Model For Community Mobilization:
Putting the “Community” in Community Policing
Thomas M. Green, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor and Director of the Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences Programs
National University
11255 North Torrey Pines Road
La Jolla, California 92037
Phone: (619) 642-8439
Fax: (619) 642-8716
tgreen@nunic.nu.edu
Sheri Sakamoto-Cheung
Deputy, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
Phone: (213) 974-4444
Model For Community Mobilization: Putting the “Community” in Community Policing
Abstract
Citizen involvement in crime prevention activities is deeply rooted in American history.
As the structure of communities has changed, so too has the nature and extent of crime.
Community based crime prevention efforts have struggled to keep pace with those changes.
Grassroots community mobilization efforts have experienced limited success for several reasons:
they tend to be single-issue driven; lack resources, financial or otherwise; and can conflict with
local government. This paper describes a model by which police departments can play a
leadership role in bringing together members of the community who represent businesses, local
and state government, educational institutions, social service providers, youth, parents, and other
law enforcement agencies to work together in teams. The process is designed to utilize
individual and organizational resources to create sustainable crime prevention efforts.
Background
Citizen involvement in crime prevention is not a recent development, but firmly rooted in
the vigilante tradition of colonial America. The first organized, extralegal movements in
American history occurred in 1767,1 and spread west with the pioneers.
Community based crime prevention programs have dominated crime control efforts since
Shaw and McKay's Chicago Area Project was developed in 1932. The goal of the Project was to
combat the lack of connection between individuals and institutions within socially disorganized
communities through local self-help committees concerned with recreational programs,
neighborhood improvement campaigns, and area youth gangs.2
While disorganized communities are associated with delinquency,3 crime can also have
the effect of uniting people and strengthening community ties. Community efforts to combat
crime in the 1960s involved citizen radio-car patrols to spot and report criminal activities.4
Community anti-crime programs in the mid-1970s were organized in response to rising rates of
residential burglary and street crimes5 and as an experiment with off-budget approaches to local
problem solving.6 By the mid-1980s, the community crime prevention movement was
revitalized in response to increased drug sales in urban neighborhoods.7
Perhaps the most visible example of a grassroots, crime prevention effort in the 1980s
was the Guardian Angels. Founded in 1979 by Curtis Sliwa as a New York City subway patrol,
the Guardian Angels grew to 40 active chapters in the U.S. and Canada by mid-1983.8
Somewhat less visible, but perhaps more effective, are Neighborhood Watch programs.
Neighborhood Watch calls for groups of residents who are concerned about crime in a designated
area to notice and report suspicious behavior near their homes. Local law enforcement provides
training, information about crime trends, stategies to recruit new members, and help in designing
publicity campaigns and communication networks within neighborhoods. Neighborhood Watch
programs, active in the United States, Canada, Australia, and many European countries, have
demonstrated success in reducing crimes in select neighborhoods; some of the success, however,
may be the result of displacement of crime to other neighborhoods.
Community crime prevention programs in the 1990s have taken on a broader agenda. In
addition to directly combating specific offenses, such as drug dealing, prostitution, and robbery,
community anti-crime efforts also include tutoring children of addicted parents, problem-solving
groups in public housing and conflict resolution in schools, and community health fairs.
Successful community-based crime prevention programs generally have several common
characteristics: they are collaborative efforts between government agencies, community groups,
parents, youth, businesses, and police;9 they are grounded in the community, rather than in a
program imported and run by an outside;10 they are integrated into the activities of more general,
multi-issue neighborhood organizations;11 they are consistent with and reinforce community
norms,12 and they have clearly defined goals.13
There are also some common barriers to successful anti-crime programs: a lack of
resources, financial or otherwise, or the inability to mobilize those resources;14 conflict between
citizens and the government;15 a low level of attachment to one's neighborhood;16 and a high
level of fear of crime victimization.17
Theory
There are two theoretical underpinnings to the community-crime prevention model. The
first is based on the concept of risk and protective factors,17 and resiliency. 18 Risk factors are
certain characteristics, such as alcohol and drug use, and academic failure, that increase the
chances an individual will develop health and behavior problems. Protective factors, such as the
presence of a caring adult or a positive social orientation, can counter risk factors. Protective
factors foster resiliency: the ability for an individual to bounce back from adversities occurring
in one's life.
The second theoretical orientation involves asset-based community development. 19 This
crime prevention strategy focuses on utilizing the individual and organizational resources present
in a community and establishing relationships between local residents, associations, and
institutions to solve problems effectively.
