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Community policing: Did it change the basic functions of
policing in the 1990s? A national follow-up study
Jihong "Solomon" Zhao a; Ni He b; Nicholas P. Lovrich c
a
University of Nebraska at Omaha,
b
Northeastern University,
c
Washington State University,
Online Publication Date: 01 December 2003
To cite this Article: Zhao, Jihong "Solomon", He, Ni and Lovrich, Nicholas P. (2003)
'Community policing: Did it change the basic functions of policing in the 1990s? A
national follow-up study', Justice Quarterly, 20:4, 697 - 724
To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/07418820300095671
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COMMUNITY POLICING: DID IT
C H A N G E THE BASIC F U N C T I O N S
OF P O L I C I N G IN THE 1990s?
A NATIONAI, FOLLOW-UP STUDY*
J I H O N G "SOLOMON" ZHAO**
University of Nebraska at Omaha
NI HE***
Northeastern University
N I C H O L A S P. LOVRICH****
Washington State University
This article examines changes in organizational priorities related to the
three core functions of American policing--crime control, the maintenance
of order, and t h e provision of services--during the era of community-oriented policing (COP). The change in priorities is analyzed using panel data
from three national surveys of more than 200 municipal police departments
conducted in 1993, 1996, and 2000. The primary finding is that police corefunction priorities remained largely unchanged during this period. However, the systematic implementation of COP programs reflects an all-out
effort to address all three core functions of policing at a higher level of
achievement.
If the ability to change is an essential trait for organizations
t h a t are seeking to r e m a i n competitive and to ensure a fit with
* Address all correspondence to Jihong "Solomon" Zhao, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182; e-mail:
j zhao@mail.unomaha.edu.
** Jihong "Solomon" Zhao is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He was formerly a senior researcher in the Omaha Department of Correction. His research interests include
police organization, with a particular emphasis on organizational change, culture,
and individual behavior and values.
*** Ni He is an assistant professor in the College of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston. He received his Ph.D. in criminal justice from the University
of Nebraska at Omaha. He has previously published work on police organization and
comparative crime statistics. His current research interests include policing, quantitative methods, and comparative criminology.
**** Nicholas P. Lovrich has been the Claudius O. and Mary W. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Political Science since 1998 and has served as the director of the
Division of Governmental Studies and Services at Washington State University for
the past 24 years. He served as the editor-in-chief of the Review of Public Personnel
Administration from 1990 to 2000. He has coauthored 7 books and published over
130 articles in the areas of political science, public administration, and criminal
justice.
JUSTICE QUARTERLY, Vol. 20 No. 4, December 2003
© 2003 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN POLICING
their respective environments, then the ability of American police
organizations to adapt to societal change is an important trait to
study. By the end of the 1980s, change in the societal environment
in which American police departments operated created significant
pressures to adopt innovative practices. Two decades of rising crime
and an ever-worsening drug abuse problem prompted a dramatic
increase in public fear of crime. The apparent inability of traditional police organizations to control crime (e.g., Greenwood,
Chaiken, & Petersitia, 1977; Kelling, Pate, Dieckman, & Brown,
1974) led to the gradual erosion of public confidence (Crank &
Langworthy, 1992).
During this period, numerous scholars speculated about the extent to which the broad adoption of community policing, a dramatic
form of organizational change, would succeed in reforming police
organizations and restoring public confidence in law enforcement
(for a review, see Greene, 2000). 1 Among these scholars were Kelling and Moore (1988), who proposed a "three-era" framework to
conceptualize the history of police reform in the United States. It is
not surprising that community policing was identified as the most
recent substantial reform era in police practices. The three eras
identified by Kelling and Moore were the political era (from the
1860s to the early 1900s), the professional era (from the early 1900s
to the mid-1980s), and the c o m m u n i t y era (from the mid-1980s to
the present day). Kelling and Moore argued that reform in each era
is reflected in substantive changes in two primary areas: the reorientation of police strategies and activities and the reordering of
the priorities of police core functions. For example, community policing is said to emphasize crime control as an indirect result of the
other core activities of maintaining order and providing services.
Many systematic evaluations of the effectiveness of innovative
strategies and practices that are associated with community policing have been conducted and reported (see, e.g., Rosenbaum, 1994;
Skogan & Hartnett, 1997; for a review, see Cordner 1997; Zhao,
Lovrich, & Thurman, 1999). Many municipal, county, and state police agencies have changed their organizational mission statements
and modified their methods of operation, often developing and implementing innovative strategies and programs in the process. For
example, Greene (2000) identified the existence of four distinct
types of police operation: traditional policing, community policing,
1 In this paper, t h e t e r m s reform, change, community policing, a n d community-oriented policing(COP) are used interchangeably, reflecting the idea of innovations in police operations.
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699
problem-oriented policing, and zero-tolerance policing. Notwithstanding all the evaluation studies, however, there has been relatively limited research on the extent of the reordering of priorities
of core police functions that may have occurred in association with
community policing. Have the maintenance of order and the provision of services become equally important functions to crime control, as Kelling and Moore (1988) speculated and as the image of the
"broken windows" metaphor of Wilson and Kelling (1982) suggests?
At this time, after more than a decade of implementation, it is possible to ask, Does community policing represent a genuine paradigm shift in policing, or is it more properly understood as a change
in operational activities that is intended to make police agencies
appear to be adaptive and innovative while their core priorities remain unchanged?
This article represents the third installment in a continuing effort to monitor change in the priorities of police core functions during the 1990s, when community policing came into full swing
(Greene, 2000). In two previous studies based on data collected
from the same sample of 281 police agencies broadly distributed
across the country (Zhao, Lovrich, & Robinson, 2001; Zhao & Thurman, 1997), we found that the priorities assigned to core police
functions remained relatively stable between 1990 and 1996. To update the monitoring of progress in the implementation of community policing, we surveyed the same set of police agencies again in
2000. We constructed a panel data set that pulled together these
three surveys from 1993, 1996, and 2000. These panel data enabled
us to investigate two important research questions: (1) Did the priorities assigned to core police functions change as a result of the
widespread reorientation of police practices in the 1990s? and (2)
Was any observed change in the prioritization of core functions due
to discernible aspects of a police department's external and/or internal environment?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Organizational change can be analyzed at two distinctive
levels: innovations that take place at the operational level and
changes that are at the level of organizational goals and priorities. ~
Change in organizational goals and priorities will lead to change in
innovative activities and programs that are undertaken at the operational level (Donaldson, 1995). At the same time, the implementation of more innovative activities leads to a further change in goals.
2 According to contingency theory, the two levels are closely associated. A
change in goals should be reflected in a corresponding change in operations, and vice
versa.
