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_chapter_two_.pptxCommunity-Oriented Policing Defined Chapter Two
Community Policing Defined
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things
Machiavelli
What challenges would a Chief, Administrator or officer face in implementing COP?
Community Policing Defined
Community Oriented Policing has sparked one of the most fundamental changes in the history of American Policing.
It has been called a new paradigm by some, and simply an epicycle by others
Regardless, Community-Oriented Policing has had a profound impact on American Policing, as the ultimate goal of policing has shifted from controlling crime to improving quality of life and has done so through focus on reducing citizen fear and addressing the problems of both crime and disorder
Community Policing Defined
The fear of crime is one of the most persuasive concerns of the American people, and there is a demand to control what has seeming spiraled out of control.
The media constantly reminds the American people of the increasing levels of violence, gangs, drugs,
What is more important for the policing to focus on fear or crime, is there a difference?
Community Policing Defined
Community-Oriented Policing has become the American panacea for crime
In 1999, 2/3 (66 %) of County and 62 % of municipal police agencies with 100 or more officers had a formal written COP Plan.
The ideas of COP are relatively simplistic;
The police take on the role of being more community oriented
The citizens get more involved
There is a general idea that the police will solve the communities problems, which will reduce crime and restore social order.
It is the implementation that is difficult
Community Policing Defined
The concept of community-oriented policing is essentially a philosophy of policing that is often difficult to transform into policy.
Even police departments who hold community-oriented policy in high esteem find it difficult to implement
Police administrators and departments have no framework for actually implementing a systemic approach. It is a frustrating situation for everyone involved.
Knowing this helps us understand that COP is much more difficult than just officers being nice to the public
Community Policing Defined
The most difficult aspect of understanding community-oriented policing is attempting to arrive at a standard definition.
One department may implement it throughout the entire department and another may assign one officer to a foot beat. Both then claim to practice COP.
Why do departments and administrators struggle to implement COP? One reason is a lack of training and information. You will get more information in this course than most administrators and officers.
Community Policing Defined
Text Page 24-25
1999
9 in 10 local police departments serving a population of 25,000 or more had full-time personnel regularly engaged in community-policing activities.
What are your thoughts concerning this statistic and the comments that it is hard to implement and define? Is there an inconsistency?
Absence of a Definition
Community-Policing was never intended simply to put more officers on the street; and it was not seen as a quick-fix crime reduction strategy. Bill Clinton and his COPs program and others have it all wrong.
There is no shared definition of community-oriented policing among theorist and practitioners of law enforcement
Nigel Fielding, “Community-policing is somewhat of a chameleon concept for it can stand for; an alternative to rapid response, enforcement-oriented policing involving long-term beat assignment so officers are closer to the community. It can represent a process by which crime control is shared with the public or it can be a means of developing communication with the public “
Absence of a Definition
If it is common to find a lack of definition in the literature and the law enforcement community and the term means many different things to many different people the definition becomes contradictory.
It is an intangible concept based upon intangible ideas.
So, how do you design and implement community-oriented policing if it has no definition and it is an intangible idea?
I guess I implement whatever I want; tell the public it is community-oriented policing and everyone will be happy right?
Absence of a Definition
Many researchers look to organizations which have implemented COP to develop a clear and concise definition based upon the actual application.
This has not been effective and it has not resulted in a definition.
Goldstein, “in many quarters today, community-oriented policing is used to encompass practically all innovations in policing, from the most ambitious to the most mundane, from the most carefully thought out through the most casual. The term has become so interchangeable it seems to cover every change or upgrade to police services”
How can it be so important and have any credibility if that is the case?
Community-Oriented Policing
Considering Community-Oriented Policing
What do you want from your local police agency?
What services and priorities would you like to have offered?
Do you think your local police agencies understands the concepts of COP?
Community-Oriented Policing, Not Police Community Relations
It is important to remember that community-oriented policing and police-community relations are two separate entities and have become philosophies unto themselves
In police science, community policing may be the oldest, most controversial and least understood. In its best sense it is a philosophy, not a program.
