What does ‘community policing’
mean?
Dr Alistair Henry
(University of Edinburgh)
Dr Megan O’Neill
(University of Dundee)
Overview
1. What is ‘community policing’ (AngloAmerican model)?
2. Does ‘community policing’ work in the 21st
century?
3. How well does ‘community policing’
translate to other contexts?
4. Discussion groups
5. Feedback
Why community policing
• A response to specific crises for the police
• A response to general ‘crises’ in police
effectiveness and legitimacy
• A response to the changing nature of
‘community’ and the social order
(democracy?)
• A return to ‘traditional’ policing
• A response to post-conflict situations
What is ‘community policing’?
“While everyone talks about it, there is little
agreement on meaning.” (Skolnick & Bayley,
1988)
• Things that don’t cut it (in themselves)
– Providing police services in the community
– Visibility in communities
– Intelligence-led or problem-orientated
approaches
– Community meetings
Programmatic elements of community
policing
• Decentralisation of responsibility within the police
• Partnership with other agencies (and communities
themselves)
• Community engagement (listening and acting, not just
telling)
• Proactive and problem-solving
• Whole philosophy gives value to it as ‘real’ police work
Skolnick & Bayley: CP = police/community coproduction of security (an on-going process)
Community policing as democratic
policing?
• CP arguably congruent with key principles of democratic
policing (but not defining of it)
– Equity
– Delivery of service
– Responsiveness
– Distribution of power
– Information
– Redress
– Participation
See: Jones, Newburn and Smith, 1996
• Is CP possible in non-democratic contexts?
Community policing in the 21st c.
• Can CP adapt to new challenges, such as:
– Diversifying communities
– Social media
– Fiscal restraint (austerity)?
Community policing in the 21st c.
Diversifying communities, for example:
1. Migration across borders (e.g. foreign nationals settling in a
‘community)
2. Multi-cultural communities (e.g. ethnicity, religion, social class)
3. Transient populations (e.g. students)
4. Community = loose ‘networks’ which we choose to join from
time to time, with varying degrees of commitment. Belong to
more than one at any time. (Herbert 2006) Constantly shifting
entities – no ‘end point’.
Do these pose problems for the idea of a defined, geographic,
‘community’?
Community policing in the 21st c.
Social media:
1. Communication across communities
2. Communication within a ‘community’, but across geographic
borders
3. Increased expectations of police communication, responsiveness
4. Rapidly changes, unpredictable
5. Evidence of police using SM to ‘build’ a sense of community
(O’Connor 2015)
→ Is social media an opportunity or a threat to community policing?
Community policing in the 21st c.
Fiscal restraint (austerity measures)
1. CP is resource-intensive
2. Needs long-term investment and commitment of
staff
3. Benefits are often not immediately apparent
4. CP is often the first to go when policing budgets are
reduced – the police become more reactive,
enforcement orientated
Do the benefits of CP outweigh the cost of resourcing
it? Should it be protected at all times?
How well does ‘community policing’
translate?
• Reasons to be very cautious:
– Contested notions of ‘community’
– ‘Community’ conflict might well have been at the
root of the problem (fissures run deep)
– Low police/state legitimacy (implicated in the
conflict)
– Historical differences in police-citizen relationship,
social ordering & governance
– Cultural resistance, implementation failure,
resources, capacities and skills
– External interests can trump local interests
Reasons to be cautiously optimistic
• Community conflict and low police legitimacy have not
only been characteristics of FCASs and have been
improved through CP elsewhere
• Possibilities of working iteratively – from policing for
democracy (getting the basics right for equitable
service and security) to democratically responsive
policing (a more decisive engagement with community
policing)(Aitchison and Blaustein, 2013)
• Possibilities (and dangers?) of mobilising ‘the
extended policing family’ and community capacity
(Johnston and Shearing, 2003)
Discussion topics
1. Has your experience been one of ‘community policing’
or of ‘policing communities’? Why?
2. Is community policing possible in non-democratic
states? Or is it a competing philosophy?
3. From your perspective, how do we do CP within
diversifying communities in times of fiscal restraint?
4. Is social media an opportunity or a threat to community
policing? Why?
5. Can we ever know what a ‘community’ is?
6. How realistic is it to expect members of the public to
participate in their own security? Are they willing
partners?
Feedback