Community Policing in America

Jeremy M. Wilson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415953504
• eBook ISBN: 9781136822858
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Although law enforcement officials have long recognized the need to cooperate with the communities they serve, recent efforts to enhance performance and maximize resources have resulted in a more strategic approach to collaboration among police, local governments, and community members. The goal of these so-called "community policing" initiatives is to prevent neighborhood crime, reduce the fear of crime, and enhance the quality of life in communities. Despite the growing national interest in and support for community policing, the factors that influence an effective implementation have been largely unexplored.

Drawing on data from nearly every major U.S. municipal police force, Community Policing in America is the first comprehensive study to examine how the organizational context and structure of police organizations impact the implementation of community policing. Jeremy Wilson's book offers a unique theoretical framework within which to consider community policing, and identifies key internal and external factors that can facilitate or impede this process, including community characteristics, geographical region, police chief turnover, and structural complexity and control. It also provides a simple tool that practitioners, policymakers, and researchers can use to measure community policing in specific police organizations.

1

INTRODUCTION

By their very nature, the police interact with the communities they serve. The community relies upon the police to help in emergencies and curb disorder. The police rely on the community to report crime and provide important information that is necessary to address community concerns and solve crime. In recent decades, the scope of this relationship has expanded. The police and community have begun to expect more from each other as they increasingly realize they must actively work as partners. This form of collaboration has been referred to as community policing or community-oriented policing (COP) and has taken many forms. The community-centered models encompass an attempt by the police to encourage and empower the community to become more involved in public safety, both by working with police and dealing with problems on their own.

Significant resources have been devoted to the implementation of community policing. Since 1994, the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) has given approximately $11.3 billion to local police agencies to implement COP and hire community-policing officers (COPS, 2005). The proportion of police agencies reporting they have community policing officers nearly doubled in two years, from 34 percent in 1997 to 64 percent in 1999 (Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey data reported by Hickman and Reaves, 2001). Reported implementation is even greater in large municipal agencies with at least 100 officers; 79 percent of such agencies employed COP officers in 1997 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999a).

Despite the resources expended and its proliferation, relatively little is known about the implementation of COP. There have been few statistically sensitive measures of COP implementation, the extent to which implementation varies is not certain, and the factors that facilitate or impede its implementation are not clear. The causal relationship between COP and organizational structure (e.g., what structural characteristics are most conducive to COP) has not been explored. (See Greene, 1993; Maguire, Kuhns, Uchida, and Cox, 1997; Zhao, Thurman and Lovrich, 1995.)

The scope of COP research may, ironically, contribute to the uncertainty over its implementation. Analyses of COP efforts have ranged from somewhat specific efforts such as foot patrol (e.g., Kelling et al., 1981; Trojanowicz, 1982) and crossfunctional problem-solving teams (e.g., Wilson and Donnermeyer, 2002) to concerted efforts encompassing large organizations (e.g., Skogan and Hartnett, 1997 in Chicago and Riley et al., 2005 in Cincinnati). Such analyses have demonstrated that many agencies claim to be exercising community-oriented policing while varying in their community-oriented activities and the vigor in which they implement them.

The diversity in the practice of COP raises questions on why implementation varies. With a few exceptions (e.g., Maguire et al., 1997; Zhao, 1996; Zhao, Thurman, and Lovrich, 1995), there has been little comparative analysis of COP. This research therefore seeks to identify determinants of COP implementation and how these may vary by the structure of differing police organizations.

This research is important for both practitioners and academics. It is not clear whether changes in organizational structure (e.g., for decentralized decision making and flattened hierarchies) precede COP, if COP leads police organizations to alter their structure, or if police organizational change and COP implementation are simultaneous and mutually reinforcing, with the structure of the police organization influencing the way COP is implemented and the implementation of COP leading to organizational changes. Large sample, empirical studies can help determine what factors facilitate or impede COP implementation. Such information can help police managers identify where additional planning and resources are needed.

Knowing the relative importance of the variables affecting COP implementation, including those within and beyond police control, can also help in planning community-based efforts. Such knowledge could suggest options for promoting COP in the presence of factors that inhibit it, helping stabilize COP efforts over time.

Studying COP implementation is also necessary to link implementation to outcomes. To relate COP effectiveness to its implementation, variation in its implementation must be statistically demonstrated. This work therefore develops a measure of COP implementation that can be used by practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to gauge and compare COP implementation across time and organizations. The advanced modeling techniques used to develop this measure should be of interest to academic researchers.