It is a philosophy of the police and community cooperating with one another to ascertain problems and the needs of the community and working in harmony to address and solve those needs
Community-Policing a Philosophy
There must be total immersion from management and officers. You can not compartmentalize a community-policing program
It will fail because of internal divisiveness
There will be a lack of career path
The philosophy encourages, aids and abets community cooperation and motivates citizens to participate
Do average citizens want to participate and how to you get past citizen apathy? Will we only get the extremist or cop want-to-be?
Community-Policing a Philosophy
Critics say that community policing takes away from the enforcement role of the police and it makes the officer a “social worker”
The text indicates that these critics have misunderstood and fail to perceive its underlying effectiveness.
As an officer or future officer would you prefer traditional policing or community-oriented policing?
What if you go to work for a police agency that does not match your philosophy?
Community-Policing a Philosophy
The true practice of community policing will save a cop’s life.
It may provide solutions that change a community that was once written off as too dangerous to patrol, into a productive, safe neighborhood
It may provide information previously not available or unknown on suspects, crime, gang members or drug dealers.
It will change the quality of life for the police and public
We do not have to be social workers, but we need to be aware of the social and economic aspects of crime.
What are some social and economics aspects?
Community-Policing a Philosophy
The United States has a variety of cultural, religious, ethnic, racial, educational, and income differences
This diversity can make us strong but it can also divide
In community-oriented policing terms, how do you define community?
Community
Page 33
Nowhere in this scheme is there an articulated substantive role for the community. Little attention has been given to a definition of community commensurate with the vast promise on the rhetoric of COP
Even less has been spared for defining the role that can be expected of the community
Community
Community is a group of people who share three things;
They live in a distinct geographical area
They share cultural characteristics, attitudes, and lifestyles
They interact with each other on a sustained basis
We must understand who and what our communities are to implement this definition?
Community
The highly affluent may have problems with burglaries, suspicious solicitors, and vehicles speeding
The lower-income subsidized housing areas may have problems with prostitution, open-air drug markets and old abandoned cars lining the street
Each feels that their perceived problems need the most police attention and both may be right.
The rich and the poor may conflict with each other and this can create tension, a lack of cooperation and even more crime
Community
There interaction of community and shared culture, attitudes and lifestyles have declined and continued to decline.
We are becoming more divided
The issues of order maintenance, quality of life and complexities of crime all call on the community and the police for improvement
The rhetoric of community-policing ascribes to the community great power to regulate itself, shake off its fear of crime by forming partnerships, and successful resisting the encroachment of the criminal element
Community
Instilling a sense of community then becomes a policeman’s lot
How do we do this?
Community
Officers used to give warnings, lecture you and take you home to your parents, etc
Now we seem to have moved away from this
Community
The interaction between citizens and the police must develop and foster a sense of community spirit
The community must open up to the police and assist them in controlling crime and fostering a working partnership
This relationship must allow officers to think of themselves as members of the community and not have the “us vs them” attitude
We must take the “small-town method” of solving problems and make it a formal policy (Mayberry)
Community-Policing a Philosophy
A successful model will;
First assess the community by analyzing demographics and neighborhood composition? Examples?
It would assess the department’s ability to serve those needs
Second, identify the missions and goals, training personnel, reaching out to community, analyzing budget and resources, targeting neighborhoods, mobilizing the “grass-roots” forces of the community and establishing community participation
Third, Evaluate the program an model every 6 to 12 months. Did crime rates increase or decrease, did public cooperation levels rise or fall, what was the effect on quality of life and what is the public’s image of the police?
No model is absolute or permanently structured.
Community-Oriented Policing
A concrete definition of the concept of COP has not been found but many agree that it is predicated on an interwoven trilogy of ideas; efficiency, responsiveness, and representativeness.
