1. Community Policing
What “Model” of Criminality do Police Strategies Reflect?
What model of crime causation does a crime control approach reflect? What is the underlying logic or assumption of criminality?
Advent of Community Oriented Policing (COP) reflects a sociological model of crime: Social Disorganization Theory
Chicago School Emphasizes Ecological Elements in the Urban Area (Develop. & Maintenance of Neighborhoods)

2. Social Disorganization & Comm. Policing
Shaw & McKay Map incidents of delinquency
(55,000 in 30 yrs)
Spatial patterns in places where delinquency is clustered
What about the spatial pattern of the population in these high crime areas?
Lots of turnover; low population stability
But several stable features:
Economic depression
Single parent households
Dilapidated housing
High % of renters
Crime rate

3. Social Disorganization Theory
Feedback Loop

4. Community Policing Keys to Solving the Crime Problem?
Focus on Internal Community Organization
Increase Informal Community Controls on Crime
Develop a sense of community obligation
Partnerships
Questions for Police:
Are you set up to contribute to this process?
What can police do to contribute to informal control mechanisms in communities?

5. Community Oriented Policing
Broken Windows Theory (Kelling and Wilson)
What does a broken window symbolize?
What are the consequences of broken windows for a community?
Skogan (1990) Urban Disorder/Decay is a spiral.
Disorder takes 2 forms:
Physical
Human
Consequences of Disorder:
Signals would-be criminals that crime/misbehavior is tolerated
Increases resident fear of crime
Implies that a Community-focused Police Response is most appropriate for addressing crime problems

6. Community Oriented Policing
Indicators of need to shift previous policing approach
Citizen fear more closely tied to neighborhood disorganization (disorder) than real crime Police should consider fear of crime as a measure of effectiveness
Police Role should be Broadened
More emphasis on
Minor violations
Keeping order
Community organizing
Community satisfaction
Aggressive law enforcement: increase strict law enforcement, saturate hot spots, numerous citations, make many arrests.

7. Community Oriented Policing
Mobilization of Community:
Examples? Community Watch, Crime Stoppers, etc.
Serve to provide deterrence, increase neighborhood cohesion, educates community and police about crime
Civil law to address quality of life issues in neighborhoods:
City officials, landlords, zoning, etc.
Effectiveness of Community Policing:
Foot Patrol: no impact on crime,
but improves perceptions about crime & about police relations
Crime Watchers: little impact on crime, SES of neighborhood

8. Community Oriented Policing: 3 Considerations
Organizational/Philosophical Perspective of Police
Input from Community/Citizens
Expansion of Police Mission/Role (Decentralization)
Service Orientation
2. Strategic Implications
Interactive/Engaging Police Operations
Geographic Focus
Neighborhoods >> Beats
Beat Assignment >> Ownership – Familiarity & Accountability
Crime Prevention: Focus beyond incidents & apprehension
Tactical Consequences: Putting it in Action?
Quality Citizen Interaction (and Public Opinion)
Police-Community Partnership
Problem-solving

9. Problem Oriented Policing
Goldstein (1979) Modern outgrowth of comm. policing movement
Information Age (Postmodern Era): Information is a resource
How do you measure overall police productivity?
UCR data?
Problems with Traditional Policing?
Police role is defined with vague categories:
crime, order maintenance, service
Take categories & break them into discrete problems with specific responses to each one
Police were prisoners to their communications systems:
Reactive (calls for service)
No planning involved for underlying problems

10. Problem Oriented Policing (Goldstein)
Police are too concerned with the ends—incidents.
Police need to become focused on the means—the underlying problems that cause the incidents
Example:
60% of calls from 10% of addresses.
10% of victims account for 40% of crimes.
10% of criminals for 55% of crimes.
3 Elements:
Define problems specifically, not in terms of incidents or crime caregories.
Research the problem.
Look for alternatives to present responses. Crime prevention, civil law, community groups, services of other governmental agencies.
Requires that the police become partners with citizens.
Improves the working environment of the police, & should increase job satisfaction.

