Community Policing as Reform: A Cautionary Tale (From Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality, P 47-67, 1988, Jack R Greene and Stephen D Mastrofski, eds. -- See NCJ-115735)

• NCJ Number: 115738
• Author(s): S D Mastrofski
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 21 pages
• Sale Source: Praeger Publishers
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

Community policing is a reform that must address the same fundamental and largely insoluble problems that have always faced the police in the United States: defining the police role, establishing mechanisms for effective control of police officer discretion, and securing the bases of occupational legitimacy.

Abstract

However, advocates of community policing make many assumptions and claims that differ from what can reasonably be expected. In addition, the underlying inconsistencies in the community policing model are unlikely to be resolved. Thus, although community policing offers many refreshing alternatives to traditional approaches, its rhetoric obscures the complex realities that need to be addressed. Community policing is a reform that needs its own reforms if it is to deal more realistically with the dilemmas that police face. It is beneficial in that it has drawn more attention to maintenance of order and to the need for awareness of the perceptions and values of the community. Community policing also recognizes the existence of discretion and has encouraged police to examine the bases of their professional legitimacy. It should focus also on the daily activities of the police, recognize the need to deal with the dilemmas of governing communities that are complex and diverse, and accept the paradoxical nature of the police role.