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Dissecting Community Policing – The Contemporary American Perspective
Patryk F. Jaroszkiewicz
Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, University of New Haven
CJST-7701: Seminar in Criminal Justice
Dr. David Myers
November 27, 2020
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Dissecting Community Policing – The American Perspective
Introduction
While the development of American policing is deeply rooted in the first modern police
force in England, created by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, the United States did not initially adhere to
the innovative ‘Peelian’ virtues. Particularly, the notion that “the police are the public, and the
public are the police,” which stressed the importance of continuous partnership between the
community and law enforcement, did not fit the controversial reality during the early creation
stages of modern police organizations in America (Williams, 2003). Given that all citizens are a
vital part in the community policing model, it was not until late 1980’s when the paradigm of
police work shifted towards the police-citizen partnership approach. Williams and Murphy
(1990) noted that minority communities across the nation, previously omitted by the benefits of
policing, played a critical role in triggering the era of community policing (p. 2). However, not
only does the existing community-oriented approach emphasize the crucial aspect of collective
efficacy within the public safety arena, but also stresses the need for progressive transformation
of law enforcement agencies, and the implementation of problem-solving strategies (COPS,
2016).
Although some scholars challenge its effectiveness, the community policing model
became a particularly accepted strategy across the nation, in which 98 percent of police cadets
receive various training courses in this approach (Reaves, 2016, p.7). Therefore, it is important to
continue the evaluation process of this approach in today’s dynamic context and seek ways to
readjust the initial framework depending on the unfolding circumstances. Given the recent
nationwide civil unrest, protests against police brutality, and calls for defunding police
organizations, the following paper explores the public’s perception and attitude towards
community policing, prior to the currently heavily bruised relationship between minority
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communities and the police.
Background
While some scholars have challenged community-oriented policing with skepticisms
such as “old wine in new bottles” (Thurman, 2002) and referred to this philosophy as “a failed
attempt at change” (Thomas, 2019, p. 51), COP continues to effectively evolve and adapt to the
rapidly changing dynamics of society. Additionally, critics point to the ambiguity of
interpretation when it comes to implementation of COP tactics, in which various jurisdictions
can disguise other aggressive policing strategies under the same definition (Fielding, 2005;
Thomas, 2019). Many scholars, especially those involved in the initial creation of COP
strategies, argued that the flexible definition of COP intentionally acknowledges that policing is
composed of several different internal dimensions, simultaneously affected by various external
factors (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1994). However, the general framework of COP
philosophy, which is meant as a guiding principle, constitutes of three pivotal elements: citizen
involvement, organizational transformation, and problem-solving approach (Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services, 2016). The great emphasis on police-citizen partnership
is what distinguishes COP from the traditional policing approaches seen in the previous eras.
In 2015, the President’s Task Force Report on 21st-Century Policing once again
recalibrated community-oriented policing and in the era of police militarization, triggered by the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, stressed the importance of guardianship. The President’s
Task force attempted to address the “us-versus-them, black-and-white, and drug-war mentality”
(Balko, 2014, p. 321), and aimed to extend the original ideas, while promoting collective
efficacy in crime reduction. Such approach is the ultimate reflection of the ‘Peelian Principles’ in
which citizens are viewed as vital allies of the police.
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Given the proactive nature of COP strategies, in 2018, the National Academics of
Sciences (NAS) examined proactive interventions and programs of multiple police agencies
across the nation. The results indicated that proactive policing efforts, particularly focused on
high-crime areas, not only exhibited consistently effective outcomes on crime reduction, but also
improved police-citizen relations. Moreover, Weisburd and Majmundar (2018) added that such
strategies reduce fear of crime, increase police legitimacy, and promote problem-solving tactics.
Current Research
Given that trust in police and police legitimacy are necessary factors for effective
community policing, Kahn et al. (2019) examined residents’ attitudes about the police in
Portland, Oregon, which involved community engagement patrols (CEPs) across 60 most crimedense areas. In this experiment, Portland’s CEP’s aimed to secure positive police-community
partnership and prioritized non-investigative contacts with the citizens in high-crime areas, rather
than engaging in traditional enforcement strategies. It was a truly innovative approach, as hot
spot policing is often synonymous with the “crime control model” (Packer, 1968) and aggressive
tactics such as drug raids, “stop and frisk,” and zero tolerance policing, which increase policecitizen contact but simultaneously yield fear of police.