Description of the Community Mobilization Model
In 1994, the Department of the Attorney General's Crime Prevention and Justice
Assistance Division implemented the community mobilization model through the Safety Action
Seminars (SAS) it sponsored for the counties of Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai.21 The goal of the
community mobilization model is to involve community members in reducing the occurrence of
crime and to promote safer and healthier communities.
The model utilizes a multi-disciplinary team approach to mobilize communities in
addressing identified problems that exist in those communities. The model brings together
members of the community who represent businesses, city and state government, educational
institutions, social service providers, law enforcement agencies, youth, and parents. All of these
individuals work together in multidisciplinary teams..
These multi-disciplinary teams are encouraged to focus on prevention strategies in order
to deal with issues involving youth, families, schools, and the community. The community
mobilization model is designed so that local residents become resources for new participants, and
the process can be sustained. Potentially, every concerned citizen can become involved at some
level, at some point in time, with a team that addresses a specific problem within his or her
community.
One particular aspect of the community mobilization model which enhances its
sustainability and transferability is the monitoring and evaluation component. At each stage in
the process, written records are kept on problems that were encountered and overcome. These
records can be used to guide future community-based projects.
As police departments develop community oriented policing (COP) or problem oriented
policing (POP) programs, a critical and often poorly addressed element is the involvement of the
community. Currently, most COP or POP programs tend to focus on the police, rather than the
community. Through the leadership of local police departments, communities can be effectively
organized to assist law enforcement in sustainable efforts to reduce crime.
The model consists of five steps. The following is a description of those steps.
Step I - Advisory Meeting
The goal of the advisory meeting is to have community representatives lay the foundation
for sustainable community mobilization. The local law enforcement agency hosts the meeting
with community representatives with whom they had previous contact and other leaders of
prominent community organizations, both public and private. Notices of the meeting are mailed
a month prior to the meeting, and follow-up phone calls are made to insure good representation
of all major groups.
During the half-day meeting, participants were guided by a facilitator22 to: 1) voice
concerns about the community; 2) describe resources currently available to address those
concerns; and 3) identify other community members to be a part of the community mobilization
process. Meeting participants were also introduced to the concept of community mobilization
and the five-step model.
Step II - Team Building Seminar
The purposes of the one day team building seminar are to provide information for
participants on the principles of community mobilization and to assist community members to
develop skills to effectively work together as a team. Team building activities helped to lay the
ground work for community members to accomplish the goals of the community mobilization
process: to develop and implement action plans designed to address their concerns for their
community. Learning to work in teams also increases the likelihood that activities will be
successful and that community based crime prevention efforts will be sustained.
Step III - Action Planning Seminar
The goals of the seminar are to: foster community involvement through networking with
other team members; educate participants on state, national, and international trends, programs
and techniques; and guide teams through a process of developing action plans to address their
specific concerns for the community. The action plans consist of measurable goals and
objectives, and specific activities with stated time lines and responsibilities, utilizing existing
resources in the community. Participants are provided with an opportunity to hear current
information on ways to reduce crime and violence through asset planning, protective and
resiliency factors, and by strengthening families.
Step IV - Training Institute
Following the third meeting, team plans are reviewed by an evaluator, preferably a third
party. The evaluator examines plans for completeness and consistency. The goal of the
evaluation is to determine whether the goals are clearly stated and obtainable, whether the
objectives are measurable and reflect the goals, whether the activities are designed to meet the
stated goals and objectives, whether the community resources are clearly identified, and whether
responsibilities for specific elements of the plan are clearly listed. During the fourth meeting,
teams receive written feedback on their plans, and have the opportunity to meet with staff to
make revisions.
The training institute is designed to accomplish two important objectives: to provide
teams with information on specific subjects that relate to the implementation of their action plans
(e.g. how to foster resiliency in children, working with the media, and conflict resolution), and to
give assistance to teams that need to modify their community action plans. This particular oneday training allows for sharing team accomplishments and roadblocks. Teams are provided with
information on resiliency in youth, how to work with the media, and how adults and youth can
"bridge the gap" over issues of substance abuse, violence and other community concerns.
Step V - Advisory/Follow-up Meeting
The purposes of the advisory/follow-up meeting are to assist community teams in
evaluating their efforts to date and to assess the outcomes of their action plans. Teams are able to
analyze and report on their accomplishments and lessons learned.
Teams are also given the opportunity to return to the "big picture" or the vision for their
community which they created at the first meeting: building healthy and safer communities.
