NCJ Number
149991
Journal
American Journal of Police Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Dated: (1993) Pages: 33-56
Date Published
1993
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article develops the thesis that team policing has useful lessons for community policing.
Abstract
Team policing reached its peak in the early 1970's and then faded away quickly. Team policing was an ambitious attempt to refashion the organization and delivery of police services so as to address a number of problems. The experience offers some potentially valuable lessons for the currently popular concept of community policing. The goals of neighborhood-focused policing and decentralized decisionmaking are similar in community and team policing. In addition, there is a body of evaluation literature on team policing. Still, team policing has been virtually ignored in the literature on community policing. Seven case studies identify three major obstacles to team policing. The major obstacles were opposition from middle management, conflicts between team policing officers and regular patrol officers working the same neighborhoods, and problems with dispatching technology. Other potential problems were unclear definition of goals, the danger of goal displacement, the conflicting demands of control and autonomy, the hazards of success, and the hazards of inflated expectations. 41 references