2

Policing and community justice

The police were in large part the first criminal justice agency to embrace the
concepts of community justice, and so it is appropriate that we begin our
discussion of the criminal justice functions with the police. The most obvious way
that police serve as exemplars of community justice is in the deeply embedded
community-oriented policing movement sweeping across America in the 1980s and
1990s. We will discuss this movement in more detail, but it is worth noting that
community justice as a concept owes much of its momentum to the abundant success of
community policing.

It is a bit of an understatement to say that community policing has swept the

profession. Although the roots of community policing go back to at least the 1940s
(Carter and Radelet 1998), a groundswell of support for the idea materialized in
the 1980s, and by the turn of the twenty-first century, most urban (and many
suburban and rural) police departments in the United States openly described
themselves as using community-oriented principles. This shift to the community
level represents an attempt to bring the police closer to the public they serve.
Instead of simply responding to crimes, the community police officer builds
relationships and partnerships with local businesses, organizations, residents, and
social-service agencies; and the offi cer uses these relationships to better
understand the needs of the community and better address local problems.

However, the community policing movement, important as it has been, is not the same
as the community justice movement. The latter has derived a number of its most
important lessons from the former, but the differences between the two are
important to bear in mind. Community policing is both a comprehensive strategy of
policing and a philosophy of law enforcement. Community justice, on the other hand,
is a strategy and a philosophy of criminal justice. The recent experiences of
police innovation in the United States have tested many of the most important
community justice concepts in the police setting and have illustrated why community
justice has become such a popular new idea.

In this chapter, we describe the police as an agency of community justice. We begin

with a review of some of the issues that face modern police, and we show why
community-oriented policing seemed such a valuable way to deal with those issues.
We then provide a detailed description of the community-and problem-oriented
policing approaches and assess their effectiveness. We conclude with a discussion
of the current agenda for community-policing advocates.
A brief history of community policing

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the police were under the control of those with
political power � the police helped those who had power and punished those who
opposed these powerful individuals. During this time, the public saw the police as
corrupt and lawless. Eventually, after much public outcry, reformers of the 1920s
managed to separate the police from political influence and created a professional,
military-like administration system. In an effort to solve many of the problems of
the past, and in order to appear more professional, the police became more distant
from the public (Greene 2000; Kelling and Moore 1988).

Technological innovations also increased the rift between officers and the
community. The use of automobiles severely decreased the number of neighborhood
beat cops, and the widespread use of telephones and radios allowed residents to
quickly and easily contact the police for assistance. The ease with which the
police could be contacted significantly increased the number of calls-for-service,
reducing the amount of time officers could spend on crime prevention and
relationship building (in order to ensure public safety, police departments must
respond to almost every call). The use of computers further increased the gap
between officers and the community by increasing the importance of performance
statistics and highlighting inferior policing, high-crime areas, crime trends, and
response times. Instead of listening to public concerns, officers and managers
became slaves to crime statistics (US Bureau of Justice Assistance 1994).

The distance between residents and police officers culminated in the social and
political unrest of the 1960s � a time when members of both the civil rights
movement and the antiwar movement actively participated in civil unrest (Palmiotto
and Donahue 1995). During this time, the police were severely criticized for brutal
behavior toward nonviolent protesters and blamed for instigating major riots
through their aggressive, uncontrolled actions. These violent incidents, in
addition to the well-publicized hostile relationship between minority communities
and the police, sparked another set of reforms to improve the relationship between
communities and police officers. After a few attempts to establish community
policing had failed, the concept evolved and took root in the mid-1980s (Greene
2000). These topics will be expanded upon later in this chapter.
Policy and the community: a dual-track rationale

Community-oriented policing has two justifications that also apply to community

justice in law enforcement. The two aims of community-oriented policing are better
community relations and better crime prevention.

Better community relations are needed because police rely on the public in order to
do their jobs, but there are several important impediments to good community
relations. Some have to do with different images of the police by the public:
citizens with advantaged social class tend to see the police in a very positive
light; people who suffer significant social disadvantage do not have that same
positive view. The problem is that the police mission is much more reliant upon the
ability to sustain the confidence of the latter than the former, and therein lies a
challenge: how to obtain and maintain positive interaction with citizens who may be
predisposed to be suspicious of the police. But the problem is not only in the
attitudes of citizens. Aspects of police culture and the police ethic also
interfere with a capacity for positive relations � for example, when police develop
cynicism about citizen groups and become negative about their work, and when the
culture of the �thin blue line� prevents police from having confidence in citizens.

Better crime prevention relies on community-based practice. As we saw in the

opening chapter, street crime concentrates in some locations more than others, and
police therefore tend to be more active in these areas. However, if the policing
approach is simply to be more active in response to crime � more investigations and
more arrests � then the police will always be playing catch-up. If, on the other
hand, the solution to high levels of crime is to take a proactive approach, there
are more possibilities for public safety results. To do this, the police will have
to change the way they act in the communities where the greatest police presence is
called for.
The community relations rationale for community policing

To understand the need for a new orientation to policing, we must begin with a
review of the main issues interfering with police effectiveness. We might be
tempted to say offhand that the problem with police effectiveness is too many
criminals. There is some truth to the idea that the sheer volume of criminal
behavior makes police work a difficult assignment, but that discounts a profound
and important truth: Police work faces a series of built-in problems that tend to
frustrate the capacity of police to do their jobs well. This has to do with both
the nature of the problem and the police themselves, at least in their traditional
form.

We begin with a discussion of what we might call �the way things are,� that is,
certain factors in the job of policing serve to limit the way police can do their
work. These are neither criticisms of the police nor complaints about the
community. They are merely facts that set the stage for an understanding of the
complexity of the public safety task. This discussion begins with a call for
improved community relations as an essential first step in an improved police force
and not simply as a desirable but less important goal. The importance of
prioritizing community relations is explained by the nature of the policing job.
The police: essential services ensnared in quandary

In most places in the United States, the police and the hospital emergency room are
the only public service organizations available twenty-four hours a day, seven days
a week for citizens in crisis. Hospitals help us when we are sick or have a medical
emergency; the police deal with us for almost everything else � and they often get
involved in medical emergencies as well. Although we see police around us
routinely, we encounter them only when our lives are not routine: when we are
stopped for a traffic violation, experience some form of victimization, or face an
emergency that requires an immediate response from someone in authority.

The facts that police are a full-time community service and that their work almost
always comes into play when people are in trouble of some sort provide an essential
foundation for understanding the police as a part of community justice. In a
democracy, where citizens have personal rights and the police exercise carefully
limited powers, it is impossible to understand the police and the community without
acknowledging a quandary. The most important services provided by police usually
take place in the context of somebody being in trouble or in some sort of crisis,
so it is quite natural to expect the police to arrive with special powers to
intercede. Yet the powers of the police to act are carefully circumscribed by
democratic law and tradition, so the immediacy of the predicament is always
tempered by the limitations placed on police authority. This often leads to
disappointment, because the police will often feel constrained in the actions they
can take and citizens will often fail to grasp those constraints.

In police�citizen encounters, the reverse problem can also occur. A police officer
may interpret the facts of a situation as calling for serious or even urgent
action, while the citizen feels intensely that his rights ought to constrain the
actions taken by the police.

Small wonder that police often feel in that classic double bind, �damned-if-I-do,
and damned-if-I-don�t.� In this situation, it is easy for police to become cynical,
believing that nothing can be done to satisfy the public. It is equally likely that
the public can become indignant, either objecting to an overreach of authority or
disputing a seemingly lackadaisical approach.

