NCJ Number
169566
Date Published
1992
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This analysis of police responsibilities argues that ambiguity regarding the police mission is central to the current debate regarding police management strategies and that police agencies should experiment among at least three models rather than automatically selecting community policing.
Abstract
The three current macrostrategies that compete for the loyalty of police administrators and scholars are the professional efficiency model, problem-oriented policing, and community policing. The differences among these approaches are substantial, and police resource allocation varies significantly by strategy. Therefore, the choice among strategies is arguably the most crucial decision that a police administrator makes. However, scholars have recently developed a preference for community policing; this preference could foreclose the objective assessment of the other two strategies, especially problem-oriented policing. Police professionals often do not clearly articulate their mission, although the perception of mission has the greatest influence on the choice of strategy. Thus, a police agency using the professional efficiency and crime-specific model focuses on temporal order maintenance; problem-oriented policing implies a mission of sustained order maintenance; and community-oriented policing requires full neighborhood management. The professional efficiency and crime specific model may well be the best model for some communities for either political or economic reasons. In addition, problem-oriented policing needs to be carefully distinguished from the community-oriented model, and community policing should be reassessed. Figures and 21 references