Based on the city’s crime reports and previous calls for service, Kahn et al. (2019)
identified 90 “neighborhood involvement locations” (NI-Locs) and randomized CEPs into three
groups: 30 scheduled to include two CEPs per day, 30 assigned four CEPs per day, and the
remaining 30 locations as the control group with no treatment (p.919). The intervention was
active over six months, where each target location received treatment for 90 consecutive days
and involved 16,213 households within the 90 NI-Locs. Considering the non-investigative nature
of police-citizen interactions and increased police visibility, the authors hypothesized that areas
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with CEP treatment would reflect positive image of police and enhance interactions.
Kahn et al. (2019) used survey instrument to collect data and mailed the questionnaires to
11,760 household immediately after each intervention sequence was completed (p.921).
However, despite the initial large sample, only 1,537 surveys were returned of which 1,423 were
used as the final sample, which accounts for roughly 13 percent response rate. The survey
instrument focused on residents’ perceptions of the CEPs and asked the respondents to assess the
quality of police performance such as exposure to officers, perceptions of police duties, visibility
of officers throughout NI-Locs, and questions pertaining to police legitimacy. While the results
indicated that community members from CEP districts reported a higher number of positive
police-citizen contacts, residents’ attitudes towards police were not affected. Interestingly, all of
the findings regarding attitudes toward police were not significant within the three groups,
indicating that police-community relations were not improved as a result of the intervention. The
authors noted that it could have been caused by all-too-brief interactions with the community
members, yet stressed that the reported increased positive contact can be perceived as an
important building block for future community policing models.
While some scholars argue that community policing strategies are “soft on crime” and
fail to present empirical data on successful crime reduction and crime clearance rates (Frydl &
Skogan, 2004; Reisig & Kane, 2014), Tillyer (2018) examined the impact of communityoriented policing (COP) on violent crime arrest rates. In his comprehensive study, the author
collected and linked the data from the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and
Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), which totaled 402,786
reports of violent incidents across 603 jurisdictions (p. 533). The sample was composed of
municipal police departments, sheriff departments, and state police agencies, which policed
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“cities of approx. 79,000 residents… with an average of 859 violent crime incidents per 100,000
population” (p. 534). Based on each agency’s involvement in various COP strategies, Tillyer
conducted a multilevel analysis of these aspect may affect the likelihood of arrest. Offender
characteristics and various crime types, such as murder, kidnapping, and robbery, examined in
the study, were exported from the NIBRS data and coded as dichotomous dependent variables,
which distinguished whether an arrest was made or not for each individual crime. On the other
hand, the organizational variables, including education requirements of each agency,
technological advancements, and various COP strategies pursued, were extracted from the
LEMAS survey.
As a mean to demonstrate his findings, Tillyer created a series of multilevel models that
examined a potential relationship between COP strategies and arrests. The results exhibited that
arrests occurred in 44.8 percent of all violent crimes, where simple assault accounted for the
majority of incidents (70.6 percent). Moreover, 85.2 percent of the agencies reported engagement
in at least one of the COP activities and the average department engaged between two and three
of these tactics (p. 540-543). Based on the analysis, the author found that departments that
implemented multiple COP models had slightly higher, yet statistically significant arrest rates for
all violent crimes, compared to the agencies that were marginally engaged in COP. Interestingly,
agencies that used SARA model did not display statistical significance with arrest rates. While
overall, the findings suggested a positive relationship between arrest rates and COP tactics,
Tillyer concluded that engagement in a single COP activity will not have any meaningful impact
on arrests. Therefore, departments must implement a diverse and comprehensive approach,
which ensures a combination of various, crime-specific, and targeted tactics.
Given that community policing philosophy emphasizes the partnership between the
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communities and the police, particularly stressing the civic engagement as a crucial element of
public safety (Skogan, 2006), it is also imperative to examine police officers’ perspectives
toward such strategy. It is particularly significant, as some scholars commented on “the paradox
of the simultaneous emergence of community policing and militarism” (Koslicki & Willits,
2018; Balko, 2014), which suggests that it is challenging to implement community policing
strategies when law enforcement officers view themselves as warriors, rather than guardians.