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ORGANIZATIONALCHANGE IN POLICING
In other words, organizational goals and priorities largely dictate
what means will be adopted to achieve organizational ends (goals)
(Thompson, 1967). Normally, there is a strong link between organizational goals and daily activities. This reasoning is illustrated well
by the example of typical police operations during the professional
era. Police operations, such as motorized patrol and criminal investigation, represent elements of "reform" that were adopted in the
professional era to reflect the primacy of the goal of more effective
crime control emphasized during this period (Walker, 1977). There
was a strong similarity between what the police wanted to do
(crime-fighting goals and priorities) and how to do it (patrol and
investigative operational activities). In the case of community policing, foot patrol and storefront stations have been adopted widely in
recent years to address neighborhood social disorder, which has become an important focus of police work during the community era
(Maguire, 1997).
Based on our reading of the management literature, we argued
previously (Zhao et al., 2001; Zhao & Thurman, 1997) that organizational goals are far from unitary in character. The Noble laureate
Herbert Simon (1964, p. 1) closely examined the phenomenon of organizational goal phenomena, and in his article "On the Concept of
Organizational Goal," argued convincingly that the construct of organizational goal is "seldom unitary, but generally consists of a
whole s e t of constraints that action must satisfy." Organizations
are expected to perform a number of functions and pursue a variety
of goals. Simon observed that while none of the goal-derived core
functions can be completely ignored, limited resources force all forreal organizations to establish priorities among their functions on
the basis of the pressures they experience from their external and/
or internal environments (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1969).
A consensus exists among scholars that American policing has
been characterized by three distinctive goal-derived functions
throughout its nearly 150-year history: crime control, order maintenance, and service provision (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1990;
Walker, 1999; Wilson, 1968). The history of change in American policing has involved systematically establishing new priorities for
the three core functions while continuing to meet at least the minim u m requirement of maintaining some effort on all three (Kelling
& Moore, 1988). For example, proponents of the professional model
of policing that came into prominence in the decades before the advent of community policing viewed crime control as the primary
function of police, and viewed order maintenance and service provision as requiring only secondary attention and limited organizational support (Thurman, Zhao, & Giacomazzi, 2001).
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LOVRICH
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A key characteristic of community policing is said to be its purposeful and systematic reprioritization of the three core functions
by shifting efforts away from the preoccupation with crime control
inherent in the professional model and giving greater attention to
order maintenance and service provision (Goldstein, 1990; Maguire,
1997; Oliver 2000; Thurman et al. 2001). For example, Eck and Rosenbaum (1994, pp. 7-8) observed that "community policing rearranges priorities among functions and adds new ones.
Nonemergency services take on greater importance." Similarly,
Moore (1994) pointed out that a COP-directed rearrangement of police functions places greater emphasis on order maintenance and
other nonemergency services. Typical COP programs, such as foot
patrol, storefronts and mini-stations, school resource officers, geographic assignment, and citizen-engaged neighborhood crime prevention activities, are specifically directed toward the order
maintenance and service provision functions and secondarily address crime-reduction goals for offenses like theft and burglary
(Zhao et al., 2001).
APPLICATIONS OF CONTINGENCY THEORY AND
INSTITUTIONAL THEORY
Although they differ mainly in the range of exogenous factors
that are assumed to be at work (Donaldson, 1995), both contingency
and institutional theories of organizational change have their intellectual roots in general systems theory, originally developed in the
biological sciences in the 1920s and adapted to the social sciences in
the 1950s (Bertalanffy, 1956). Contingency theory emphasizes the
immediate external task environment (e.g., the use of technology,
size of a company, and socioeconomic characteristics of the community) within which an organization operates (Hage & Aiken, 1970;
Van de Ven & Drazin, 1985; Woodward, 1958), whereas the institutional perspective accords primary significance to the broad cultural and political environments (e.g., the political culture and
social norms in a community) within which organizations emerge
(DiMaggio, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Selznick, 1948).
According to contingency theory, the driving force behind organizational change is the external environment, particularly the
task environment with which an organization is confronted. For example, in their study of 20 industrial firms in the United Kingdom,
Burns and Stalker (1963) developed their well-known and widely
used categories of mechanistic versus organic organizations to describe the interdependent relationship between organizations and
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN POLICING
their environments. 3 Other contingency theorists have explored
patterns in the incidence of innovation and use of technology
(Dewar & Hage, 1978; Mohrman & Mohrman, 1990; Woodward,
1958) and the relationship between organizational size and organizational environment (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971; Kimberly, 1976).
The contingency perspective features two cardinal assumptions
about organizational change. First, individual organizations must
adapt themselves to the external environment when their existing
goals are affected by changes in their operating conditions. The external environment is conceptualized as posing demands to which
organizations must respond (Hage & Aiken, 1970). In addition, organizational environments are perceived as being dynamic, which
leads to the second cardinal assumption that a "fit" must be maintained between an organization and its environment over time. A
good fit between the two means higher levels of performance and
efficiency (Van de Van & Drazin, 1985), Donaldson (1995, p. 32) argues that to find an optimal fit, organizations have to be able to
alter both their goals and operations. For example, characteristics
of the task environment (e.g., stable and predictable versus turbulent) are likely to affect organizational arrangements for managing
resources and conducting ongoing operations.
The contingency perspective seems to apply to the analysis of
organizational change in policing quite well. The traditional strategies of crime control that were developed during the professional
era became increasingly ineffective in the late 1960s and 1970s because of rapid increases in crime rates, urban disturbances, and
fear of crime across the nation (Greenwood et al., 1977; Kelling et
al., 1974). There was a poor fit between the societal environment
and the prevailing structural and strategic organization of policing
(Brown & Wycoff, 1987; Kessler, 1993; Wycoff & Skogan, 1994). To
be more effective, police agencies would have to change. For example, more t h a n 30 years ago, Germann (1969) and Angell (1971) argued that there was a need for American police agencies to change
in order to adapt themselves to a changing social environment (e.g.,
President's Commission, 1967). Similarly, examining the proper
role of American police in a democratic society, Goldstein (1977)
stated that the model of policing in wide use during the professional
3 A key to understanding these two types of organizations is knowing that
organizational configuration (e.g., structure, supervision, and the division of labor) is
contingent on an effective matching up with the organizational environment. In this
regard, Lawrence and Lorsch's (1969) classic study on the impact of the external
environment on three types of manufacturing industries--pharmaceutical, chemical,
and container firms--constitutes one of the most influential works in organizational
theory. Its findings confirmed the view that organizational different'ration and integration are determined, to some important degree, by the specific environment that
surrounds an organization.
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703
era was essentially contradictory to some of the basic values of
American society.
The publication of Wilson and Kelling's "broken windows" thesis in 1982 helped to support the claim that order maintenance
should supplant crime control as the top priority of police work.
