NCJ Number
190345
Date Published
2001
Length
284 pages
Annotation
This book examines the community policing experiences of nine police agencies in the United States.
Abstract
Community policing is aimed at promoting public safety and enhancing the quality of life through a partnership of police and community. The focal point of community policing is on proactive (prevention) strategies, identifying and solving community problems. Policing failures and success stories, strategies, and recommendations from the agencies and their personnel are discussed. The police agencies profiled are in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; Nashville, Tennessee; Columbus, Ohio; Lansing, Michigan; Harris County, Texas; Sacramento, California; Fayetteville, North Carolina; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Camden, New Jersey. A general impression was developed that included the following concepts about community policing: it is time consuming; it is suspicious; it is a lot of rhetoric filled with political promises that are not expected to be kept; it leads to uncertainty about policies, regulations, objective, and required input; there is general optimism about its potential; and many police officials and officers want it to work. A matrix consisting of nine task components was made by the data of what worked more often and what worked less often. The nine task components were: events motivating community policing agendas; training; measuring community policing performance; organizational change; philosophy; recruiting community members; maintaining community support; decision-making community prerogatives; and changing community programs. In conclusion, finding the balance between professional intervention for the purposes of prevention, crime escalation, and police responsibility is the community policing task. Yet, officers at every rank cannot make decisions about professional intervention if policy, regulations, and employment expectations dictate otherwise. Policing as an institution must alter policy, regulations, and expectations to fit within a contemporary framework of policing strategies. Just as community policing models are different in different jurisdictions and within those jurisdictions, so to are community group techniques.