Gau and Paul (2019) surveyed 203 officers in a mid-sized police department in Florida and
analyzed officers’ “attitudinal adaptation” (p. 947) towards three dependent variables:
community-policing orientation, order-maintenance orientation, and law-enforcement
orientation. On the other hand, the independent variables consisted of community and
organizational elements that influence officers’ job-related attitudes, such as stress, job
satisfaction, and danger.
Most importantly, the authors found that officers were inclined toward community
policing (mean of 10.56) but did not fully endorse order-maintenance and traditional lawenforcement strategies. Interestingly, Gau and Paul note that few independent variables were
found to relate to the dependent variables, which suggests that specific role orientations are not
associated with officers’ job-related viewpoints. Moreover, statistically significant results were
observed among Black officers, who favored community policing approach more than white
officers and in general, officers with college education exhibited modestly more positive
attitudes compared to those without higher education (p. 952). While the obtained results cannot
be generalized to the entire law enforcement population, the data implies that despite the visible
militarization of police forces across the nation, the controversial warrior-mentality is not
ubiquitously embedded within the police culture.
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Based on the findings, Gal and Paul also offer a few important implications for future
police policies. First, police leaders should further encourage and promote officers’ involvement
in community policing by implementing various activities and programs, which would allow for
more opportunities to enhance the police-citizen partnership. Second, additional efforts must be
introduced to encourage officers to address disorder, so that initially minor incidents will not
escalate to major issues that negatively affect peoples’ fear or crime. The authors note that ordermaintenance can be achieved through problem-oriented policing, which is one of them main
pillars of COP. Third, the findings indicate that cynicism and job stress discourage police
officers from carrying out their duties effectively. For instance, those working in high-crime
areas and display early warning signs of emotional exhaustion, should be transferred to lowercrime districts to prevent potentially disastrous consequences. Such empathetic approach
promotes a healthy environment and assures supportive organizational atmosphere.
Conclusion
The existing empirical literature shows that harmonious police-community relationships
and mutual trust are vital elements of COP. However, such collaborative partnership style
requires genuine and considerably comprehensive efforts to yield the anticipated results. Given
today’s anti-police sentiment and distrust of police across the nation, especially within minority
communities, regaining the public’s trust is an extraordinarily challenging task. As some activists
openly lament that “The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the
public and the police” (Kaba, 2020), it is difficult to continue implementation of COP strategies,
which primarily rely on close civic engagements. The desired alienation from the police will
encourage the “us-vs-them” mentality, thus damage the much-needed bonds with the public.
Therefore, while various voices of stakeholders are important in criminal justice policies,
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policymakers should be guided primarily by empirical findings, rather than anecdotal evidence.
For instance, the public should be informed that unlike other policing styles, the partnership
element of COP also aims to enhance police legitimacy (Skogan, 2006).
There are certainly several nuances within COP philosophy that require further empirical
research, but the current findings indicate that when implemented correctly, COP strategies are
mutually beneficial. Given the large array of definitions of COP, agencies must be specific when
implementing these measures, as organizational changes from the top down require endorsement
by all police personnel to be effective (White, 2007). Similarly to the findings above, other
scholars also emphasize that “community policing without a clear focus on crime risk factors
generally shows no effect on crime” (Sherman & Eck, 2006, p. 295), which is why specific
problem-oriented approach should be encouraged.
One aspect that consistently stands out from the existing research is education among
police officers and its promising potential for adequate implementation of COP tactics. While the
training and education of law enforcement officers is a highly debated subject, as Gau and Paul
(2019) found, officers with college education displayed more positive attitudes toward COP
efforts. Therefore, raising the minimum education requirements for police officers can help
create more erudite guardians. A more comprehensive analysis would greatly enrich these
findings and allow for generalizability of the results.
Overall, policing is facing yet another challenging evolution, since the escalating racial
tensions and incidents of police brutality effectively derailed COP. However, rather than
promoting further isolation from the police, policy makers should seek solutions that seek to
further integrate police and their constituents. Populist slogans such as “Abolish the police,” are
not a recipe for pragmatic and realistic reform but provide only a temporary assuagement of the
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problem. Effective reforms should be always rooted in scientific research and empirical
evidence.
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