Wilson and Kelling argued that because social disorder provides a
climate in which criminal incidents flourish, local police agencies
should develop preventive strategies to resolve the problems of disorder that underlie crime, rather than simply to respond to crime
once it has been committed (Goldstein, 1990).
The proponents of community policing tend to emphasize three
primary propositions concerning organizational change. First, police agencies should respond to an environment that has changed
dramatically with respect to public expectations about government
in general, and about police services in particular. For example, police agencies should control disorder and reduce fear of crime in a
neighborhood or community. Empirical research and theoretical developments in policing challenged the continued viability of the professional model. Numerous scholars and prominent police
practitioners suggested that law enforcement organizations needed
to adapt to new societal demands and find a better fit with their
environment (Oliver, 2000; Kelling & Moore, 1988; Trojanowicz &
Bucqueroux, 1990).
The second proposition is that organizational change should
lead to a corresponding establishment of new priorities among police functions (Eck & Rosenbaum, 1994). A primary argument for
this proposition is that police need to address the real social disorder and social inequality underlying crime incidents (see, e.g.,
Capowich & Roehl, 1994; Eck & Spelman, 1987). The third proposition concerns the systematic linkage between a police agency's operational activities and its manifest organizational priorities. For
example, Wasserman and Moore (1988) argued that the formal
adoption of COP should lead to activities that are directed toward
social order and service provision, suggesting that the implementation of more COP programs (such as foot patrols, storefronts, school
resource officers, and geographic assignment), is likely to reflect a
reprioritization of core police functions. With respect to community
policing, then, the relationship between reported goals/priorities
and innovative activities can be described as reciprocal.
Institutional theory posits that organizations are deeply embedded in a particular social and cultural context and hence do not
change easily. Organizational goals and structural arrangements
are influenced significantly by the distinctive cultural and political
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elements at play when an organization comes into being and matures into an established social entity (Meyer & Rowan, 1977;
Meyer & Scott, 1983); these founding foundations have a lasting
legacy. As a consequence, organizational change phenomena and
associated behavior cannot be analyzed or explained solely on the
basis of a rational analysis of the changing character of the immediate environment (Scott, 1995). A crucial component of institutional
theory is the concept of legitimacy; in the institutional perspective,
the term legitimacy refers to "the degree of cultural support for an
organization--the extent to which the array of established cultural
accounts provide explanations for its existence, functioning, and jurisdiction" (Meyer & Scott, 1983, p. 201). According to institutional
theorists, legitimacy is not automatically given in rationalized organizational settings; formal organizations have to work hard and act
"appropriately" to gain it and sustain it over time (Meyer & Rowan,
1977).
To sustain organizational legitimacy and, at the same time,
adapt to significant environmental change, organizations can engage in "loosely coupled" activities--that is, the simultaneous maintenance of deeply foundational and highly legitimated activities,
along with the adoption of innovative and unconventional ones
(Magnire & Katz, 2002; Meyer, Boli, & Thomas, 1994). Meyer and
Scott (1983, p. 211) argue that "institutionalized organizations like
local government are likely t o . . . buffer themselves from work activities, through ritualization or decoupling of structure and activities." Simply stated, organizational change can reflect the
purposeful organizational effort both to generate public support
and to sustain internal "legitimacy" by making the organization
look "adaptive" to outsiders and appear "stable" to insiders at the
same time. Thus, organizational change can take the shape of a process of creating new programs and instituting new symbols and
rituals, while the core mission of an organization and its functional
priorities remain substantially intact (Meyer & Rowan, 1977).
In his classic work, The Functions of Police in Modern Society,
Bittner (1972) pointed out that an essential feature that distinguishes policing work from other types of work is the authorized
use of coercive force. Moreover, he contended that as a direct consequence of the exclusive legitimate right to use coercive force, crime
control is naturally taken as the top priority of police agencies (Bittner, 1967). For example, Manning (1988) argued that crime control
is universally perceived as the organizational mandate of police
agencies. Applying Bittner's theoretical framework to the analysis
of COP, Klockars (1988, p. 241) noted:
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705
[T]he modern movement toward w h a t is currently called
"community policing" is best understood as the latest in a
fairly long tradition of circumlocutions [italics added]
whose purpose is to conceal, mystify, and legitimate police
distribution of nonnegotiable coercive force.
Klockars joins Bittner in arguing t h a t the very nature of police
work makes it impossible to change the priorities among the core
crime control, order maintenance, and service provision functions
in the w a y COP is intended to do. Manning (1988) addresses the
same issue by characterizing the COP movement as little more
than "old wine in new bottles," a concept developed more to influence and manipulate public opinion than to reorder priorities
among police functions (also see Manning, 1995). Viewed from the
perspective of Bittner, Klockars, and Manning, the primary purpose of COP programs is to make police agencies look "progressive"
to their local constituents. Once they are out of the limelight, however, police officers tend to proceed with the business of policing in
pretty much the same w a y they always have, notwithstanding the
public pronouncement of support for COP. 4
In his case study of the Seattle Police Department, Lyons
(1999) concluded that the implementation of a community policing
program did not result in change in the core functions of policing;
the organization's goals and structural arrangements remained
largely intact. Furthermore, in an edited book on the progressive
militarization of the American criminal justice system, Kraska
(2001) argued t h a t crime control has become even more important
as a core function of policing during the community policing era
than it was in the past. A good example of the enhancement of the
crime-fighting function is the rapid increase in the number of SWAT
(Special Weapons and Tactics) teams housed in American police
agencies (Kraska & Cubellis, 1997). The purpose of SWAT is
straightforward: Highly trained teams can be swiftly deployed with
an impressive use of force in circumstances that call for a quasimilitary police response. The troublesome sign, according to Kraska
and Cubellis, is that a great n u m b e r of small cities adopted SWAT
teams in the 1990s, but the presence or absence of SWAT teams was
unrelated to local crime rates.
In a case study of the creation and operation of a gang unit in a
large police department in the Midwest, Katz (2001) observed that
the unit was rarely involved in the sorts of disorder activities for
4 Buerger (1994) added to this critique of COP by noting that community policing really entails little community empowerment; rather it emphasizes community cooperation. In most COP programs, the community is expected to be the "ears
and eyes" of the police, dutifully providing information about crime and criminals,
and is urged to rally to the support of the local police force on important occasions.
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN POLICING
which it was reportedly intended. Instead, the actual function of the
unit was to make the police department look proactive and appear
to be tough on crime. According to Katz, organizational image took
precedence over actual operations.