This is an important step: teams need to keep their ultimate goal in mind when planning and
implementing plans, or they tend to be single issue-driven and dissolve after a particular event
has concluded.
Conclusions
There are many reasons why members of a community decide to form into teams,
including: to create and act upon a shared vision;23 to develop community cohesion;24 to solve or
reduce the impact of problems;25 and to advocate for issues.26 As crime and violence increase in
our communities, we need planned strategies to combat the problems.
According to Dubow and Podolefsky (1982), reducing crime involves residents
participating in anti-crime activities or programs of local community groups. Williams' research
(1995) suggests that the first step for communities in solving crime problems is recognizing that
a problem exist. Williams also compares four different perceptions of the government and the
community for the purpose of evaluating the relationship between the community and its local
government.
Of the six California initiatives studied by Williams (1995), those groups labeled as
negotiational, (those who worked toward broadening community involvement, who took
responsibility for identifying and responding to problems, who utilized the city government as
part of their strategy), were most successful. Williams further suggests that the adversarial
(internally generated solutions with independence from, and distrust of, the government),
delegational (active cooperation with the government through incorporation in, and formal
interaction with, the government) and alienated (belief that independent action will not work, and
that local police and politicians cannot be trusted) groups did not utilize the government
partnership approach and thus had difficulty in obtaining their anti-crime goals and ended up not
completing the task they set out to accomplish.
This model has been successful in bringing together diverse groups in an effort to reduce
crime. For this model to be effective, it is vital for community members, in partnership with
public and private organizations, to work cohesively and recognize individual responsibility and
commitment in solving problems.
A comprehensive local crime prevention plan involves a partnership between the local
government and community members to establish clear and obtainable goals and objectives that
define specific responsibilities within a given time frame. Crime prevention plans typically focus
on particular crime problems, such as youth violence, drugs, property crime, and neighborhood
deterioration, but actually have as an end goal a community that is healthy and crime free.
Given the investments many police departments have made in developing COP or POP
programs, this model is a logical extension. In order to be successful, both law enforcement and
the community must re-assess their relationship. The local law enforcement agency needs to give
up some control over community policing, and the community must recognize its responsibility
to combat crime.
In order to be successful as facilitators of this process, police departments must provide
leadership and management training for their officers. COP and POP officers are in an excellent
position to insure the sustainability of grassroots, community mobilization efforts.
Given the extremely complex nature of crime, it is highly unlikely that any one
organization or agency can significantly reduce its frequency or impact. There is growing
interest in multi-disciplinary, community-based crime prevention efforts and in evaluation
research findings which advance this approach. This community mobilization model is one
approach that shows promise in organizing communities to combat crime.
Endnotes
1. Richard Maxwell Brown, “The American vigilante tradition.” In: H.D. Graham and T.R.
Gurr, (Eds.) Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspective (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1969).
2. Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1942).
3. Clifford R. Shaw, Frederick M. Zorbaugh, Henry D. McKay, and Leornard S. Cotrell,
Delinquent Areas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929); and Shaw and McKay,
Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas.
4. Richard Maxwell Brown, “The American vigilante tradition.”
5. Robert J. Bursik, Jr. and Harold G. Grasmick, Neighborhoods and Crime: The Dimensions
of Effective Community Control (New York: Lexington Books, 1993).
6. Wesley Skogan, Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American
Neighborhoods (New York: The Free Press, 1990).
7. D.P. Rosenbaum, “Community crime prevention: a review and synthesis of the literature”
Justice Quarterly 5 (1988):323-395.
8. Joseph B. Perry and M.D. Pugh, “Public support of the Guardian Angels: Vigilante
protection against crime, Toledo, Ohio, 1984,” Sociology and Social Research 73 (1989):
129-131.
9. Dan A. Lewis, Jane A. Grant, Dennis P. Rosenbaum, The Social Construction of Reform:
Crime Prevention and Community Organizations (New Brunswick: Transaction Books,
1988); Skogan, Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American
Neighborhoods; National Crime Prevention Council, Uniting Communities Through Crime
Prevention (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1994); and A. Kevin Williams,
“Community mobilization against urban crime: guiding orientations and strategic choices in
grassroots politics,” Urban Affairs Review, 30 (1995): 407-431.
10. National Crime Prevention Council, Uniting Communities Through Crime Prevention.
11. Fred Dubow and Aaron Podolefsky, “Citizen participation in community crime prevention,”
Human Organization, 41 (1982): 307-314; Skogan, Disorder and Decline: Crime and the
Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods; and Bursik and Grasmick, Neighborhoods and
Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community Control.
12. David M. