NCJ Number
115747
Date Published
1988
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Community policing has worthwhile goals, but it will not achieve its promise unless it rests on four policies that together will help it surmount the problems related to effectiveness, fairness, and abuse of authority.
Abstract
As of 1988, community policing is more rhetoric than reality, although it has emerged as the major strategic alternative to traditional practices that are now widely regarded as having failed. Programs resting on its rhetoric usually involve four elements: 1) community-based crime prevention, 2) proactive servicing rather than emergency response, 3) public participation in the planning and supervision of police operations, and 4) shifting of command responsibility to lower rank levels. However, many problems may emerge as community policing is implemented. These include a decline in public safety, a loss of the capacity of the police to maintain public order, an increase in the power of the police relative to that of other government agencies, and a weakening of the rule of law. These and other problems require the adoption of four policies; the systematic monitoring of community-policing as a crime-control strategy, the use of an outside agency to determine whether police operations conform to the rule of law, careful selection and training of police officers, and development of the capacity to form and carry out policies that will provide effective and equal protection to all segments of the population. Without these policies, community policing may become another well-intentioned but disappointing attempt at police reform.