In two previous articles, we investigated perspectives of police
executives on the priorities of core police functions in over 200 police departments throughout the country. A primary finding of our
research was that the mean ratings of police core functions changed
little between 1993 and 1996 (Zhao et al., 2001). There was little
sign that the priority ratings of order maintenance and service provision increased over these years. In addition, the ratings assigned
by police chiefs to core police functions were relatively unaffected by
such factors as local crime rates and population size (Zhao et al.,
2001; Zhao & Thurman, 1997). In the following analysis, we extend
the earlier investigation by examining change in the prioritization
of core police functions from 1993 to 2000. The central argument we
set forth is that priorities that are assigned to core police functions
are largely independent of the extent of implementation of innovative programs and strategies. In other words, a police department
may implement numerous community policing programs and activities, but the priorities that are assigned to core police functions are
likely to remain stable (loose coupling). Recall that Bittner (1967,
1972) argued forcefully that the very nature of police work makes it
exceedingly difficult (if not impossible) to change it in any fundamental way. 5
It is important to note that we do not directly "test" the utility
of contingency or institutional theories in police reform, per se. The
discussion of the two theories presented here serves as a broad theoretical backdrop against which the nature of change in contemporary police agencies can be understood. In the following analysis,
the explanatory variables that we test for their impact upon police
agency priorities were derived primarily from the immediate environment of police organizations. The hypotheses tested are worded
in accordance with expectations derived from contingency theory.
In this regard, a close association between organizational goals or
priorities and the organization's task environment is assumed. Of
course, institutional theory predicts the lack of such a connection.
5 One reviewer pointed out that real organizational change is difficult for reasons beyond those given here; even if police leaders want to change priorities and
operations--and even perhaps the core functions of policing--they are resisted by
employees and hampered by external constraints,
ZHAO, HE, AND LOVRICH
707
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METHODOLOGY
Sources of Data
The data used in this analysis were derived from a longitudinal
study of municipal police departments entailing a series of surveys
conducted by the Division of Governmental Studies and Services
(DGSS) at Washington State University in 1993, 1996, and 2000.
DGSS has conducted mail surveys of police chiefs from the same set
of 281 municipal police departments in 47 states at roughly threeyear intervals since 1978. The cities in the sample were selected
from among those that were initially included in the representative
National Survey of Municipal Police Department in cities of over
25,000 population, conducted by the International City Management Association in 1969. In the most recent round of surveys
(2000), 223 departments (79% of the original sample) participated.
In 1996, 245 police departments (87% of the original sample) completed and returned questionnaires. In 1993, the responses of 224
departments (80% of the original sample) were available for our final analysis. An important additional source of information was the
Uniform Crime Report (UCR), from which crime data for each participating city were obtained.
Measures
The dependent variables included in the analysis reflect the
level of priority assigned to core-area police functions, as measured
by responses to Wilson's (1968) list of 16 police activities reflecting
the crime control, order maintenance, and service provision functions. A 4-point scale, ranging from very low priority to high priority, was used in the survey of police chiefs to gather priority ratings
on each of the 16 items. A factor analysis of the 1993 survey data
identified five distinctive factors (or clusters) representing identifiable police functions--CRM1 (control of violent crime), CRM2 (control of gang and drug offenses), CRM3 (control of property crime),
ORDER (order maintenance), and SERVICE (service activities) (see
Appendix A for a summary of the indices that were created and a
description of the survey questions/response categories). 6 In this
6 The five core functions of policing are based on the m e a n ratings of top police
administrators. There m a y be other priorities, such as actual workload or budget
allocations, t h a t were not measured. The exploratory factor analysis featuring
v a r i m a x rotation was first conducted on the basis of the 1993 data. Both scree plots
a n d eigenvalues (i.e., those greater t h a n 1) were used to determine the n u m b e r of
factors to retain. The confirmatory factor loadings for the subsequent years, 1996
a n d 2000, showed similar loadings of variables on each of the five indices. In addition, the a l p h a levels of each index were checked to m a k e sure t h a t reliable i n t e r n a l
association exists a m o n g survey items in t h e 1996 a n d t h e 2000 surveys (see Appendix A for more details).
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN POLICING
a n a l y s i s , t h e police f u n c t i o n indices w e r e c o n s t r u c t e d u s i n g t h e
s a m e s u r v e y i t e m s f r o m t h e 1996 a n d 2000 d a t a .
F i v e i n d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e s w e r e u s e d to t e s t for t h e effects of a
n u m b e r of p o t e n t i a l l y i m p o r t a n t e n v i r o n m e n t a l a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n a l
v a r i a b l e s t h o u g h t to b e a s s o c i a t e d w i t h t h e p r i o r i t i z a t i o n of police
functions. T h e first v a r i a b l e of i n t e r e s t is t h e level of v i o l e n t c r i m e
r e p o r t e d to t h e local police. D a t a on v i o l e n t c r i m e w e r e o b t a i n e d for
1992, 1995, a n d 1999, a n d t h e v i o l e n t c r i m e r a t e w a s l a g g e d one
y e a r for e a c h of t h e t h r e e w a v e s of s u r v e y s . 7 I t is r e a s o n a b l e to
s p e c u l a t e t h a t a n i n c r e a s e in t h e r a t e of v i o l e n t c r i m e in a n y comm u n i t y c o n s t i t u t e s a direct c h a l l e n g e for t h e local police a g e n c y in
t h e e x t e r n a l e n v i r o n m e n t . T h u s , o u r first h y p o t h e s i s is this:
H1. A n increase in serious violent crime will be associated
with a shift toward a higher priority on crime control.
T h e second i n d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e of i n t e r e s t is t h e e x t e n t of
a d o p t i o n of C O P p r o g r a m s , s I n t h e 1993, 1996, a n d 2000 s u r v e y s ,
police chiefs w e r e a s k e d to i d e n t i f y w h i c h C O P e l e m e n t s t h e y h a d
i m p l e m e n t e d a m o n g a list of 18 specific a r c h e t y p i c a l C O P p r o g r a m s
t h a t w e r e d e r i v e d f r o m t h e l i t e r a t u r e on C O P d i s c u s s e d e a r l i e r (see
A p p e n d i x B for a list of t h e p r o g r a m s g ) . A f u n d a m e n t a l objective of
c o m m u n i t y policing is to i n c r e a s e t h e i m p o r t a n c e of t h e o r d e r m a i n t e n a n c e a n d service f u n c t i o n s in m a i n t a i n i n g public safety. T h i s
s h i f t of police f u n c t i o n s c o m p o r t s w i t h t h e " b r o k e n w i n d o w s " t h e o r y ,
w h o s e a d v o c a t e s h o l d t h a t t h e o r d e r m a i n t e n a n c e a n d service funct i o n s a r e as i m p o r t a n t as t h e c r i m e control f u n c t i o n in a c h i e v i n g
public s a f e t y goals. G i v e n t h i s line of r e a s o n i n g , it s e e m s r e a s o n a b l e
to e x p e c t t h a t m u n i c i p a l police a g e n c i e s t h a t a d o p t e d m o r e i n n o v a t i v e C O P p r o g r a m s d u r i n g t h e s t u d y p e r i o d w o u l d be m o r e likely to
a l t e r t h e t r a d i t i o n a l o r d e r i n g of police f u n c t i o n s , a w a y f r o m c r i m e
control, t h a n w o u l d d e p a r t m e n t s t h a t e i t h e r s t a b i l i z e d or d e c r e a s e d
t h e n u m b e r of C O P p r o g r a m s . H e n c e , o u r second h y p o t h e s i s is as
follows:
7 Similar to the 1993 study, the four Part 1 crimes against persons (murder,
rape, robbery, and assault) that are published in the UCR make up the violent crime
index~ The index was constructed using the sum of z-scores of these crimes because
the frequencies of murder and rape were significantly lower than those of the other
two crimes.