Academics may also be interested in this work’s synthesis of organizational theory. Contingency theory suggests that the task environment of an organization (e.g., its size and age, technology, and community characteristics) determines its structure and activities. This suggests police organizations may implement COP to the extent that it assists them in managing and accomplishing their tasks. For example, police may be more inclined to implement COP if their communities are heterogeneous because it may help them better respond to the needs of diverse residents.

By contrast, institutional theory suggests the structure and activities of organizations are responses to the institutional environment. Institutional expectations of police organizations emanate from such elements as its region, funding sources, and external entities (e.g., civilian review board, union) that may exert influence over it. This suggests police organizations may implement COP to the extent it coincides with institutional expectations held by others. For example, political structures in the West tend to be more progressive (Wilson, 1968), suggesting residents of the region may expect their police organizations to be more progressive and more likely to implement innovations like COP.

These theories have often been seen as competing, but they need not be. Policing scholars have suggested both the task and institutional environments are important for understanding the functioning of police. The successful synthesis of these theories that this book attempts could therefore also be applied to analysis of factors associated with implementation of other criminal justice policies and programs.

I link both these theories to the literature on open systems and innovation, which also makes explicit the potential role that organizational structure may have in explaining COP implementation. Organizational studies have differentiated aspects of organizational structure into those pertaining to complexity and those pertaining to control. Complexity refers to differentiation in accomplishing tasks; control represents coordinating mechanisms needed to manage the complexity. From an organizational perspective, it is quite plausible that the structure of police organizations may influence the ability to implement COP. For example, organizations that are more organic in structure (e.g., informal and decentralized with flattened hierarchies) are often thought to be more innovative and therefore may be more likely to implement COP. It is also possible that structures change in response to the implementation of COP. This research examines these and other little-tested propositions of COP and its associated factors.

Though primarily written for academic researchers, this book is organized so that practitioners may selectively peruse elements most applicable to their work.

The next two chapters provide a more detailed theoretical introduction to this book. Chapter 2 defines community policing more precisely and reviews the state of implementation research, particularly its application for studying community policing. Chapter 3 reviews police organizations as open systems, and how contingency and institutional theories apply to police work. These may be of greatest interest to readers wishing for further information on the organizational theories synthesized in this book.

The subsequent three chapters describe hypothesized relationships between different elements of police organizations, community structure, and the implementation of community policing. Chapter 4 reviews organizational context and community policing. Chapter 5 reviews organizational structure and community policing. Chapter 6 reviews how elements of organizational context and may affect organizational structure. These chapters may be of greatest interest to those seeking to identify how particular elements of local police or communities may affect implementation of community policing.

The final three chapters present statistical findings on the implementation of community policing and their implications, incorporating several data sets and measures of implementation. Chapter 7 reviews the models, data, and analysis used in this research. Chapter 8 presents measurement and structural models of community policing implementation, analyzing both how widely community policing has been implemented and how it has affected police organization structure, or, conversely, how police organization structure has affected it. Chapter 9 discusses the findings and their implications.

The appendixes provide important information for those interested in using the models developed herein or their estimates. Appendix A summarizes the technical process behind structural equation modeling, and may be more interesting to researchers. However, Appendixes B and C may be of value to researchers and practitioners alike. Appendix B outlines a simple two-step process by which others can estimate community policing implementation based on the model developed in this book. Appendix C offers the model-determined estimates of community policing implementation in 1997 and 1999 for each of the sample police organizations studied in this book.

2

DEFINING COMMUNITY POLICING AND RESEARCHING ITS IMPLEMENTATION

Defining Community Policing

Community policing models have their roots in the failure of previous models of professional or reform policing to address community concerns. Despite resistance from some law enforcement circles (Zhao, Thurman, and Lovrich, 1995) and a belief that it is a passing fad (Weisel and Eck, 1994), community policing models have grown very popular in recent decades and have “become the new orthodoxy for cops” (Eck and Rosenbaum, 2000, p. 30).

What constitutes “community policing”? Though there is no clear definition, most practitioners and researchers would agree with Trojanowicz et al. (1998, p. 3) that community policing is “based on the concept that police officers and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary community problems related to crime, fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and neighborhood conditions.”

The basic philosophy of COP is that increasing the quality and quantity of contacts between citizens and police to resolve community concerns can enhance community life. This requires the police to react quickly to urgent demands, engage and empower communities to deal with their own problems, and collaborate with the community to address community concerns (Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux, 1998). The central premise of COP is that “the public should be seen along with the police as ‘coproducers of safety and order’” (Skolnick and Bayley, 1988, p. 5).

