“Watchman” style of the 19th. and early 20th. centuries Officers on foot beats Emphasis on order maintenance Problems with corruption and nonfeasance
Professional model developed during the mid-20th. century Motorized patrol & advances in communications Emphasis on quick response to calls for service Use statistics to track crime and evaluate response Fight crime and violence by making arrests
Community model developed in the late 1970’s Riots brought on concerns about community-police relations Blamed police isolation from public Emphasis on preventing rather than just reacting to crime and
disorder Partner with citizens and community institutions to identify
problems and develop solutions
Landmark article by James Q. Wilson andGeorge Kelling in March 1982 Atlantic Monthlymagazine
Proposed that taking care of neighborhood deterioration -- rowdiness, disrepair, drunkeness -- can prevent an area’s lapse into serious crime
Skepticism of policing innovations Motorized patrol distance from citizens Uniform Crime Reports policing becomes a numbers game
Decriminalizing minor transgressions may not be such a good idea Laws provide police with leverage
Protecting communities just as important as protecting individuals Gave impetus to community policing movement
Supposedly more than crime-fighting Community defines problems Community participates in solutions Success measured by citizen satisfaction
To do community policing need: Decentralized authority Changes in recruitment and training Move away from incident-driven (response) policing Different measures of output (results)
Major Federal funding COPS office in Department of Justice funds community policing
initiatives throughout the U.S. 2009 Federal Recovery Act gives COPS $1 billion in grants to
preserve police jobs and aid community policing efforts
Is it rhetoric or reality? “Cacophony” of purpose -- absorbing every
crime-fighting strategy (e.g., Broken Windows,POP) that comes along blurs what community policing supposedly is
Are areas impacted by crime and violence really “communities”? Are citizens well informed about crime? Is there a consensus about what’s needed? Can one even be
formed? How much can citizens really help?
▪ Witness intimidation – Police Issues “See no Evil” Is “community policing” potentially more intrusive? Are there enough officers to do it?
Officer coverage (2011 data)▪ L.A.: 9860 officers (2.6/1,000 pop.)▪ Chicago: 12,092 officers (4.5/1,000)▪ New York: 34,542 officers (4.2/1000)
Crime incidents may only be symptoms To extinguish need to deal with the
“real”, underlying problems This is supposedly different from “community-oriented policing”
Acceptance that traditional crime-fighting methods may be ineffective
BUT -- no value judgments as to police role (fact-based rather than ideological)
To respond to problems police must be flexible and willing to experiment
Emphasis on crime prevention, not responding “after the fact” Like in community policing, external relationships are important
Collaborate with other agencies, politicians, community groups, private service providers, local businesses
Environmental design important (“target hardening”) Not necessarily a “kinder and gentler” approach
May call for more intrusion, not less
Scan to identify problems Personal observations Citizens and businesses Other officers Available data
Analyze problems Collect information from various sources Break down problem into constituent parts Look for patterns among incidents Crime analysis & mapping Detailed analysis of incidents and calls for service Modus operandi, location, persons, times, events
Response -- develop and implement solutions Example: street drug sales
▪ Soft responses: No incoming pay phone calls;cleaning up junk and graffiti; urging landlords toscreen and evict drug-dealing tenants
▪ Hard responses: Gang injunctions; concentrated enforcement; surveillance and undercover work
Assessment -- evaluate effectiveness of response with traditional and non-traditional measures Crime trends, clearance rates Citizen complaints Truancy Fear Business profits Property values
Many studies have found improvements after POP was implemented Scholars often attribute these improvements to innovative strategies
Example : “Pulling Levers” approach of Boston Ceasefire But every POP project involves the traditional “hard” strategies (coercive
police presence) of the professional model POP brings increased attention from police and other agencies to
problem areas It may be impossible to apportion success to a specific tactic
It’s now assumed that “community policing”incorporates problem-oriented policing
How to implement Provide leadership: convince the troops that
prevention is better than after-the-fact response Train officers in addressing problems
Provide incentives to get on board Broader role for street cop: think about problems and develop
solutions Supposedly more job satisfaction
Evaluation criteria must change -- not just making arrests Need commitment from managers and executives
Reduce barriers to implementation Allocate necessary time, resources, manpower
Overcome resistance Give officers leeway in innovation Emphasize centrality of patrol
Ten-year evaluation of largest project of its kind in the U.S. Split-force concept for entire city
Officer teams in each police beat spend their time oncommunity projects and problem-solving efforts
“Rapid response” units respond to calls for service Compstat used to plan police deployment
“Final grades” Public involvement: B Agency partnerships: A Reorganization: A Problem-solving: C
Police Issues post: “RIP Community Policing?” It’s not the bad, old professional model
A “new accountability” -- don’t just talk about integrity, actively track officer behavior and warn of emerging problems
A “new public legitimacy” -- integrates professional model’s law-centered response with community policing emphasis on citizen participation and consent
Foster organizations that “transcend parochialism” and can learn, adapt and innovate as circumstances change
A “national coherence” that creates common ground among police Concerns
Might under-engage with citizens and over-rely on technology Compstat-like bean-counting can distort what police do Do we know the environment of policing well enough to prescribe
paradigms?