Broken Windows Theory
1982, The publication of “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety” by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling caused a shift in the thinking relative to the role of the police from crime control to order maintenance, specifically focusing on the issue of public fear
At about the same time, Herman Goldstein, was advancing his ideas on “Problem-Oriented Policing” an attempt to cause the root cause of crime rather than repetitively responding to its symptoms
Broken Windows Theory
What is the traditional police response?
Reactive, we wait for dispatch to give us our next assignment
We address the symptom not the cause
Who does this put into charge of police resources?
It is a combination of Broken Windows and Problem Oriented Policing that became Community-Oriented Policing
Broken Windows Theory
What was the Broken Windows Theory?
Neighborhood Preservation Units, Nuisance Enforcement?
Broken Windows Theory
Broken Windows three points
Neighborhood disorder – drunks, panhandling, youth gangs, prostitution, and other urban incivilities create citizen fear
Just as an unrepaired broken window can signal that nobody cares about a building and lead to more vandalism, untended disorderly behavior can signal that nobody cares about a community and lead to more serious disorder and crime. Such signals, untended property, disorderly persons, drunks, etc. both create citizen fear and attract predators
If the police are to deal with disorder to reduce fear and crime they must rely on citizens for legitimacy and assistance
Broken windows gave voice to sentiments felt by
citizens and police
Broken Windows Theory
Is Broken Windows a Valid Theory?
Minor disorder, such as broken windows, can send a signal to citizens and criminals that no one cares thereby attracting more serious crime. If broken windows are left unrepaired crime and disorder can be expected
Study have shows validation and no validation for the theory (Pages 31-32 of text)
1999 Study found that physical and moral decay of a community does lead to increased criminality and that COP is the solution to disorder and crime and that citizen fear is influenced by disorder .
Citizen satisfaction with the police is dependent on citizen fear levels and their perceived quality of life
Community Policing and the Fear of Crime
In addition to actual injuries and loss, there is a more intangible, abstract problem associated with crime, that of fear
Fear is often the largest and most enduring legacy of a person’s victimization
Fear can prompt citizens to action
It motivates citizens to share some of the burden of crime
Kindles support for crime control measures
May lead the public to share information
However it can also be unreasonable and counterproductive
Community Policing and the Fear of Crime
Fear might be reduced without lowering actual victimization rates.
Communication from police about the true nature of crime. Their perceptions may not be accurate
Regular police contact
Education about proper crime control/prevention
Extra patrols, police visibility
Regulating and managing group conflict; rich and poor, white and black, young and old
Police need to realize and care that they can impact fear levels
Fear needs to be managed, rationalized and constructively channeled
Victimization
We frequently focus on the first hand victim of a crime.
What about secondary victimization?
What about the victimization and effects of crime on a community, even those not directly involved?
Working together
The police and the community must work more closely together
Through community-policing the “police will become more connected with and integrated with the community
The police will interact with the public on a personal level
They will be familiar with the community and its problems
The police will work together with the public to address community concerns
The public and the officers should take ownership of the problem, especially if they are allowed to design the solution.
Coming Together
Once the police and public come together;
First goal is to define the problem together
Second goal, the two groups should work together to develop cooperative solutions
Third, develop programs from those solutions that can reasonably be implemented
Fourth, implementation. At the operational level these concepts translate into specific practices which officers are expected to engage in
Problem Solving
Another consistent theme in COP is problem solving
Problem solving is closely associated with the decision making process and should involve the police and community (government leaders as well)
Goldstein’s SARA
Scanning
Analysis
Response
Assessment
Citizens and the police should both be trained in SARA
Community-Policing
When was the last time your local police department asked you what you thought was important or where you the citizen thought law enforcement should put their resources
We can do a great job as police officers, put bad guys behind bars, etc. But of we are not addressing citizen concerns and fears there is failure!
Developing Solutions
A problem-oriented approach does not start with a tactical solution to a problem and seek to apply it to all occurrences of the problem
What is the usually traditional law enforcement response? (We treat symptoms)
Instead, you should begin with the peculiar circumstance that give rise to the problem and then look for a specific, situational solution
It is an individualistic approach
Community-Policing
Remember, problem-oriented policing can stand on its own without Community-Policing.
