanced relationship between the police and the community they serve. It is a partnership in that the police must assist people with a multitude of problems and social conditions including crime, and it is a partnership because the police must solicit support and active participation in dealing with these problems (Wood & Bradley, 2009). It is an enhanced relationship, since the police must deal with substantive issues. Police must go beyond merely responding to crime and calls for service. They must recognize and treat the causes of these problems so that they are resolved. When problems are resolved, there is a higher level of civility and tranquility in a community. Thus, the two primary components of community policing are community partnerships and problem solving. Community partnerships are the engagement by the police with the community to cooperatively resolve social problems. On the other hand, problem solving is where community policing officers (CPOs) attempt to deal with the conditions that cause crime and negatively affect the quality of life in a community. Problem solving is an important part of community policing.

Community policing also embodies an organizational strategy that allows police departments to decentralize service and reorient patrol (Skogan & Hartnett, 1997). The focus is on the police officer who works closely with people and their problems. This CPO has responsibility for a specific beat or geographical area and works as a generalist who considers making arrests as only one of many viable tools, if only temporarily, to address community problems. As the community’s conduit for positive change, the CPO enlists ordinary people in the process of policing and improving the quality of life in a community. The CPO serves as the community’s ombudsman to other public and private agencies that can offer help. If police officers are given stable assignments to geographical areas, they are able not only to focus on incidents that are problems, but also to become directly involved in strategies that may forestall long-range problems. Also, by giving people the power to set local police agendas, community policing challenges both police officers and community members to cooperate in finding new and creative ways to accurately identify and solve problems in their communities.

What started as an experiment using foot patrols (Trojanowicz, 1982) and problem solving in a few departments (Goldstein, 1990) exploded into a national mandate. As a result of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and its provision to fund 100,000 more CPOs, most police departments in the United States now say they ascribe to community policing. In the 1990s, community policing became an institutionalized and publicly understood form of policing (Morabito, 2010; NIJ, 1997; Gallup, 1996). In 2013, Reaves (2015) reported that 68 percent of police departments have community policing as part of their mission statements. As shown in Figure 1.1, community policing has become an important part of policing in all but the smallest departments.

Figure 1.1 Local Police Departments Using Full-Time Community Policing Officers, by Size of Population Served, 1997–2007 Source: BJS (2010). Local Police Departments, 2007. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice

Even the media presented a limited but very positive depiction of community policing (Mastrofski & Ritti, 1999; Chermak & Weiss, 2006). “Community policing, or variations of it, has become the national mantra of American policing. Throughout the United States, the language, symbolism, and programs of community policing have sprung up in urban, suburban, and even rural police departments” (Greene, 2000:301). Additionally, community policing became a standard in many other countries. Police departments all over the world embraced the language of community policing. It has become ingrained throughout departments as managers attempt to develop strategies and tactics to deal with day-to-day issues and community problems.

Despite this impressive progress, many people, both inside and outside police departments, do not know precisely what “community policing” is and what it can do (Chappell, 2009). Although most everyone has heard of community policing, and most police departments say that they have adopted the philosophy, very few actually understand how it works and the possibilities it has for police agencies and communities. Indeed, it is viewed from a number of different perspectives. Is community policing simply a new name for police–community relations? Is it foot patrol? Is it crime prevention? Is it problem solving? Is it a political gimmick, a fad, or a promising trend, or is it a successful, new way of policing? Perhaps David Bayley (1988:225) best summarized the confusion about community policing:

Despite the benefits claimed for community policing, programmatic implementation of it has been very uneven. Although widely, almost universally, said to be important, it means different things to different people—public relations campaigns, shop fronts, and mini-stations, re-scaled patrol beats, liaisons with ethnic groups, permission for rank-and-file to speak to the press, Neighborhood Watch, foot patrols, patrol-detective teams, and door-to-door visits by police officers. Community policing on the ground often seems less a program than a set of aspirations wrapped in a slogan.

There is substantial confusion surrounding community policing (Colvin & Goh, 2006). It stems from a variety of factors that, if not attended to, can undermine a department’s efforts to successfully implement community policing and be responsive to the need of the community. The sources of confusion are:

• Community policing’ s introduction into American policing has been a long, complicated process. It is rooted in team policing, police–community relations, and crime prevention (Rosenbaum & Lurigio, 1994).
• Some police departments are using community policing as a cover for a ggressive law enforcement tactics rather than serving the needs of their communities. When this happens, confusion arises about a police department’s real commitment to the community.
• The movement continues to suffer because some police departments claim to have implemented community policing, but they violate the spirit or the letter of what true community policing involves and demands.
• Most police agencies have adopted the language of community policing, but have yet to change their organizational structures and value systems to bring them into line with the community policing philosophy (Kappeler & Kraska, 19a).
• Community policing threatens the status quo, which always generates resistance and spawns controversy within police organizations (Gaines & Worrall, 2012). This is because community policing challenges basic beliefs in the foundation of traditional policing. It requires substantive changes in the way police officers and commanders think, the organizational structure of departments, and the very definition of police work.
• Community policing may generate public expectations that go unfulfilled, thus creating a backlash against community policing and the department (Klockars, 1988; Manning, 1988).
• Community policing is often confused with problem-oriented policing and community-oriented policing. Community policing is not merely problem-oriented policing or becoming community “oriented.” While community policing does use problem-solving approaches, unlike problem-oriented policing, community policing always engages the community in the identification of and solution to problems rather than seeing the police as the sole authority in this process (see table 1.1).

The Philosophical and Structural Facets of Community Policing

Although community policing has taken a number of directions, there is a common overarching logic and structure to it. Four major facets occur when community policing is properly implemented: (1) the philosophical facet, (2) the organizational and personnel facet, (3) the strategic facet, and (4) the programmatic facet (see Colvin & Goh, 2006). All four facets must exist if a

TABLE 1.1 Selected Comparisons between Problem-Oriented Policing and Community Policing Principles

department is indeed implementing community policing. The following section explains the philosophy and structure of community policing.

The Philosophical Facet

Historically, even though there have been sporadic variations in the underpinnings or theme for American law enforcement, it has remained substantively a legal-bureaucratic organization focusing on professional law enforcement (Gaines & Worrall, 2012). Outputs such as numbers of arrests and criminal investigations, reductions and increases in crime rates, volume of recovered property, numbers of citations issued, and a rapid response to calls for service have been more important than the end result of police work. This philosophy translated into a reactive police institution that does little to deal tangibly with social and community problems. A substantial body of research that began in the 1970s questions a number of the basic assumptions associated with the legal-bureaucratic model (Bittner, 1970; Wilson, 1968; Reiss & Bordua, 1967). Consequently, people began to search for a new philosophy and way to envision and conduct police work.

Philosophically, community policing consists of a number of community-based elements that differentiate it from the traditional professional model. Some of community policing’s core ideas are: (1) broad police function and community focus, (2) community input, (3) concern for people, (4) developing trust, (5) sharing power, (6) creativity, and (7) neighborhood variation.

Broad Police Function and Community Focus

Community policing is a philosophy of policing, based on the concept that police officers and people working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, quality of life, and neighborhood conditions. The philosophy is predicated on the belief that achieving these goals requires that police departments develop a new relationship with people by expanding their role in the community, allowing ordinary people the power to set local police priorities, and involving them in efforts to improve the overall quality of life in their neighborhoods. It shifts the focus of police work from responding to random crime calls to proactively addressing community needs and concerns (see Figure 1.2).

Community policing dictates that police department...