Skogan and Hartnett (1997) contend the central philosophy and premise of COP lead to four general principles

• organizational decentralization and a reorientation of patrol to facilitate communication and information sharing between the police and the public
• a broad commitment to problem-oriented policing — that is, “a comprehensive plan for improving policing in which a high priority attached to addressing substantive problems shapes the police agency, influencing all changes in personnel, organization, and procedures” (Goldstein, 1990, p. 32) — that analyzes problems systematically to develop more effective means of addressing them (Goldstein, 1987)
• police consideration of community issues and priorities in tactic development
• police commitment to assisting communities to solve problems on their own

The six most common principles of COP Kelling and Coles (1996) identify are

• belief in a broad policing function beyond law enforcement
• acknowledgment that the police rely on citizens in many ways
• recognition that police work is complex and requires general knowledge, skill, and discretion
• reliance on specific tactics targeted at problems and developed with the community rather than general tactics such as preventive patrol and rapid response
• devolution of police authority to lower levels to respond to neighborhood needs
• commitment of police to serve multiple aims from reducing crime and fear to helping citizens manage problems

Skolnick and Bayley (1988) similarly find community-based crime prevention, reorientation of patrol activities to emphasize nonemergency services, increased accountability to the public, and decentralization of command to be recurring themes of community policing. Such principles describe a police role that is broad in objective and function and that derives authority from and requires collaboration with the community.

Measuring Community Policing

The rather broad and varying definitions that have been offered for community policing have led to myriad methods for measuring it. The simplest measurement of COP is the claim of an agency to have implemented it (e.g., Maguire, 1997).

A more common technique identifies criteria associated with COP and combines them to form indexes or scales. Using COPS FAST (Funding Accelerated for Small Towns) data from the COPS Office, Maguire et al. (1997) constructed an index of thirty-one activities (e.g., COP training for citizens and officers, writing a COP plan, community-oriented foot or bicycle patrols) to gauge COP among agencies in their sample. Zhao (1996, p. 44) used indexes to measure COP “external” activities for “the reorientation of police operations and crime prevention activities” (e.g., more officers on foot or bicycle, special task units for problem-solving, crime education) and “internal” activities involving “innovations in police management” (e.g., increased hiring of civilians for non-law enforcement tasks, reassessment of ranks and regulations). Zhao, Thurman, and Lovrich (1995) also used the “external” index to measure the facilitators and impediments of COP.

More recent measurements of COP have used factor analytic techniques.¹ In a study of innovation in 432 of the largest U.S. police organizations, King (1998) assessed two associated with COP. “Radical innovation” measurements indicated whether an organization had both implemented COP and had officers assigned to it. “Community policing programmatic innovation” measurements included community crime prevention and foot patrols. While community crime prevention was found to be positively associated with the innovation measurements, foot patrols were found to have a negative relationship with them. Theoretically, both measures should have had a positive influence; King’s results may indicate foot patrol is a poor measure of COP or that there were other confounding issues in his model. King’s model could not take advantage of other measures such as crime analysis and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), which are both community-oriented activities that could have been used to enhance the measurement of COP implementation. In subsequent research, King (2000) included school drug education as a component of COP programmatic innovation.

Like King, Maguire and Mastrofski (2000) find exploratory factor analysis useful for measuring COP, particularly given the numerous schemes for identifying the dimensions of COP and the difficulty of constructing a confirmatory analysis model with a large number of variables. Their analysis extracts factors from three COPS samples and one from the Police Foundation, carefully basing calculations on the appropriate tetrachoric and polychoric correlations.² _They found a single dimension of COP in the three COPS datasets but five such dimensions in the Police Foundation data, including those pertaining to explicit COP activities (e.g., surveying and training citizens), patrol officer activities (e.g., making door-to-door contact...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Series Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Defining Community Policing and Researching Its Implementation
• 3. Police Organizations as Open Systems
• 4. Organizational Context and Community Policing
• 5. Organizational Structure and Community Policing
• 6. Organizational Context and Organizational Structure
• 7. Models, Data, and Analysis
• 8. Findings
• 9. Conclusions and Policy Implications
• Appendix A: Analytical Process of Structural Equation Modeling
• Appendix B: Calculating Estimates of Community Policing Implementation
• Appendix C: Estimates of Community Policing Implementation for Sample Police Organizatons, 1997 and 1999 (Scale 0-3. 187)
• Notes
• References
• Index