Deployment strategies Flood problem areas with cops Uniformed officers look for gangsters
and armed persons in high-crime areas Heavy use of stop-and-frisk to find guns and contraband Police presence as a deterrent Lessen response time to violent incidents Police Issues: “What Can Cops Really Do?” “Of Hot Spots and
Band-Aids” No free lunch
Diverting patrol officers to these techniques means less patrol and increased response time in non-selected neighborhoods
Citizens may feel harassed in selected areas Aggressive enforcement can create legal issues Police Issues: “Too Much of a Good Thing?”
Police Issues -- Slapping Lipstick I Ceasefire -- a mixed approach
Law enforcement campaign to curb guntrafficking, plus a softer “pulling levers”approach to reduce the demand for guns
Hard: Feds and police arrested gun sellers andpossessors
Soft: Gang members called in and warned SACSI implemented Ceasefire in ten cities
Project Exile -- a hard approach Federal laws used to imprison armed felons
PSN -- Project Safe Neighborhoods -- a blend U.S. Attorneys worked with police chiefs, probation and parole Participants urged to incorporate Ceasefire’s “pulling levers”
approach Difficulty in getting non-police agencies to participate At the end, level of Federal prosecution seemed most important
Police Issues:Slapping Lipstick II
Article in Criminology &Public Policy evaluatedCeasefire in Boston,Project Exile in Richmondand Compstat in NYC
Ceasefire Youth homicide
dropped 30 percent compared to 16 percent in non-Ceasefire cities But actual numerical gains were very small, thus statistically non-
significant (pre-Ceasefire mean 3.5 deaths/month, post-Ceasefire mean 1.3/month)
Can’t tell if improvement was due to more policing or “pulling levers” Project Exile in Richmond, Virginia
Twenty-two percent yearly decline in gun homicide, considered a success Compstat in New York City had no demonstrable effect
Peak (Policing America), Walker(“Broken Windows and Fractured History”)and many others feel that its crime control value is greatly exaggerated
Citizens expect prompt police response Best opportunity to catch a criminal, identify witnesses and preserve
evidence is when or shortly after a crime occurs Community policing, broken windows and other innovations displace
officers from patrol Issues
Does routine patrol allow a more effective response to crime? Does routine patrol deter crime? Does routine patrol make citizens feel safer? How much of a police force should be allocated to patrol?
Current trends: when budgets tight, police departments are stripping specialized units to support patrol
Police Issues: Forty Years After Kansas City
Does routine patrol deter crime? Area randomly divided into 15 beats
Five Control - same as before Five Reactive - no random patrol Five Proactive - more patrol
Conclusions: NO CHANGE IN... Crime Fear of crime Citizen attitudes about police Police call-response capability
Issues General v. specific deterrence Experiment kept secret from citizens and crooks Officers did not respect boundaries when answering calls Differences between patrol levels was slight
Response time Findings: Faster police response does not help
(reducing delay in crime reporting does help) Issue: Was response time significantly decreased?
One versus two-officer cars Finding: One-officer patrol cars just as safe Issues
▪ Are “solo” officers equally proactive? Can they be?▪ Is it really “solo” when multiple cars respond to a hot call?
On-view arrests during routine patrol Finding: Officers seldom “stumble across” felonies in progress
But what about . . .
On Feb. 28, 2005 the husband and mother ofFederal judge were found shot to death in theLefkow’s Chicago home
Suspicion was immediately placed on right-wingmilitants against whom Lefkow had ruled on a civillawsuit. A huge investigation got under way.
Three days later a West Allis, Wisconsin patrol officer pulledover Bart Ross for suspicious activities.
Ross, an unemployed electrician and cancer victim, shot himself as the officer walked up. The officer almost got hit.
Inside the car was a note in which Ross confessed to the shootings. He was angry at the judge for dismissing his suit against his doctors.
Ross’s DNA was matched against DNA left on a cigarette butt left behind in the Lefkow residence.
On the morning of April 19, 1995, TimothyMcVeigh parked a rented truck full ofexplosives in front of the Federal Building,got in a car and escaped.
At 9:02 a.m. a massive explosion occurred,killing 168 persons.
Two hours later McVeigh was stopped by an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer because his vehicle lacked a license plate. The officer noticed a bulge in McVeigh’s jacket and arrested him for carrying a loaded .45.
At the station suspicions about his resemblance to sketches of the person who rented the truck led police to call the Feds.
About 12:45 am, 12/1/09 a Seattle policeofficer on routine patrol spotted a parked carwith the hood open and the engine running. He ran the plate and determined the vehicle was stolen.
While in his car doing paperwork he noticed a man approaching the driver’s side of the police car. The officer exited the car and ordered the man to stop and show his hands. The man walked away and reached into his waistband. The officer fired, striking the man twice. He died at the scene.
The man was identified as Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in the killing of four Lakewood (Wash.) officers two days earlier. He was armed with one of the dead officer’s handguns.
Police Issues: “An Illusion of Control”