s Several studies on community policing programs have taken a distinctly
multidimensional approach. For example, Zhao (1996) categorized COP programs as
externally focused or internally focused. The externally focused programs were created to deal with demands from the external environment, such as calls for a special
task force or the initiation of a foot patrol program. The internally focused programs,
such as quality circles, are used primarily to address managerial issues (also see
Maguire & Katz, 2002). In this study, community policing programs are treated as a
single dimension to evaluate the effect of COP implementation on change in the priorities of police agencies.
9 The use of innovative programs to measure the extent of change is common
in the literature on organizational change (Damanpour, 1991; Kimberly, 1976).
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ZHAO, HE, AND LOVRICH
709
H2: An increase in the number of community policing programs adopted will be associated with a shift in priorities
from crime control to order maintenance and service
provision.
The third independent variable of interest concerns a key organizational resource that enables an agency to implement, community policing--the number of commissioned officers that are
available for deployment. Community policing constitutes a laborintensive change in policing; under the COP philosophy, police ofricers engage in frequent individual interactions with local residents and initiate time-consuming problem solving activities.
Since its inception in 1994, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services has been mandated to facilitate organizational change,
in part, by placing 100,000 more community policing officers on the
streets in local police agencies (by either adding new positions or
reassig~ning existing staff). In our research, this workforce-availability variable was measured by the number of sworn officers per
1,000 population in each department in 1993, 1996, and 2000. It
seems reasonable to presume that an agency that reported an increase in police officers per 1,000 population should also be likely to
report some degree of reprioritization of police functions toward the
order maintenance and service provision functions. Therefore, our
third hypothesis is this:
H3. The greater the increase in the rate of commissioned
officers added between 1993, 1996, and 2000, the greater
the extent of the shift in the priorities of police functions
away from crime control and toward order maintenance
and service provision.
The fourth independent variable of interest is city size. Population size reported in the 1990 census was used in 1993, and the
population estimates of 1995 and 1999 reported in the UCR were
used for 1996 and 2000, respectively. Meagher (1985) found significant variation in police activities by city size in a national study of
249 municipal departments of widely varying sizes. Officers in
smaller agencies spent significantly more time providing services
than did their counterparts in larger agencies. Similarly, officers in
police departments in large cities tended to spend more time on the
crime control function than did their counterparts in police departments in smaller cities (see also Crank & Wells, 1991; Flanagan,
1985; Weisheit, Wells, & Falcone, 1994; for further discussion of the
variables city size and region, see Appendix C and Zhao & Thurman, 1997). Our fourth hypothesis is as follows:
H4. Police chiefs in small cities will rate order maintenance and service functions as higher priorities than will
their counterparts in large cities.
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710
ORGANIZATIONALCHANGE IN POLICING
The final independent variable of interest is the police chiefs
subjective evaluation of the growth in COP over the course of the
previous three years. This variable attempts to capture a subjective
j u d g m e n t of the extent of COP implementation in the surveyed police departments during the 1990s; it is possible that important
changes took place to implement COP that are not reflected in the
number of COP programs or activities that were supported. The
subjective measure was derived from a survey item that reads as
follows: "How would you characterize the changes that have taken
place in your COP program s i n c e . . . ? Has your program . . . ?"
which presents a 3-point response, ranging from 1 = "reduced in
scale" to 2 = "remained the same" to 3 = "increased in scale," during
the previous three years. Our fifth hypothesis is as follows:
H5: Police agencies that reported an increase in COP implementation will rate the order maintenance and service
functions higher than will their counterparts that reported
otherwise.
The Panel Model
We believe that the pooled cross-sectional time-series (or panel
data) analysis is an appropriate statistical technique to use in the
current study, for the following reasons. First, panel data are both
arrayed across cross-sectionally differentiated entities (cities) and
are temporally differentiated. The intersection of time and space
(city-year) serves as the unit of analysis. The city-year definition of
a pooled observation enables us to overcome the "small-N" problem.
Second, panel-data models permit inquiry into variables t h a t elude
study in simple cross-sectional or time-series arrays because their
variability is negligible or nonexistent across either time or space.
Panel analysis allows for systematic comparisons of cross-sectionally and longitudinally varying causal factors. Third, panel data
models enable us to construct and test more complicated models
than could be studied with either purely cross-sectional or purely
time-series data. Finally, when assumptions are met, regression estimates obtained from panel data analysis are more efficient
(Baltagi, 2001; Judge, Hill, Griffiths, Lutkepohl, & Lee, 1988).
Two major models of pooled regression analysis are suggested
by Judge et al. (1988): (1) the Least-Square D u m m y Variable
(LSDV) regression model and (2) the Error-Components (or Random-Effects) Generalized Least-Square (GLS) regression model.
Judge et al. (1988) suggest that two important considerations need
to be addressed before deciding on a model for pooling. First, one
must consider the relative sizes of N (i.e., cross-sectional units), T
(i.e., time-series units), and K (i.e., number of variables included).
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ZHAO, HE, AND LOVRICH
711
When T is large and N is small, there is little difference between
parameters estimated using either model. However, when N is
large and T is small, the p a r a m e t e r estimations can differ significantly. Taylor (1980) argues that the error components model using
GLS estimation is more appropriate when (1) T is equal to or
greater than 3 and N - K is equal to or greater than 9; and (2) T is
equal to or greater than 2 and N - K is equal to or greater than 10.
In our case, we had three waves of data (T = 3), a total of 281 police
agencies (N = 281), and eight variables (K = 8) in each regression
equation. Therefore, all the criteria suggested by Taylor (1980)
were met.
