Factoring Policing Models

• NCJ Number: 171098
• Journal: Policing Volume: 20 Issue: 3 Dated: (1997) Pages: 454-472
• Author(s): A Y Jiao
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 17 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

The extent to which police and public perceptions of policing matched various theoretical models of policing was studied by means of a questionnaire survey that gathered information from 60 police officers and 60 community members in the Rutgers community in Newark, N.J. in 1995.

Abstract

The research examined participants' ratings of police activities and organizational principles that represented four models: police professionalism, community policing, problem-oriented policing, and the security orientation of policing. Data were gathered in two surveys. Each instrument listed a variety of police activities and several statements about policing. The data were analyzed by factor analytical models to determine whether different police activities and organizational principles clustered under different factors. The rationale for the factor analysis was that a policing model must respond to input from police officers and the community in a manner sufficiently close to the reality that it is intended to represent. Results revealed that the professional, community policing, problem-oriented, and security models of policing are perceived as only somewhat different models; however, they are not perceived to be distinctive policing models. The greatest ambiguity was in problem-oriented policing, which was not regarded as a separate policing model in most of the analyses. This model tended to cluster with the security model; the clustering suggested a more general policing model of situational crime prevention. This finding also challenged the theoretical assumption that problem-oriented policing is an element of community policing. Findings also indicated that the professional model and the community model could not be easily separated from each other might better be integrated to develop a new professional model. Tables, appended lists of activity variables and statements included in the surveys, and 37 references