NCJ Number
94289
Date Published
1983
Length
16 pages
Annotation
A failure to separate the substance of community policing from its image is what makes much research on community policing so unsatisfactory; researchers have done little more than bolster a widely held belief that community policing, in whatever guise, provides an answer to policing problems.
Abstract
'Community policing' seems to have three meanings, although in practice these meanings overlap. First, community policing may be seen as an antidote to the image and practice of 'fire-brigading,' which involves a rapid response to emergency calls. Such community policing focuses on providing more officer patrolling on bicycle or foot so as to increase contact with and visibility to the community. Research, however, indicates that citizens give higher priority to rapid police response to calls for assistance than to increased police visibility and contact. Further, there is little evidence that an increase in police visibility is noted by citizens or that it has the effect of giving residents a greater sense of security. A second view of community policing is that it is 'a process whereby the responsibility for the control of crime within the community is shared between the police and the public' (Morris and Heal, 1981). Evaluative research on such schemes is based more on their supporting philosophy than on hard evidence that they have achieved their targeted effects. A third view of community policing is that it involves the creation and extension of structures of communication through which community needs are made known and community behavior influenced. Again, evaluative research has failed to provide evidence of tangible positive effects from such an approach to community policing. Whether research will be allowed to affect public debate on community policing will be a test of the commitment of both the police and politicians to empirical evidence of the effects of specific approaches rather than to a policing ideal. References are listed.