Second, one should always consider the critical distinction between conditional and unconditional inference. When the individuals in the sample are randomly drawn from the population, or one is
more interested in inferences about the population, unconditional
inference that is implicit in the error components model is appropriate (Hsiao 1995; Judge et al. 1988). Based on these criteria, we concluded that the Random-Effects model using GLS estimation was
the most appropriate for our study. 1° Our general model can be
written as follows:
Yit = ~'Xit + c~i + 7~ + ~it
Ecti = E ~ t = 0
Ec~i2 = ~ 2, Ec~ic~j = 0 for i ¢ j
Ee~tej~ = o~2, if i ~ j and t ~ s (E~it~j~ = 0, otherwise)
where Y~t is the dependent variable for city i at year t, Xit is a set of
explanatory variables, and ~ it is the error term. Note that the effects of omitted (i.e., unobserved or unmeasured) city-specific variables, a~, are treated as random. The time-specific component 7t
represents two year d u m m y variables (1996 and 2000; 1993 is the
reference category) that control for the unknown factors impacting
the rating of police-function priorities that are not accounted for by
the other variables. We also assume that a~,7~ and Eit are uncorrelated with Xit. T h e model thus specified is the one-way random-effects model, also known as the error components model (Baltagi,
2001; Hsiao, 1986, 1995; Judge et al., 1988). All estimations were
conducted in STATA. 11
zo The Breusch and Pagan Lagrangian multiplier test for random effects and
the Hausman specification tests were examined systematically. The results of the
Hausman test indicated that coefficients associated with fixed-effects and randomeffects models were not significantly different from one another. The results of the
Breusch and Pagan test weighed in favor of the random-effects models.
11 It is also worth mentioning that by specifying t~e random effects (re) option
in STATA, one obtains the Baltagi-Wu GLS estimator of the random-effects model.
This estimator is able to accommodate both unbalanced panels and unequally spaced
data (see Baltagi & Wu, 1999, for a further discussion of this issue).
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN POLICING
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FINDINGS
T h i s section d i s c u s s e s t h e m e a n r a t i n g s of t h e t h r e e core functions in t h e m u n i c i p a l police d e p a r t m e n t s , followed b y t h e m u l t i v a r i a t e a n a l y s i s of t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n t h e p r i o r i t i e s of police
f u n c t i o n s a n d t h e s e t of i n d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e s . T h e c o m p a r i s o n of
m e a n r a t i n g s a m o n g t h e 1993, 1996, a n d 2000 s u r v e y s a r e disp l a y e d in T a b l e 1.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics: D e p e n d e n t and
I n d e p e n d e n t Variables
2000
Mean SD
Dependent Variables
CRMI: Against persons
CRM2: Drug and gangs a'c
CRM3: Against property b'c
ORDER: Maintenance of order ¢
SERVICE: Service
3.76
3.38
2.94
2.91
2.48
Explanatory Variables
UCR: Violent crime z-scored
COP: Number of COP programs a'b
COP: Growth assessment ~'b
OFFICER: per 1,000 population c
CITY SIZE (in 100,000)
.00 1.00
8.68 5.12
2.65
.57
2.44 2.52
1.88 3.39
.44
.72
.50
.51
.60
1996
Mean SD
3.79
3.61
2.95
2.86
2.46
.37
.57
.47
.50
.51
.00 1.00
10.36 4.79
.38
2.86
.85
2.10
1.90 3.00
1993
Mean S D
3.77
3.56
2.84
2.79
2.37
.35
.53
.53
.53
.59
.00 1.00
8.69 5.19
2.64
.54
2.07
.89
1.81 3.17
n
223
245
224
t-test: 2000 and 1996, p < .05.
b t-test: 1996 and 1993, p < .05.
t-test: 2000 and 1993, p < .05.
d See Appendix D for individual UCR violent crime rates per 100,000 in 1992,
1995, and 1999.
T h e f i r s t p a r t of T a b l e i s e t s f o r t h t h e five d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e s ,
w h i c h reflect t h e t h r e e core police functions. T h e d i s p l a y o f m e a n
r a t i n g s r e v e a l s s o m e i n t e r e s t i n g findings. First, t h e r e w a s little
c h a n g e in t h e m e a n r a t i n g of C R M 1 o v e r t h e 1 9 9 3 - 2 0 0 0 period.
C R M 1 w a s c o n s i s t e n t l y r a t e d t h e top p r i o r i t y a m o n g t h e core functions. Second, t h e m e a n r a t i n g s s h o w s o m e s i g n i f i c a n t v a r i a t i o n for
t h e n e x t police priority, CRM2. Overall, t h e r a t i n g of C R M 2 w a s
l o w e r in 2000 (3.38) t h a n in 1996 (3.61) a n d 1993 (3.56). I n c o n t r a s t ,
t h e r a t i n g of C R M 3 w a s s i g n i f i c a n t l y h i g h e r in 2000 (2.94) a n d in
1996 (2.95) t h a n in 1993 (2.84).
Third, t h e r e w a s a s t e a d y i n c r e a s e in t h e m e a n r a t i n g s of ORD E R . I n t h e 2000 s u r v e y , t h i s f u n c t i o n r e c e i v e d a m e a n r a t i n g of
2.91, w h i c h w a s s i g n i f i c a n t l y h i g h e r t h a n its r a t i n g in 1993 (2.79).
Finally, t h e o r d e r of m e a n r a t i n g s a m o n g t h e s e five f u n c t i o n s rem a i n e d s i m i l a r across t i m e , w i t h C R M 1 t h e h i g h e s t p r i o r i t y a n d
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ZHAO, HE, AND LOVRICH
713
SERVICE the lowest. This pattern is consistent across all three
waves of data.
The means for the independent variables are displayed in the
second part of Table 1. The violent crime rate declined steadily from
1992 to 1999 (see Appendix D). All four types of violent crime
showed a decrease in mean levels. This finding is consistent with
the overall national pattern of trends in violent crime; the crime
rates leveled off in the early 1990s and declined later in the decade.
It is interesting that the n u m b e r of community policing programs
that were reported by the departments surveyed fluctuated somew h a t during the study period, suggesting that the rate of implementation of community policing did not maintain the momentum
demonstrated between 1993 and 1996. At the same time, the sizable standard deviation observed in 2000 (5.12) for this measure indicates that a noteworthy amount of shifting between the initiation
and termination of COP programs was taking place in this period.
The variable representing the subjective evaluation of the
growth of COP shows a pattern of change similar to that reported
for the implementation of COP programs. There was significant
growth between 1993 (2.64) and 1996 (2.86), followed by a decline in
2000 (2.65). There was also a significant increase in the number of
officers per 1,000 population, growing from 2.07 in 1993 to 2.44 in
2000. There was only a minor variation in city populations in our
sample over this period.
A multivariate analysis was performed to determine the extent
to which the five measures of "contingencies" account for the reordering of priorities among the core police functions from 1993 to
2000. The first three columns of Table 2 set forth the results for the
indicators of crime control priorities. The R-squares of these three
models estimating the influence of independent variables on the
m e a n priority ratings of police functions are relatively low. While
some hypothesized relationships failed to achieve statistical significance, those that are discussed next were exceptions.
First, the variable representing the number of COP programs
that were adopted and maintained is a consistently significant predictor of the three dependent variables measuring crime control
functions (CRM1, CRM2, and CRM3). However, the magnitudes of
the respective coefficients are relatively small. For example, an increase in one COP program results in an increase of .017 in the
mean rating of CRM1, a .043 increase in the mean rating of CRM2,
and a .015 increase in the mean rating of CRM3. Second, the U C R
measure of the violent crime rate has a significant effect on the ratings of both CRM2 and CRM3. The relationship between the violent
crime rate and the priority given to controlling drugs and gangs
714
ORGANIZATIONALCHANGE IN POLICING
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T a b l e 2.
O n e - W a y R a n d o m - E f f e c t s GLS R e g r e s s i o n
A n a l y s i s U s i n g U n b a l a n c e d P o o l e d Data: T h e
Effect of Independent Variables on Core Police
Functions (standard errors in parentheses)
UCR Violent Crime
Officers per 1,000
COP: Number of programs
COP: Growth
City size
Yr_1996
Yr_2000
aa
a~it
p
CRM1
b
.004
(.006)
.014
(.009)
.017"
(.005)
.014
(.029)
.000
(.000)
-.016
(.034)
-.029
(.033)
.212
.334
.287
CRM2
b
.017"
(.008)
.001
(.014)
.043*
(.009)
.008
(.045)
.000
(.000)
.014
(.052)
-.170"
(.051)
.327
.501
.299
CRM3 ORDER SERVICE
b
b
b
-.027*
-.014"
-.030*
(.007)
(.007)
(.008)
.024*
-.000
-.004
(.012)
(.012)
(.014)
.015"
.047*
.021"
(.007)
(.007)
(.008)
.081'
.049
.073
(.039)
(.040)
(.044)
.000
.000
.000
(.000)
(.000)
(.000)
.066
-.001
.032
(.047)
(.048)
(.051)
.089
.106"
.082
(.046)
(.047)
(.050)
.185
.107
.258
.461
.472
.498
.139
.048
.212
R2
.03
.12
.05
.09
.06
Wald X2
15.26"
67.94*
31.72"
60.43*
30.73*
n
632
628
632
632
632
* p < .05.
Note: aa is the panel-level standard deviation, ae~ is the standard deviation of sit, and
p reflects the fraction of variance that is due to random effects.
(CRM2) is positive, b u t t h e r e is a r e v e r s e r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n t h e
violent crime r a t e a n d t h e p r i o r i t y given to t h e control of p r o p e r t y
c r i m e (CRM3). In addition, s t a t i s t i c a l l y significant associations
w e r e f o u n d b e t w e e n t h e p e r c e i v e d g r o w t h in COP, t h e r a t e of ofricers per 1,000 population, a n d t h e p r i o r i t y given to CRM3. T h e
coefficient for t h e 2000 d u m m y v a r i a b l e is statistically significant
in the model w i t h CRM2 as t h e d e p e n d e n t variable. This finding
i n d i c a t e s t h a t , c o m p a r e d to 1993, t h e police chiefs gave a lower prio r i t y to d e a l i n g w i t h d r u g s a n d g a n g s in 2000.
T h e r e s u l t s of the analysis of t h e effect of i n d e p e n d e n t variables on O R D E R a n d S E R V I C E are d i s p l a y e d in the last two colu m n s of T a b l e 2. Again, t h e R - s q u a r e s of t h e s e two models are
r e l a t i v e l y low. S i m i l a r to t h e findings n o t e d in o u r p r e v i o u s studies
(e.g., Zhao & T h u r m a n , 1997), t h e U C R Violent C r i m e I n d e x is negatively associated w i t h b o t h O R D E R a n d SERVICE. A l t h o u g h t h e
m a g n i t u d e of t h e coefficients is r e l a t i v e l y small, the statistically
significant r e l a t i o n s h i p s i n d i c a t e t h a t w h e n t h e violent crime r a t e
is h i g h e r in a city, t h e local police d e p a r t m e n t is likely to d e v o t e less
a t t e n t i o n to its o r d e r m a i n t e n a n c e a n d service provision functions.
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715
At the same time, the variable for the number of COP programs
adopted and maintained is significantly and positively associated
with these two functions of policing. The coefficient for the 2000
d u m m y variable is statistically significant in the model for ORDER.
This finding means that compared to 1993, police chiefs gave a
higher priority rating to the order maintenance function in 2000.
The mean rating of ORDER was 2.91 in 2000, a significant increase
from 2.79 in 1993.
D I S C U S S I O N A N D CONCLUSION
In previous articles (Zhao et al., 2001; Zhao & Thurman, 1997),
which compared the results of the 1993 and 1996 surveys, it was
reported that the priorities of American police strongly reflected the
professional crime-fighting model. The priority ratings of core police
functions were unrelated to variation in several departmental and
environmental variables (e.g., the crime rate, number of COP programs, the number of commissioned police officers, and the size of
cities). In this study, we examined the relationship between the priorities accorded to core police functions and organizational environmental conditions from 1993 to 2000, with a particular focus on
evidence of any shift away from crime control as a predominant priority in policing. This was a period during which community policing became a broadly diffused innovation across the country. The
findings of this study clearly indicate that during the period under
study, the core functional priorities of American policing remained
largely in alignment with the dictates of the professional model. Police chiefs' subjective ratings of priorities were generally unaffected
by changes in local crime rates, by the addition of COP officers, by
their own subjective evaluation of the growth of COP, and by
change in city size between 1993 and 2000.12 We came to this conclusion on the basis of the evidence that the R-squares for each
model were relatively low, particularly for crime control functions.
Two opposing theories, contingency theory and institutional
theory, were used to provide a broad theoretical backdrop against
which to investigate change in police organizations. According to
contingency theory, the relationship between the task environment
add organizational goals and activities should be linked; that is, organizational change reflects changes in the external environment.
For example, change in local crime rates may lead a police agency
12 One reviewer rightfully pointed out t h a t our model may be underspecified
without the inclusion of m e a s u r e s of police-community relations (PCR) and community disorder. We also concur with this reviewer t h a t jurisdiction-level measures of
PCR a n d disorder would be difficult, if n e t impossible, to obtain. Therefore, proper
caution in reading our results is warranted.
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ORGANIZATIONALCHANGEIN POLICING
to reorder priorities for the allocation of its resources. In contrast,
institutional theory proposes a loosely coupled relationship between
organizations and their respective environments. Our findings lend
considerably more support to institutional theory than to contingency theory as a general framework for understa_nding change in
American policing. Explanatory variables derived largely from contingency theory failed to predict change in police organizations in
our panel model. The results gleaned from these statistical models
should be robust; the panel data analysis enabled us to capture
unobserved variation caused by such factors as the local environment and unique geographic influence, factors that cannot be controlled for in cross-sectional data. Even with controls for the
unobserved systematic variance, the R-square for control of crime
against persons CRM1 remains low. These findings suggest that
when local crime rates increase, police agencies pay less attention
to the provision of services and to order maintenance than to crime
fighting. This situation is opposite to the recommendations of some
COP advocates, who argue that to reduce local crime rates, the police need to address minor offenses and improve police-community
relations.