This predicament of police�citizen encounters provides a powerful backdrop to our

understanding of contemporary policing. It helps explain why the topic of policing
receives such strong, often opposing, opinion: some people seem to despise the
police, while others hold them in extremely high regard. A major defining
characteristic for how people feel about the police can be race and age: people of
color have lower opinions of the police than do Whites, and young people
(especially those of color) have lower opinions than do older people, regardless of
race (Sampson and Bartusch 1999). This makes sense, as these are the very people
who are most likely to be stopped by the police. But it would be easy to exaggerate
this problem, when the reality is more complex. Police consistently receive a more
positive performance appraisal than do other sectors of the criminal justice
system, even with all these built-in problems ( US Bureau of Justice Statistics
2000).

How can it be that police are simultaneously so heavily criticized and also so
deeply respected? The answer to this important question lies in an understanding of
three aspects of contemporary policing. The police may be simultaneously thought of
as a symbol of modern culture, a function of the legal system, and a function of
power in society.
Police as a symbol of modern culture

The police represent social control, and they stand for social order. As the main
coercive arm of the state, they also represent the power of the government. As a
consequence, the police generate strong feelings among the public.

Many see the police as the symbol of a safe and secure society. This view holds
that all law-abiding citizens share a common interest in safe streets, and the
police are one of the main sources of safety. When police face constraints on their
powers, those who see the police as the mechanism of social control often fear that
disorder and criminality will follow. Those who hold the symbolic vision of the
police as the agency of social control typically support a strong police presence,
and they object to �civil liberties� views of the police that emphasize citizens�
rights. When police are viewed in this fashion, it is easy to think of society as
composed of �good guys� and �bad guys� � the police come from the former group and
are asked to control the latter group.

Yet the police also symbolize the raw power of the state, and in a democracy, such
power is uncomfortable to citizens. It is especially disturbing to members of
minority groups who receive more attention from the police: African-Americans,
Latinos, and the poor. To those who see the police as a symbol of power, the
problem is not public safety but the way to place meaningful reins on that power.
These people worry about police authority run amok, police action without controls.
Because the most disadvantaged in our society are also the most likely to encounter
police power used against them, this concern often arises along lines of social
class and social status. People of color, especially young men, are very likely to
be suspicious of police and less likely to accept their authority as legitimately
exercised. There is a tendency to view the police as treating them and their
neighborhoods differently than other people and locations.

It is easy to see how the symbolic importance of police carries community

significance. The United States is today a residentially segregated society. Those
who live in the residential areas occupied by dominant majorities see the police
far more positively than those who live in poor, minority areas. Some of this
opinion is related to the way the police treat people in those areas. In high-crime
locations, suspects are numerous and suspicious situations routine; police often
tend to take an aggressive stance, and the result is that many citizens feel deeply
disrespected on account of the color of their skin. In the low-activity areas,
police are less vigilant about crime, and citizens as a result feel under less
scrutiny.

Thus, part of what determines the way citizens react to the police is how the
police define the citizenry. When police see citizens as potential problems, those
citizens often respond by seeing the police as a potentially unwelcome power in
their lives. When police see citizens as �residents,� those residents will see the
police as a support system. The way in which police attitudes toward the public
tend to create a public reaction was one of the original sources of the movement
toward community policing.
Police as a function of the legal system

No matter what the police symbolize, they are first and foremost the initial stage
of the criminal justice process. They take reports of criminal events, investigate
suspicious situations, and make arrests. Few cases come into the criminal justice
system without first encountering the police.

For this reason, police work has to be assessed on three different criteria: How do
police actions affect willingness of citizens to report crimes? How do these
actions encourage citizen cooperation with criminal investigations? And how
effective are these strategies in identifying suspects accurately?

We would think that most law-abiding citizens would be anxious to cooperate with
the police. But studies of police�citizen relations find that citizens who have had
negative experiences with the police often become reluctant to assist the police in
their investigations or report crimes to the police in the first place � even when
they are the victims (Clear and Rose 1999). Indeed, in places where police�
community relations are poor, citizens show a marked reluctance to report crimes
and a strong hesitation to trust the police response to problems.

For police, this lack of cooperation has two sides. Any police officer who has
worked in a poor neighborhood, especially a poor minority area, knows the level of
mistrust and even antagonism that can permeate the attempt to do the work. It is
frustrating, because the police point of view is that they are only trying to
protect the law-abiding citizens from the �bad guys,� and the lack of cooperation
makes the work that much harder. Then again, not everyone is uncooperative. Some of
the residents have an unabashed enthusiasm for the police to do their work, and
this positive response by many highlights the difficult behavior of the others. It
is easy for the police to view all the residents who express suspicion as somehow
being aligned with �the bad element.�

Nonetheless, when folks are reluctant to report crimes and when those who are
surrounded by crime are disinclined to assist the police, the job of law
enforcement, difficult enough without citizen recalcitrance, becomes more
untenable. After a while, some police can develop an attitude toward the residents
of these areas of �since they don�t care, why should I?.� Under these
circumstances, the basic work of policing becomes more and more difficult. To
protect themselves from an all-too-often unfriendly public, police adopt a first-
choice style of indifference. When a victim or a citizen shows an appreciation for
a police officer�s effort, this can energize activity on behalf of that citizen,
but others may come to see this as a kind of favoritism. In the end, the
credibility of the criminal justice system suffers, as citizens lose confi dence in
it and the police become more cynical about their work.
Police as a function of power in society

In this context, the important distinction between authority and power can become
blurred. Authority is the legitimate capacity to require compliance imbued in a
role by law, standards, or custom. It is housed in the idea that some consensus of
opinion exists that the person occupying a certain role ought to have a level of
obedience to his or her directives, so long as they flow from legitimate exercise
of duties within that role. Judges have authority in the courtroom, teachers in the
classroom, supervisors in the workplace, and so on. So long as the person with
authority is acting consistent with the expectations of the role, we expect
voluntary compliance with the directives that emanate from the legitimate
performance of that role. There is a certain expectation from all of us that people
will willingly comply with the valid directives of a person with authority to give
those directives.

Power, on the other hand, is the raw ability to compel compliance, regardless of
the person�s willingness to comply. When a person has power with regard to certain
actions, it means that person can make others do what is wanted through some
implied or actual coercive capacity. The ultimate source of power is the force of
might � one who is stronger than another might be able to make that person do
something, whether that person wants to or not � but power can also derive from the
force of law or the force of group solidarity. For example, a police officer stops
a person to ask a few questions, using authority, but then decides to detain that
person, using the power of arrest.
The distinction between power and authority is important to bear in mind. Authority
is a far more efficient means for getting a person to do something, since it works
without any direct threat. Someone with the authority to ask simply does so, and on
the basis of that recognized authority, the requested behavior follows. Power, by
contrast, requires implied or demonstrated threat: we all know the implications of
the statement �You are under arrest,� and few of us will doubt the meaning of the
order �Stop or I�ll shoot,� but it is the act of pulling out the handcuffs or
revolver that communicates the meaning of the statement.

There is an important irony here. Authority, to work, is reliant on voluntary

cooperation, whereas power can be exercised regardless of the other person�s
willingness to comply. In a very real sense, authority is given to the person
exercising it by the person who has decided to comply, while power is taken by the
person giving orders. Power, then, typically comes into play when authority is
absent. Yet authority is absent not because of something missing from the police
officer�s role, but because of something missing in the citizen�s response to that
role. Authority exists because people voluntarily accept the dictates of the
police.

Sometimes, of course, power and authority flow together, as when a judge oversees a
courtroom, but usually there are important distinctions between them. Teachers, who
hope to have broad authority in the classroom, in truth have limited power there.
Police, who appreciate having broad authority over citizen conduct, exercise power
only in ways that are very carefully constrained by law.

Thus, a police officer who is frustrated by a lack of authority cannot get

authority through obtaining more power, even though this may seem to be the way to
go. Authority is obtained by coming to be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the
citizen, but obtaining power has almost nothing to do with the eyes of the citizen.
Indeed, some might say that the more a person turns to power as the way to compel
others compliance, the less everyone would expect that person to have (or even
eventually obtain) authority. Often, the exercise of power comes at the expense of
authority.

This is one reason why the police culture is such an important force in the work
world of the police. The police culture is a set of informal standards and norms
that develop among police officers and influence how they approach the job (Crank
2004). Volumes have been written about the origins and effects of police culture.
The most common descriptions include the points we have made previously: police
learn to approach the public with distrust and suspicion, expect that the public
will not understand the job of policing, and view everyone as a potential problem
(even dangerous). This cynical stance regarding the public is repeated when it
comes to the criminal justice system, when the dominant view is some version of
�the cops keep doing their job, but everyone else � from judges to probation
officers � is soft on crime.�

Three points must be emphasized here regarding the police culture. First, the
police culture develops in response to the pressures of the job and the traditions
of the department. Any problem with the police culture is much less an issue of
�bad cops� than a human response to the difficulties inherent in police work.
Second, police culture is not uniform across all departments and all divisions
within departments. Important differences exist that make departments vary from
deeply cynical and negative orientations to ones that are much less so, and these
differences can even exist between, say, plainclothes detective units and the
uniformed officers. Third, the police culture is not solely adverse in its effects.
By adopting the informal norms of the police culture, newly hired police learn to
support each other, avoid common mistakes, and deal with the pressures of the job.
But the police culture can, and often does, get in the way. Because it is typically
cynical in its orientation, it tends to discount the value of authority and exalt
the importance of power. Indeed, it is common for police to confuse the two,
seeking an increase in formal power because of the weak potency of their authority.
Most important, the dominant police culture puts the police officer at odds with
the public. In high-activity areas, where public suspicions often match those of
the officers, this is a recipe for alienation. Both the police and the citizens can
come to feel that the officers in blue constitute an occupying army from an alien
force, all parties at odds with one another, and little stake in common. What is
often seen is a kind of standoff.

Two very strong values in the police culture are control and dominion. Control is a
term that has unfavorable connotations. In police culture control refers more to
the ability of the officer to ensure that responsibilities he or she is assigned
are carried out in an orderly and effective manner. Officers must secure crime
scenes and direct those who are not cooperating with the officer in the discharge
of required duties. Control assists the officer in order maintenance within the
assigned district or patrol area. Much of the emphasis on control comes from the
basic academy training received by the recruit officer. Recruits are taught that
they must take charge of all situations and that any sign of compromise or inaction
can be seen as a sign of weakness which will be capitalized upon by lawbreakers and
disorderly persons. Officers are taught that they must take control first and ask
questions later. One difficulty that arises is that this style of behavior is
reinforced because the officers encounter more confrontational situations than
regular interactive situations. Officers become accustomed to acting in this manner
and find it hard to adjust their controlling behavior in less threatening
situation. This can be illustrated by a story once told by an elderly lady
attending a community meeting. She said that an officer had arrived at her
residence to take a report on a burglary that had occurred and during the interview
he insisted that she be seated while he stood up to gather the information. The
lady noted that the officer stood about 15 feet away from her at about a 45 degree
angle. The officer had his feet also at a 45 degree angle with his gun side away
from her. In relating the story to a commander attending the community meeting, the
lady said that she felt the officer�s questions were brusque and that it was
obvious that the officer had no compassion for her victimization. For one who is
familiar with police training, it is clear that the officer was in a �power
stance.� This stance allows the officer to respond quickly to any threat and sends
a message that he or she is ready should an aggressive move be made. The
disheartening elements of this story are that the officer, while doing nothing
wrong, sent a message that he was in clear control of a situation where no threat
was present. On the street, the officer�s posture would probably not have been
noticed; however, in a non-threatening, non-confrontational situation his posture
sent a clear message that he was in charge and the communication was strained.

Dominion is a more passionate part of policing. Crank (2004) uses this term to
describe what many would describe as territoriality. While people are territorial
to some extent, dominion takes the territoriality one step further. When a person
is territorial they are attentive to the property they own and they ensure that
others do not damage or take their property. What is often missing in
territoriality is the intensity of knowing very small details about the property or
feeling a moral relationship to protect the property. Crank�s term dominion refers
to the belief of that officer that he or she has a personal ownership over the area
of assignment. In dominion the officer knows as many physical details about the
area as possible and is very attentive to the comings and goings of persons through
the area. The type of behavior is often perceived unfavorably by residents living
in the area and the behavior can lead to feelings that the police are an occupying
force that is ruling their lives. Officers, on the other hand, see dominion as a
moral responsibility they had toward protecting the area and the people who reside
there. These differences in perception often lead to friction in the relationship
between the police and the community, especially where the population is largely
African-American or Hispanic.

While the degree of control an officer uses may be able to be moderated through the
changing of training methods, dominion is something deeper. Because dominion is
based to a degree on a relationship with the area to which the officer is assigned,
it might be possible to modify its exercise into behavior that may be more
constructive. If the officer is able to work with community members in a manner
that encourages them to be as passionate about their community, social networks may
be created that could lead a community toward more self-governance. One downside
may be the creation of communities that infringe upon other persons� rights, but if
the passion was implemented in a spirit such as communitarianism results could be
positive. In any event, details of the community would be left to the residents of
the community and that would be a positive move in strengthening community
networking.

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a style of learning developed in medicals schools

but recently this style has been incorporated into police training. The goal of PBL
is to assist the student in solving unstructured problems. Educators have
discovered that student may learn concepts well in the classroom but when they
encounter a problem that does not conform to their knowledge base they are not sure
how to address the problem. Since large numbers of problems that police officers
encounter are messy and unstructured, PBL provides a method of helping officers
pull together knowledge learned in training with experience on the job to better
address the problems they confront. Proponents of PBL believe that critical
thinking skills and problem-solving improves when learning is based on this model.
For police officers a curriculum based upon PBL would involve examining case
studies, participation in role-playing, and open dialogue about unstructured
problems. Such training could be very helpful to officers who find themselves
assigned to communities where they encounter daily problems that do not seem to be
handled effectively through the use of traditional policing methods.

The community-oriented policing movement came about as an antidote to this sense of

a police�citizen standoff. Leadership in policing saw the considerable negatives
facing the police: problems with citizen relations, especially in the most
disadvantaged communities most needing an effective police presence; difficulties
with authority; and concerns about the impact of the police culture on police
practices. All of this came together to suggest a need for change. Almost nobody
was happy with the way that many communities regarded the police, and there was
increasing criticism of the way the police regarded the communities they served.
But even with this widespread and growing distress about the relationship between
the police and the public, it took an unforeseen development to usher in the
police�community era: a string of studies suggesting that the traditional approach
was not working.
The criminal justice rationale for community policing

Improving police�community relations may be a central objective in the overall job

of building a better police force, but there are other equally important reasons to
change the relationship between the police and the community. Studies have shown
that without good police�community relations, the police face extreme difficulties
in carrying out their work. These studies were concerned with a variety of
different topics in policing, but they led to a consistent general conclusion: the
traditional manner of business in police work was not producing good results.