11. Problem Identification in Action:
Proactive Police Strategy: The “SARA” Model
Scanning: Identify problems in the beat
review calls for service in service area
consult with residents
Analysis: Collect information from inside & outside the agency. Collect data about the problem to id nature, extent, scope
Response: Data used to design a response
Emphasis on using tactics that have an impact
Assessment: Evaluate the effectiveness of strategies
Feedback from citizens
Multiple evaluations
Hot Spots of Crime (GIS analysis)
Tends to be relatively effective in reducing crime

12. Community Oriented Policing Today
Very Popular among modern police departments:
How well do PDs understand COP/POP?
Popular strategies: Foot patrols, Police substations, ID neighborhood problems, deal with disorder, community meetings, Surveys
Major change in the Role of Police:
Emphasis is away from traditional mission of crime control
Police role is expanded to include issues related to fear, order maintenance, conflict resolution, area decay, disorder
Police must create relationships with community (Co-production)
Maguire (from B&B):

13. COP: Rhetoric or Reality
1997 BJS survey of 700 police agencies.
63% county & 61% municipal agencies have COP plan
65% larger departments form problem solving relationship with local community groups.
55% encourage officers to engage in problem solving relationships using COP concepts.
Maguire (1997): 236 large metropolitan PDs
44% had adopted COP
47% planning or implementing stage
9% no plans to adopt community policing

14. COPS & Crime Prevention
Police legitimacy: the public confidence in the police as fair and equitable
Strongly related to citizen willingness to obey the law.
Milwaukee Domestic Violence Experiment (Paternoster et al 1997)
If police act in a procedurally fair and respectful manner, the rate of subsequent domestic violence went down.
Crime prevention and community
Changes include:
Organizing communities to improve and strengthen relationships.
Change building/neighborhood design to improve surveillance/guardianship
Improving appearance to do decrease image it is vulnerable.
Develop activities that give a more structured or supervised environment
Re-integrative Justice (Community justice & shaming offenders)
community-accountability conferences.
Led by trained police officer.
Offender has to admit guilt.
Make sure everyone has a say, especially victim.
Agreement on repaying the cost of the crime.
Research on victims and offenders indicates greatly increased respect for police and perceptions of justice.

15. COPS & Crime Prevention
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)
Basic elements: target hardening and territorial reinforcement (informal control of environment).
Some areas: cities require police input on building design.
Goal: provide employees and residents with a better view of surroundings and reduce places to hide.
Public health and crime prevention.
Public health: more concerned about risk factors than criminal intent. Three categories of risk:
Structural or cultural: poverty, television violence.
Criminogenic commodities: the availability of guns, drugs, and alcohol.
Situational risks: unresolved disputes between family members, landlords and tenants, gangs.

16. 3 Ways to “do” COPS

17. Criticisms of COPS? Iron fist in a velvet glove is still an iron fist
“Political Economy of Policing” (Barlow & Barlow)
Shift to COPS was driven by image maintenance and a crisis in legitimacy
legitimacy of police institution
Creates the perceptions of a warm, fuzzy police
Little strong evidence to support this imagery
COPS innovations hit police industry in 1980s/1990s – war on drugs heyday.

18. Barlow & Barlow: Political Economy of Community Policing
From Broken Windows to Image Management?
Postmodernism
“Hyper-reality”: images become reality
“A new tool in the drama of control” (Manning 1991)
“Circumlocution whose purpose is to conceal, mystify, and legitimate police [force]” (Klockars 1991)
Iron Fist & Velvet Glove
PPUs/Specialized Units
Overall growth of CJ complex:
Social Control though Image Control

19. Social Disorganization in 21st Century
Collective efficacy has replaced disorder as the characteristic that is thought to distinguish organized from disorganized communities.
Implications:
Police should re-focus on generating partnerships
Enhance community efficacy
Continue addressing disorder, but there is a dark-side to zero-tolerance versions of COPS
NYPD
Compstat
Low quality arrests; increased police violence