The findings with respect to mean ratings of the five core functions reveal that the ratings for two core functions, the control of
crime against persons and service provision, remained highly consistent over the entire decade. The ratings of the other three functions showed some statistically significant fluctuations over time,
particularly with respect to drug and gang offenses. This result may
signify that there was a high degree of consensus on what is the top
priority (control of crime against persons) and what is the lowest
priority (service provision). These findings, together with the multivariate analysis reported in Table 2, suggest that Bittner (1967,
1972) was correct when he argued that the priority accorded to the
control of violent crime is genuinely independent of the influence of
either internal organizational or external environmental factors. In
addition, our findings concerning the relationship between the implementation of COP programs and the ratings of core functions of
policing shed some light on a fundamental question: What overall
impact does COP have on policing operations? Our analysis showed
that the extent of implementation of COP is a statistically significant predictor of all core functions of policing. On the basis of the
analysis presented here, we argue that COP can be characterized as
a comprehensive effort by local police simultaneously to control
crime, to reduce social disorder, and to provide services to the
citizenry.
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ZHAO, HE, AND LOVRICH
717
The longitudinal data explored in this analysis extend only a
decade. This is too limited a time period to support a definitive
judgment about the extent to which COP will ultimately represent
a paradigm shift in American policing. Given that it took police
agencies three decades (the 1900s to the 1930s) to complete the
transition from the political model of policing to the currently predominant professional model, much more time must pass before we
can fully assess the historical impact of COP. Future research of the
type reported here will need to be undertaken periodically to determine whether a long-term pursuit of COP leads to a genuine reordering of priorities among the core functions of American policing.
In this regard, a test of rival predictions, drawn from contingency
theory and institutional theory, seems to be fertile theoretical
ground to explore.
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APPENDIX A~ Summary of Indices Created
Cronbach's Alpha
CRM1
CRM2
CRM3
ORDER
SERVICE
Total variance explained (%)
Eigenvalue
2000
1996
1993
2000
1996
1993
.80
.74
.66
.68
.54
.76
.60
.56
.63
.67
.63
.75
4.59
2.53
1.25
1,20
1.i0
66.6
3.59
2.10
1.64
1.18
1.09
60.1
4.58
1.82
1.26
1.07
1.03
61.1
Correlation coefficients were calculated between the two items (drug crime and
gang crime). They are .52 (2000), .38 (1996) and. 14 (1993). All three correlations are
statistically significant at the .05 level.
Note: CRM1 = crimes against persons: homicide, robbery, rape, and assault; CRM2 =
Drug and gang crimes; CRM3 = crimes against property: burglary, vandalism, and
property damage); ORDER = maintenance of order: neighborhood trouble, family
trouble, and vagrancy; and SERVICE = (Fire, power outage, downed trees, and
emergency services (accidents, ambulance calls), lost-and-found persons and
property, stray animals, and drunkenness.
Survey Instrument
Section 3: Law Enforcement Priorities
This section asks about how your department establishes priorities
in its efforts with respect to a range of problems that are commonly
faced by police agencies. Please indicate the level of priority your
department assigns to each problem area.
Q-8
Priority of Attention Ratings for Common Police Problems
Very Low
Low
Moderate
High
Priority Priority Priority Priority
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
Burglary
Robbery
Stranger assault
Rape
Gangs
Open drug dealing on the streets
Vandalism
Accidents, illnesses, ambulance calls
Fire, power out, or tree down
Lost or found person or property
Property damage
Drunkenness
Stray animals
Family trouble
Neighbor trouble
Vagrancy
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[B
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
D
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
[]
Note: 1 = very low priority, 2 = low priority, 3 = moderate priority, and 4 = high
priority. The spreadsheet format of the original questionnaire was not used.
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ORGANIZATIONALCHANGE IN POLICING
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A P P E N D I X B.
List of COP Programs and Strategies
Externally focused change-reorientation of police operations and crime
prevention
1. Department sponsorship of community newsletter
2. Additional officers on foot, bicycle, or horse patrol
3. Use of storefronts for crime prevention
4. Use of task units for solving special problems in a targeted area
5. Victim contact program
6. Crime prevention education of the general public
7. Fixed assignment of officers to neighborhoods or schools for extended
periods
8. Permanent reassignment of officers to neighborhoods or schools for
extended periods
9. Use of citizen survey to keep informed about local problems
10. Neighborhood watch
11. Business watch
12. Increased hiring of civilians for non-law-enforcement tasks
13. Community service officers (uniformed citizens who perform support
and community liaison activities)
14. Unpaid civilian volunteers who perform support and communityliaison activities
Internally or Managerial Focused Changes
15. Reassessment of rank and assignments
16. Reassignment of some management positions from sworn to civilian
personnel
17. Addition of the position of master police officer to increase rewards for
line officers
18. Quality circles (problem-solving among small groups of line personnel)
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ZHAO, HE, AND LOVRICH
723
APPENDIX C. Characteristics of Participating City/
Agencies in All Three Waves of the Survey
2000
n
City Size (population)
49,999 or fewer
50,000-99,999
100,000-249,999
250,000-999,999
1 million or more
Size of Police D e p a r t m e n t
(number of sworn officers)
25-99
100-499
500-999
1,000-9,999
10,000 and more
Region
West
North Central
South
Northeast
62
82
85
43
6
%
1996
n
%
1993
n
%
22.3
29.5
30.6
15.5
2.2
48
78
78
43
5
19.0
31.0
31.0
17.1
2.0
62
79
73
44
5
23.6
30.0
27.8
16.7
1.9
51 23.0
124 55.9
25 11.3
21
9.5
1
0.5
60
135
24
22
1
24.8
55.8
9.9
9.1
0.4
60
117
24
18
1
27.3
53.2
10.9
8.2
0.5
67
67
65
38
28.3
28.3
27.4
16.0
62
67
64
31
27.7
29.9
28.6
13.8
56
66
57
34
26.3
31.0
26.8
16.0
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ORGANIZATIONALCHANGE IN POLICING
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APPENDIX D:
UCR Rate per 100,000 P o p u l a t i o n
UCR Violent Crime Rates
1995
1992
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Homicide
7.05
9.27
9.97
10.74
11.52
13.40
Rape
38.78
31.08
50.75
37.40
62.23
44.53
Robbery
213.33
208.34
322.95
314.92
390.99
361.42
Assault
359.81
326.15
529.35
417.06
633.47
537.70
Source: UCR for 1999, 1995, and 1992, respectively.
1999