To understand this line of studies, it is important to summarize the traditional

model of policing. In this approach, police see themselves as professional crime
fighters concerned with the problem of serious felonies. This model has two
important elements. With regard to citizens, police are expected to be detached and
impartial, working �beat assignments,� not communities or neighborhoods. With
regard to crime, police are reactive and investigative, responding to criminal
events based on their seriousness and building the evidence for criminal cases
after crimes have been reported.

This professional model was the dominant model of policing from the early 1900s
until the late 1960s. For most of this time, there was little questioning of the
importance of the professional model, and police reforms took consistent patterns:
more training, an emphasis on investigation technologies and crime-prevention
hardware, and the adoption of paramilitary thinking about command, police
deployment, and accountability. The idea was to downgrade the importance of duties
that had little to do with crime (traffic, emergency services), allocate the most
resources to the most serious crime, focus on rapid responses to criminal events,
and maintain a visible, deterrent presence on the streets.

The first signs that this orientation might be in trouble came with the 1967
President�s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, which
pointed with concern to the increasing problem of urban unrest, often taking the
form of riots that began in the wake of some violent encounter between the police
and a young person of color. The commission pointed out the urgent need for
improvements in the way police dealt with the public, and it called for a
reassessment of the way the police defined their responsibilities and provided
services to the community.

There was also a serious concern about police performance. Crime and fear of crime
were both increasing, while clearance rates for crimes and public confidence in the
police were decreasing. Although this context was becoming less hospitable to the
traditional policing model, a series of studies was leading some to conclude that
the old emphasis on command policing simply did not provide adequate results.

The first, and most important, such study was the Kansas City Preventive Patrol
Study (Walker 1992). This study employed a randomized field experiment to compare
the effectiveness of standard policing patrol to proactive methods, in which two to
three times as many police patrolled the streets, and to reactive methods, in which
there was no police patrol and officers only responded to explicit calls for
service. After these very different levels of police work had been compared for one
year, the rates of crime in the areas were compared. The surprising result found no
significant difference in the rates of serious crime, fear of crime, attitudes
toward the police, or even police response time.

This study threw contemporary police thinking for a loop. The study not only failed
to confirm all the usual arguments about the need for more police, but questioned
the very assumptions underlying those arguments. Traditional police thinking
received a further jolt when studies of police response time � the amount of time
it took the police to get to the scene of a crime after a citizen called for help �
had little relationship to the probability of apprehending a suspect and was
unrelated to citizen satisfaction with the police response. What really mattered
was how long it took the police to get to the scene compared to what the citizen
thought should happen (Carter and Radelet 1998).

Two other studies caused police to begin to rethink their strategies. A comparison
of one-officer and two-officer patrol cars in San Diego tended to favor the use of
single officers, both in terms of costs and citizen interactions. In addition, a
series of studies of 911 calls for service found that by carefully explaining to
citizens the priorities for calls and by helping citizens know how their case was
going to be handled, the ascendancy of the 911 system over centrally managed
priorities for services could be stemmed (Carter and Radelet 1998).

This string of studies, together with the continuing rise in crime and increasing
popular alarm about public safety, led to a rethinking of what should be the best
philosophy of policing. That rethinking was heavily influenced by foot-patrol
studies in Flint, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey; and fear-of-crime studies in
Newark, New Jersey, and Houston, Texas. The foot-patrol studies found support for
the idea that face-to-face interaction with citizens was an important part of
citizen satisfaction with police, and that the closer cooperation between citizens
and police that resulted may have contributed to safer streets. The fear-of-crime
studies found that citizen� police interaction resulting from foot patrols helped
reduce the overall level of fear. Together, these and other studies of the emerging
idea of community-oriented police work began to call attention to the possibilities
of change in policing.

Box 2.1 Community policing in Brooklyn

In 1984, the NYPD created a demonstration project named CPOP (Community Patrol
Officer Program) in the 72nd precinct of Brooklyn. Through this program, 10
community patrol officers (CPOs) were assigned areas ranging from 16 to 60 square
blocks. The CPOs set their own patrol times to maximize their effectiveness, and
they were exempt from responding to 911 calls for service. In addition, each CPO
kept a �beat book� with information on local issues and problems, strategies for
solving the problems, and lists of community organizations. A plan for addressing
neighborhood problems was outlined each month (Pate and Shtull 1994).

In 1990, the 72nd precinct was chosen to be a model precinct to test the
feasibility of instigating a citywide community-policing initiative. The following
goals of the model precinct project were stated (Pate and Shtull: 1994: 387�9):

� Develop an organizational structure that facilitates the transition to community

policing (increase staff; consolidate units; establish neighborhood beats).

� Develop an operational system that promotes and encourages the practice of

community policing (improve communication among officers and develop monthly work
plans).

� Develop an information system that would support community and problem-oriented

policing (analyze crime �hot spots� create daily calls-for-service reports).

� Develop a system that would allocate the calls-for-service workload between foot
patrol and motor patrol officers (low-priority calls will be routed to foot patrol
officers whenever possible).

� Work with other departments to develop a comprehensive community policing model

(detectives would be required to attend community meetings; introduce a fully
staffed narcotics unit to the precinct that will work with foot officers).

� Develop a training program for all precinct personnel (teach concepts of

community policing and problem-oriented policing).

Officers enjoyed the flexible hours and the opportunity to do something different
and interact with community members. Interactions with residents in nonemergency
situations made the job more interesting and more pleasant. Some officers did not
want to join the unit because of the challenges of working outside in all types of
weather, the feelings of being vulnerable without a partner, problems with
responding to emergencies without a vehicle, the perceived lack of excitement, the
lack of a clear reward structure, and uncertainties about the possibility of
promotion (Pate and Shtull 1994).
Community policing

Community policing has three main sources of intellectual development. Robert C.

Trojanowicz of Michigan State University was one of the more prominent scholars to
write about the idea (Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux 1990). He founded the National
Center for Community Policing, which advanced the ideas of the community-based
(sometimes called neighborhood-based) model. According to Trojanowicz, community
policing is a full-service policing model where the same officer regularly patrols
the same area and forms partnerships with residents to solve problems. Mark Moore,
of Harvard�s Kennedy School of Government, initiated a series of Police Executive
Seminars in the 1980s that clarified the theoretical and practical basis of
community-oriented policing and then helped spread the innovation across the
country. The most significant source of the change was the US Department of Justice
Community-Oriented Policing Office that worked closely with the Police Executive
Research Forum (PERF) to conduct workshops, studies, and seminars while publishing
numerous reports on the concept.

Police scholars have identified three different types of community-oriented

policing: community-building strategies, which attempt to strengthen community
capacity; problem-oriented strategies, which deal with the causes of crime; and
broken windows strategies, which focus on minor crimes and physical disorder. We
discuss the current status of community policing using these main approaches as
guides (Mastrofski, Worden, and Snipes 1995).
Community-building strategies

The most common form of community policing includes a range of tactics that help
strengthen the community�s own ability to reduce crime. Some of these are mundane
and have proven to be of limited value, such as Neighborhood Watch or neighborhood
meetings (Skogan 1992). Others are of more durable impact, such as victim-
assistance programs, police-minority relations initiatives, and the long-standing
Police Athletic League. Variously, each of these types of strategy is theorized to
improve crime-prevention effectiveness in three ways.

First, the effect of increased day-to-day interaction between community residents

and beat officers is thought to promote community-based �intelligence.� That is,
the more police talk to local businesses and other neighborhood residents, the more
information they are able to obtain about crime and criminals in the area. Second,
the same contacts are thought to provide another way to reduce crime when the flow
of information is reversed. That is, when police publicize information about
trouble spots or crime events, residents are more informed and able to act to
protect themselves. Third, and perhaps most broad, is the belief that �police
legitimacy� within the neighborhood is crucial to effective local crime prevention
because citizens are more forthcoming with information regarding crimes and some
residents act in more law-abiding ways (Sherman et al. 1996).

What these strategies have in common is their attempt to improve some aspect of
community life by increasing interaction among residents or creating a standing
relationship between the community and the police. Community building is an
intuitively attractive idea, as the communities hardest hit by crime are also the
very ones that most need development. But attempts to develop these communities
also meet major obstacles. Skogan�s studies of community policing in Chicago show
that it is difficult to sustain community interest in developmental activity, and
even police who are enthusiastic about the idea sometimes find themselves like fish
out of water when it comes to community organizing (Skogan and Hartnett 1997).

These obstacles derive in part from the very premise of their goals. Hard-hit
communities are the ones that struggle the most to make more time to meet after
hours and increase their everyday obligations. Strategies that focus on building
relationships with effective community networks suffer when those networks are weak
or need to be developed. Thus, the communities most in need of assistance are also
the least able to take advantage of this particular approach.

Criminal justice agencies must change from their current approach to working with
communities. It is often difficult to convince police officers that their job
entails more than just arresting offenders and putting them in jail. When
discussion about forming relationships with members of the community is raised, the
responses of police officers vary but it is not uncommon for one response to be
�I�m not a social worker, I�m a cop.� One approach that has been raised in helping
officers better police their areas of assignment and form relationships is the
medical model of policing. This approach combines the analytical, relational, and
enforcement approaches that allow officers to be varied in their work.

Harpold (1996, 2000) identifies six types of neighborhoods:

1 Integral � have high levels of pride,

2 Parochial � have homogeneous values and cultures,

3 Diffuse � residents have much in common but rarely interact,

4 Stepping-stone � starter homes where residents begin their home owning

experience,

5 Transitory � residents move frequently or have little in common with other

residents which causes a lack of consensus and cohesion, and

6 Anomic � residents have accepted criminal victimization as a way of life.

By identifying these types of neighborhoods, Harpold helps police officers see more
clearly how neighborhoods differ and why they cannot be policed with a cookie-
cutter approach. In proposing the medical model of policing, Harpold argues, �Just
as doctors can detect cancer early and prevent it from spreading, police can work
in communities to influence the variables that threaten community pride and self-
esteem. Early treatment can help the community from becoming ill� (Harpold 2000:
24). He sees the police as diagnosticians who can work with the residents to
establish a course of treatment that addresses the specific problems encountered by
neighborhoods.

In the medical model, the police officer is charged with learning about the
neighborhood just like a physician would learn about a patient. For police officers
this can be done through the use of sociodemographic data, comparative crime
analysis, and community surveys and interviews. After gathering the necessary data
about the neighborhood, the officers, just like physicians, may find that
traditional as well as non-traditional methods are needed to combat the problems.
Harpold believes that just as physicians may be required to use aggressive methods
of treatment such as surgery or chemotherapy, the police may have to use aggressive
methods such as arrest and search and seizure. He does caution that the police
officer must be careful not to treat the symptoms and not the disease and such a
mistake can be avoided by becoming intimately familiar with the neighborhood being
treated. Just as in medicine, Harpold uses some of the same terminology in
discussing

the implementation of the model. In Intensive Care there is a need for the intense
application of services from governmental, public, and private entities. In
Preventive Medicine crime prevention practices such as Crime Prevention through
Environmental Design (CPTED) and neighborhood watch are used to strengthen immunity
to crime. In Health Education the officer helps residents share responsibility for
their own health and define boundaries for accepted behavior by residents. While
the previously listed items pertain to the neighborhood, Bedside Manner pertains to
the police. Just as the relationship between a patient and a physician is
important, the relationship between the residents of a neighborhood and the police
is equally important because for residents to follow the plan established a
relationship with the police based on mutual respect must be established. For
police this means that everyone must be treated with courtesy and respect unless
they show that they do not deserve it. To help officers implement this manner of
thinking they should ask themselves, �How would I like to be treated?�. From an
organizational perspective, police managers may need to intentionally select
officers who have a service-oriented approach to their job to participate in this
type of policing. The final point, Physician Heal Thyself, addresses the need for
police agencies to be healthy before they can treat neighborhoods. According to
Harpold, this organizational health can be achieved through pride, self-esteem,
quality leadership, and comprehensive training.

The medical model concept is certainly not flawless but it can be helpful in
helping police agencies understand the need to be more holistic in policing
neighborhoods. It may also help police agencies who have resisted community
policing strategies feel more comfortable in adopting more progressive policing
techniques. Community policing has taken a rap from police because of the
perception that it is soft on crime and counter to the law enforcement mission of
policing. The medical model includes traditional policing methods when necessary
but also interactive approaches that address long-term problem solving. Many times
police officers become frustrated because they attend neighborhood meetings where
only a small number of residents attend. In these situations it is easy for
officers, especially younger ones, to believe that it is not worth their efforts to
work with the neighborhood if the neighborhood will not help itself. With that
conviction it is easy for officers to revert to traditional law enforcement tactics
to address crime and other problems. Connell, Miggans, and McGloin (2008) examined
an officer-initiated community policing program in a suburban police department and
found a significant reduction in violent and property crimes in the targeted area.
In the study two interesting factors were noted that might account for the success
of the project. The first is that the officers selected to work on the project had
been selected based on their desire to be a part of the initiative and the second
is that the community policing model was not implemented department wide, only in a
single unit. These findings appear to be in concert with the ideas from the medical
model which proposes careful selection of officers who will participate with the
neighborhood in developing a prescription to address the problems facing the
neighborhood
Problem-oriented strategies

Developed by Herman Goldstein (1991), problem-oriented policing (POP) strategies

are based on the idea that crime emanates from particular, persistent circumstances
that can be identified, documented, and then overcome through systematic action,
and that police should be more thoughtful and innovative when dealing with
neighborhood issues. The POP approach is very focused in its method, and although
several problem-oriented techniques have been proposed, the SARA (Scan, Analyze,
Respond, Assess) method is the most popular. Using SARA, the officer scans the
community for problems, analyzes each problem in a systematic way, designs a
specific response to each problem, and then assesses the usefulness and success
rate of the response (Greene 2000).

For example, an officer might scan the community and identify drug dealing as the
main problem. The offi cer then analyzes the locations of drug-related activities,
the times of day these activities take place, the opinions and feelings of
community residents and businesses, and the capacity of neighborhood organizations,
social services, and religious institutions to aid in the development of a
solution. After careful thought and planning, the officer might decide that the
best response is increased foot patrols by officers and citizen groups in certain
locations, along with improved street lighting in these areas. The officer might
also decide to contact the landlords of the buildings where the drug dealers live
or work and attempt to get the offenders evicted, or arrange to have surveillance
cameras installed. Once the response has been implemented, the officer assesses the
change in drug dealing and any changes in resident perceptions in order to see if
the initiative worked.

One of the more successful problem-oriented strategies has been hot spots policing.
This style of strategic policing is derived from the fact that a very small
percentage of addresses in a jurisdiction account for a significantly
disproportionate number of criminal events. These locations can be identified by
mapping crimes, and strategies can be designed to ameliorate the problems that make
these places more criminally involved. For example, a check-cashing store between
two bars can become a problem, or a liquor store on a dark corner can invite crime.
The hot spots model is also closely related to a school of crime prevention called
situational crime prevention (Brantingham and Brantingham 1990), which is based on
the idea that crimes occur when situations exist that make crime possible.
Situational crime-prevention methods study the distribution of crime across time
and space, with the aim of identifying the reasons why these two factors coincide
so frequently.

Problem-solving methods seek policing tactics that are intelligence based. An

elaborate version of intelligence-based policing is New York City�s CompStat
(comparative statistics) meetings. Credited by many as a major contributing factor
in New York City�s drop in crime (Silverman 1999), the CompStat process involves
the spatial analysis and mapping of crime at the precinct level (precincts are
approximately the size of a neighborhood), and a report on any increases in
criminal activity and the ways the local precinct will deal with these increases.

These meetings are an integral facet of a comprehensive interactive management

strategy which enhances accountability while providing local commanders with
considerable discretion and the resources necessary to properly manage their
commands. It also ensures that they remain apprised of crime and quality of life
conditions within their areas of responsibility, and that the Department�s ten
Crime and Quality of Life Strategies are fully implemented throughout the agency.
The meetings serve as a forum in which precinct and other operational unit
commanders communicate to the agency�s top executives the problems they face while
also sharing successful crime reduction tactics with other commanders. The process
allows top executives to carefully monitor issues and activities within precincts
and operational units, to evaluate the skills and effectiveness of middle managers
and to properly allocate the resources necessary to reduce crime and improve police
performance.

(NYPD 2001)

It should be noted that the CompStat process, and any use of computer mapping to
locate crime hot spots, does not, by itself, represent community policing. This
technique must be used in conjunction with community partnerships and community-
level problem solving in order to form a complete community-policing initiative.
Also, any current community-policing initiative could significantly improve its
crime-fighting capabilities through the use of spatial analysis � knowing where
crimes occur is one of the most important pieces of information for police
departments.
Broken windows strategies

One of the most influential new ideas in policing is the broken windows thesis
(Wilson and Kelling 1982). We have described this thesis in detail elsewhere, but
here we consider the implications of the concept for police practices. A detailed
description of the broken windows philosophy of policing has been provided by one
of its originators, George Kelling, along with Catherine Coles (1996). They
describe the experiences of broken windows strategies in various locations of New
York City, San Francisco, and elsewhere. In these locations, the broken windows
idea has been credited with a reduction in crime and an increase in public order.
Because the broken window thesis holds that crime results from public disorder, the
solution to crime is to use the police to create order. Under this assumption, the
strategies are directed at people whose public behavior causes the general public
to believe that order has disappeared: homeless are required to go to shelters or
they are arrested; drunks are arrested and placed in jail; disorderly people �
those playing loud music, drinking alcohol in public, or otherwise disturbing the
peace � are required to stop or are arrested. In short, the power of arrest is used
to enforce public order, especially by requiring these people to abide by public
expectations for conduct. In some places, the emphasis on widespread �stop-and-
frisk� tactics has led to accusations of racial profiling. In these accounts, it is
not behavior alone that leads to police inquiry and action, but a combination of
behavior and racial characteristics, which are said to fit a profile of prospective
criminal offenders. The problems associated with accusations of racial profiling
represent some of the civil rights limitations to crime-prevention techniques that
depend too heavily on police intervention in the absence of citizen partnerships.

Another controversial form of community policing is evinced in broken windows

policing as it has been implemented in New York City�s �zero-tolerance� policing
practices. The zero-tolerance method uses arrests of minor offenders � jaywalkers
and those holding opened beer cans in public � as a means of quelling public
disorder. While stopping a person for a public order violation, the police search
and question the violator. Proponents claim that this routine questioning of public
nuisance cases has resulted in large numbers of illegal weapons being seized and
leads to the arrest of parolees who have absconded and others who are wanted on
arrest warrants, and that the processing of these cases leads to a major reduction
in crime. Critics of zero tolerance say that the rate of apprehension of serious
offenders is actually very low (Karmen 2001) and so most of the stops turn out to
be a form of harassment. Many observers credit zero-tolerance policies in New York
City for the tragically deteriorating relationships between minority youth
(especially males, who are the most likely to be stopped) and the police.

Box 2.2 Westside CAN case study

The Hispanic population in Kansas City, Missouri increased by 95 percent between

1990 and 2000 creating a problem of undocumented Hispanic men seeking employment in
the city�s Westside neighborhood. The Westside neighborhood is a heavily Hispanic
area and the neighborhood noted an increase in crime and disorder with the increase
of the undocumented men. Potential employers knew where to find the workers and a
high amount of foot traffic and vehicle traffic was created as employers and
workers converged upon the area. The residents and businesses in the area suffered
and people would not patronize businesses on the Westside due to the disorderly
behavior which included public urination, fighting, and drinking.

Residents had a sense that calling the police would not be helpful because there
was a belief that the police would not take any action to stem the problem. Because
the residents would not call the police to report the bothersome activity, there
were low reports of crime in the area. When police crime analysts looked at the
area they did not perceive any problems through their analysis and, as a result,
officers were not informed of problems. After more analysis and conversation with
residents, the police identified three groups of stakeholders involve in the
problem:

1 area citizens and business;

2 documented and undocumented men willing to work;

3 and documented and undocumented men not willing to work.

It was also discovered that that the behavior of those in group 3 was problematic
to those in groups 1 and 2.

Police attacked the problem through the traditional approach of patrol and arrests
but then discovered that these tactics did not address the problem. Officers found
that many of the men who were detained did not carry any form of identification and
it was also difficult for officers to determine which men were willing to work and
which men were not willing to work. The officers noted that there was a lack of
facilities for those men who waited

patiently for potential employers to contact them. Because of the lack of

facilities, disorderly behavior often followed when the men became frustrated with
each other. Jail did not affect the behavior of offenders because the arrested men
were often released on signature bond only to return to the area and offend again.
The Department of Homeland Security�s Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) unit
utilized sweeps that were also ineffective due to the lack of resources to address
the problem meaningfully.

The police department talked with residents and business and discovered that both
entities wanted the problem solved, but they wanted it done in a humane manner.
Toward that end, the police department and the community researched day-labor
issues across the United States and determined one solution might be to develop an
environment where behavior could be monitored and controlled. A plan was formulated
to address the environment and the Westside Community Action Network Center (CAN
Center) was established. Working in partnership with the CAN Center, the police
developed the goals, outline, and criteria for a Day Laborer Center (DLC). The
officers knew that for the DLC to be successful the men must want to come to the
new location, all workers must use the new DLC, and employers must pick up the
workers at the DLC. Since the men in group 3 had no interest in such a center and
continued acting in a disorderly manner, the officers worked with ICE to identify
members of that group and take the appropriate enforcement action.

Soon it was discovered that there were too many men needing assistance and the
search for a new location began. The CAN Center set forth criteria for what would
be need at the new site. The criteria included the following: good access to major
thoroughfares, space to accommodate 200 men, a nearby location to ease transition
to the new center, a location far enough away from the liquor store to deter men
from going back and resuming old habits, ample distance between the new center and
existing businesses and residences, amenities such as showers, restrooms, laundry
facilities, lockers, a kitchen, and meeting area, and, finally, rent of no more
than $400 per month including utilities. After an exhaustive search, a suitable
site was located. The site contained a machine shop that had been abandoned for
over 15 years and the owner agreed to donate the building rent free for five years.
Because the building had not been used for an extensive period of time, much
renovation was required. A local construction company agreed to rehabilitate the
building pro bono. Estimates by the CAN Center place the value of the donated
materials and labor at approximately $150,000.

The opening of the new DLC brought immediate and noticeable results. The building
that had stood abandoned was brought into code compliance, men no longer
congregated on Southwest Boulevard, schoolchildren and

neighbors no longer had to walk by large numbers of harassing men, the habitual
offenders were removed from the area, the public sanitation issues were abated,
prostitutes no longer gathered in the area, and business sales increased. The
police also found benefits to the new center. They enjoyed increased neighborhood
cooperation, additional time for district officers since they were not needed as
often to make arrests for disorder issues, the creation of identification cards to
help officers identify the men and establish emergency contacts, and a 50 percent
decrease in calls for service in the area. For the men, benefits came in the form
of increased responsibility and legitimate employment. Rule breakers were
identified and turned in by the men and the men who were regular at the DLC
provided cleaning and maintenance at the facility. In addition, when men could not
find employment for the day they volunteered their service in the neighborhood
assisting residents in a variety of tasks.
Community policing and community justice

Community-oriented policing services (COPS) have played a central role in the

community justice movement. But community policing is not the same as community
justice. The COPS movement in policing is, for the most part, particular to the
traditional functions of law enforcement: investigation and arrest. Although some
of the more elaborate community-policing methods move out of traditional police
functions in attempting to prevent crime, community justice is a broad concept that
applies not just to crime, but to the quality of life in the community. It also
embraces the nonpolice functions of adjudication, sanctioning, and correcting �
discussions that we attend to in the following two chapters.

Thus, although we may think of community policing as the bellwether for change that
has set the stage for community justice, integration of community policing into the
broader community justice agenda will require still more change in the way the
police do their business, even within a community-oriented philosophy.

The formal training of police officers provides them with the rudimentary skills
necessary to enforce the law and maintain order. Highly emphasized during the
training is the need for officers to take control of the situations they encounter
and establish a course of action that resolves any problems contained in the
encounter. This often causes the officer to become an arbitrator, providing
resolutions that may be less than acceptable to the parties involved in the issue.
Little skill development occurs in negotiating and mediating with persons involved
in a conflict of some sort.

It is important to understand the differences between arbitration and mediation

because the terms are often used interchangeably. Arbitration is a process by which
a neutral third party intervenes in a dispute, listens to both sides, and then
through a reasoned process imposes a decision about what action should be taken to
resolve the issue. Mediation, on the other hand, is a process where the neutral
third party becomes a facilitator in resolving the dispute. The mediator allows
each side to present their concerns and then he or she assists the disputants in
developing their own solution to the problem. The obvious difference in the two
methods is that the role of the neutral third party is consultative in mediation
and authoritative in arbitration. Neither method will work in all situations so it
is important for the neutral third party to be able diagnose the situation and
determine the appropriate methods to address the problem at hand.

Police officers serving as mediators have become more accepted over the past
decade, although it is still seen as being on the fringe of acceptable traditional
police practice. One prominent argument against the practice is that it is too time
consuming for patrol officers and causes calls for service to be delayed while
officers attempt to mediate disputes. Rarely is mediation seen as a practice that
will save time in the long run by possibly eliminating repeat calls for service and
improving the cooperation between police officers and the citizens they serve.
Cooper (1999) argues that neutrality by the patrol officer during mediation is not
an impossible task. The officer is required to be an objective professional during
the process if it is to be successful. Cooper believes that disputes that are
appropriate for patrol officers to mediate include property disputes,
vendor�customer disputes, landlord�tenant disputes, and boyfriend�girlfriend
disputes. Patrol officers have also found mediation useful in disputes involving
residents in a neighborhood. In many cases, officers can usually mediate
neighborhood disagreements involving shared driveways, unruly children, and noisy
residents. Officers who utilize mediation often report that the basic practices of
mediation have made them better police officers overall because they listen more
intently and ask more probing questions during interactions with citizens. They
also report that those interactions are usually more positive because the citizens
feel that the officers are engaged in helping them and not just going through the
motions of handling a call for service.

As can be seen, mediation and its concomitant skills improve the performance of
police officers in many aspects of their job. It is also important to recognize
that the use of mediation improves the skills of community members. Community
members who participate in mediation sessions learn how to listen more intently to
each other when divergent viewpoints are presented. Cooper (1999) notes that
disputes sometimes have two layers: the latent dispute and the manifest dispute.
The latent, or underlying dispute, is often unspoken and has to be teased out
during conversation. To do so takes time, patience, and good listening skills.
Often disputants see the manifest, or obvious dispute, and fail to resolve the
disagreement because they only address the surface behavior. Persons who have
participated in or been trained in mediation skills know to look for the underlying
issue that may be the real issue. After participants participate in mediation they
learn that disputes can be solved through dialogue and that force is not necessary.
The listening skills developed also help residents better understand concerns of
the other residents and interpersonal skills are learned or fine-tuned. Development
of these types of skills move the individual into the establishing of social
networks and the results can be the acquisition of resources and services.

Some police departments have incorporated mediation into the citizen complaint
process. Community members who may feel they were inappropriately treated by the
police can elect to have their complaint mediated and a resolution acceptable to
both the citizen and the officer can be crafted. The Office of Community Complaints
for the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department implemented a complaint mediation
program in 2000, and the feedback from both citizens and officers has been
positive. One benefit of mediation is that the complaint is addressed and a
resolution is developed. In many complaint investigations there is not enough
evidence discovered to determine if the actions of the officer were inappropriate
and the complaint is unsubstantiated. Such a determination leaves the citizen
feeling that they were not valued and the officer feeling as if he or she has been
unjustly accused. Resolution to the dispute in a timely and constructive manner can
be beneficial for the police and community in building solid, trusting
relationships. Again, the citizen can experience the process of expressing a
concern, being heard, and engaging in a meaningful dialogue to address the concern.
This type of process also makes the police more accountable to the citizens they
serve and this accountability has been lacking in high-impact locations. Trust
between the police and citizens can only be developed if there is respect on both
sides and mediation provides a mechanism to build some of that trust.

Community policing is not a panacea. Although it has been one of the most important
systematic changes in criminal justice in the last 100 years, it has also raised a
series of questions about the functions of the police in modern society and the
capacity of the police to accomplish those functions alone. As we see in the
following chapters, the courts and corrections both face the same questions about
an expanded mission that seeks to produce greater public safety through increasing
community well-being.

Box 2.3 Levels of community policing

Greene (2000) provides an important summary of the types of changes brought about
by community policing, as well as the expected outcomes as a result of these
changes. This discussion serves as a useful framework for understanding both the
potential effort needed for the development of a community-policing initiative and
the potential rewards of such an initiative. The table below summarizes these
levels and the expected outcomes.

Environmental level

At the environmental level the police form relationships and partnerships with
local organizations, residents, social services, and businesses and focus on
problem solving and crime reduction in an effort to reduce fear of crime and
improve quality of life. The mobilization of the community to

address crime-related issues is thought to increase the social bonds,

communication, and trust between neighborhood members, thus improving community
cohesion and increasing informal social control (formal social control being the
police, and informal social control being community conflict resolution through
non-police involvement). Also, when residents have more contact with police
officers, and when police officers illustrate an investment in neighborhood quality
of life, the residents feel safer and empowered (Greene 2000: 321�4).

Organizational level

At the organizational level, community policing affects how the department defines
problems and solutions, and how the actual organization is structured, including
the organizational attitude toward the police subculture and the selection and
training of officers (for example, the hiring of more minority officers and
language training for officers in minority communities). The organization must
accept a new set of values for seeing the community as a partner and developing new
problem-solving techniques to create a true community-policing initiative. This
also includes changes in internal communication practices and information sharing
among officers (Greene 2000: 322).

Individual level

Organizational-level changes must also make their way into the rank and file and be
inculcated by each police officer if community policing is to succeed. Officers
must develop new problem-solving techniques and learn to view the community as a
partner in their crime-fighting activities. Also, crime prevention must become a
higher priority for the officer. Job satisfaction should improve as the officer
becomes more connected with the community, and the officer will have to use a
greater range of interpersonal and problem-solving skills in his or her new role
(Greene 2000: 323).

Level of anticipated changes community-policing intervention outcomes

Suggested web sources

The Center for Problem-Oriented Policing � www.popcenter.org

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) � www.cops.usdoj.gov

The International Association of Chiefs of Police � www.theiacp.org

Policing.com � your headquarters for community policing � www.policing.com

Police Society for Problem-Based Learning � www.pspbl.com

References

Brantingham, P. L. and Brantingham, P. J. (1990) �Situational Crime Prevention in

Practice,� Canadian Journal of Criminology 32(1), pp. 17�44.
Carter, D. L., and L. A. Radelet (1998) The Police and the Community. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Clear, T. R. and Rose, D. R. (1999) When Neighbors Go to Jail: Impact on Attitudes

about Formal and Informal Social Control. Washington, DC: National Institute of
Justice.

Cooper, C. (1999) Mediation and Arbitration by Patrol Police Officers. Lanham, MD:
University Press of America.

Cornell, N., Miggans, K., and McGloin, J. M., 2008. �Can a Community Policing
Initiative Reduce Serious Crime? A Local Evaluation,� Police Quarterly, 11, pp.
127�150.

Crank, J. (2004) Understanding Police Culture. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing

Company.

Goldstein, H. (1991) Problem-Oriented Policing. New York: McGraw Hill.

Greene, J. R. (2000) �Community Policing in America: Changing the nature,

structure, and function of the police,� in J. Horney (ed.) Policies, Processes, and
Decisions of the Criminal Justice System. Vol. 3 of Criminal Justice 2000, pp.
299�370. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.

Harpold, J. A. (1996) �A Community Doctoring: A Medical Analog to Community

Policing,� in J. T. Reese and R. M. Solomon (eds.) Organizational Issues, pp.
319�33. Quantico, VA: US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Harpold, J. A. (2000) �A Medical Model for Community Policing,� FBI Law Enforcement
Bulletin, June.

Karmen, A. (2001) New York Murder Mystery: The True Story Behind the Crime Crash of
the 1990s. New York: University Press.

Kelling, G. L., and Coles, C. (1996) Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and
Reducing Crime in our Communities. New York: Free Press.

Kelling, G. L. and Moore, M. (1988) �From Political Reform to Community: The

evolution of strategy of police,� in J. R. Greene and S. Mastrofski (eds) Community
Policing: Rhetoric or Reality. New York: Praeger.

Mastrofski, S. D., Worden, R. E., and Snipes, J. B. (1995) �Law Enforcement in a

Time of Community Policing,� Criminology 33 (November), pp. 539�63.

New York City, NY Police Department (1991) NYPD: New York�s Finest,
www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/chfdept/process.html

New York City, NY Police Department (2001)

www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/chfdept/compstat-process.html.

Palmiotto, M. J. and Donahue, M. E. (1995) �Evaluating Community Policing: Problems

and Prospects,� Police Studies 18(2), pp. 33�53.

Pate, A. M. and Shtull, P. (1994) �Community Policing Grows in Brooklyn: An Inside

View of the New York City Police Department�s Model Precinct,� Crime and
Delinquency 40(3), pp. 348�410.

Sampson, R. J. and Bartusch, D. J. (1999) Attitudes toward Crime, Police, and the
Law: Individual and Neighborhood Differences. Washington, DC: National Institute of
Justice.

Sherman, L. W., Gottfredson, D., MacKenzie, D., Eck, J., Reuter P., and Bushway, S.
(1996) Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn�t, What�s Promising: A Report to
the United States Congress. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.

Silverman, E. (1999) NYPD Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing. Boston,

MA: Northeastern University Press.

Skogan, W. G. (1992) Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in
American Neighborhoods. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Skogan, W. and Hartnett, S. (1997) Community Policing, Chicago Style. New York:
Oxford University Press.

Trojanowicz, R. and Bucqueroux, B. (1990) Community Policing: A Contemporary

Perspective. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing Company.

US Bureau of Justice Assistance (1994) Understanding Community Policing: A

Framework for Action. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Assistance.

US Bureau of Justice Statistics (2000) Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics,

Section 2: Public Attitudes toward Crime and Criminal Justice-Related Topics.
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.

Walker, S. (1992) The Police in America: An introduction. New York: McGraw Hill
College Division.

Wilson, J. Q. and Kelling, G. L. (1982) Broken Windows. Atlantic Monthly 249(3),

pp. 29�38.
Further reading
Community-oriented policing

Greene, J. (1999) �Zero Tolerance: A Case Study of Police Policies and Practices in
New York City,� Crime and Delinquency 45(2), 171�87.

Kelling, G. and Bratton, W. P. (1993) Implementing Community Policing: The

Administrative Problem. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. A
prescription of ways to create and sustain community-oriented policing systems and
cultures.

Nicholl, C. (1999) Community Policing, Community Justice, and Restorative Justice:

Exploring the Links for the Delivery of a Balanced Approach to Public Safety.
Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services.

Radelet, L. A. and Carter, D. (1994) The Police and the Community, 5th edn,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. A comprehensive review of literature on
community and police interactions.

Zhao, J. and Thurman, Q. (1997) �Community Policing: Where Are We Now?,� Crime and
Delinquency 43(3), pp. 345�57.
Problem-oriented policing

Bayley, D. H. (1994) Police for the Future. New York: Oxford University Press. A
challenging prescription of the methods and philosophy of policing in the coming
decades.
Goldstein, H. (1990) Problem-Oriented Policing. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press. The classic description of problem-oriented police theory and practice.
Police culture

Repetto, T. (1978) The Blue Parade. New York: Free Press. Analyzes what it is like
to be a police officer and the problems facing urban police reform.

Rubenstein, J. (1973) City Police. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The classic
description of urban police culture.
Police authority and power

Bittner, E. (1990) Aspects of Police Work. Boston: Northeastern University Press. A

summary of the literature of police behavior and the forces affecting police
effectiveness.

Davis, K. C. (1969) Discretionary Justice: A Preliminary Inquiry. Baton Rouge:

Louisiana University Press. The classic essay on police power and police
discretion.