Community-Oriented policing can not stand without Problem-Oriented Policing
Another aspect of COP is standard police tactics, such as patrols and arrests, the use of specialized units, etc are used in a slightly different manner
It entails redistributing police resources, directing an excessive amount of resources towards a particular problem, and dispersing the criminal element from the community
Community-Policing
Does Community-Oriented Policing means that we need to back off of arrests, undercover stings and other traditional law enforcement methods?
Police Chief Reuben Greenburg, used the term “strategic policing” to describe these innovative uses of police resources.
Taking high-quality standard police practices and procedures and flooding a high crime area in hopes of disrupting the entrenched criminal element.
The goal is to drive out the cause of crime and replace it with some type of neighborhood program
Weed and Seed
Federal Program
Using multiple agencies to “weed” remove trash, clean up the neighborhood and target criminal offenders
Once the neighborhood is cleaned up; utilize an abundance of social services to “seed” the neighborhood in order to stabilize it and prevent crime from returning.
A key element is that you must put something back in place of the criminal element or the criminal will just come back
Some say these programs just target the poor and minorities who are the “weeds”
Implementation
For any of these concepts to translate into police practices there is an overwhelming call for the decentralization of police services.
For the police to become part of the community;
They must be permanently assigned. Rotating assignments and rotating shifts do not foster a sense of community
There is no time to develop community ties, discover the problems and implement a solution
Officers must have the freedom to interact with the community to develop solutions to the problem and to implement, fail and discover the benefits of their program
COP is not a temporary program, it is a long-term philosophy
What are the management philosophies present in this slide?
Implementation
To implement COP all fundamentals of policing must change as well.
The mission statement, job descriptions, management styles, management structures.
The role of the police chief, leadership, management style, recruitment, training, promotion, and officer requirements
The expectations, roles and action of the community must change
Hiring: Are you a candidate for a community-oriented policing officer? Why or why not?
COPS in Action
COP is alive and well
Page 40
Only one out of three crimes are reported to the police. You may actually see an increase in reported crimes initially.
Conclusion
A standard definition for COP is still lacking
There are key components/predominant themes
Community working together
Creating solutions to the indigenous problems in a community
Implementing these programs
Conclusion
The three components of COP (Trilogy)
Conclusion
The first component of COP is strategic-oriented policing SOP
With Strategic-Oriented Policing police utilize traditional police practices and procedures by redistributing their resources towards identified problem areas.
The goal is to drive out the criminal element or cause of social disorder in order to allow the community the chance to establish some type of groundwork in reclaiming their community.
Conclusion
The second key component is neighborhood-oriented policing.
Neighborhood-oriented policing would include any and all programs that help open lines of communication between the police and citizens, to work towards a true sense of community
Police youth sports leagues
Mini-police stations
Conclusion
The third component is problem-oriented policing
This method includes a concerted effort on the part of both the police and the community to determine the cause of crime and social disorder in a community, to create solutions to the problems, and to implement the most viable program.
Although this component is predominantly implemented with the cooperation of the community members, it does not preclude the police officer from conducting this type of analysis during a routine shift
This must be an on-going process
Three Components of COP
| Community-oriented Policing COP |
| Strategic-Oriented Policing SOP |
| Neighborhood-Oriented Policing NOP |
| Problem-Oriented Policing POP |
Conclusion
Book Definition
A systemic approach to policing with the paradigm of instilling and fostering a sense of community, within a geographic neighborhood, to improve the quality of life. It achieves this through the decentralization of the police and the implementation of a synthesis of three key components: (1) strategic-oriented policing – the redistribution of traditional resources (2) neighborhood-oriented policing – the interaction of the police and all community members to reduce crime and the fear of crime through indigenous proactive programs and (3) problem-oriented policing – the concerted effort to resolve the cause of crime rather than the symptoms.
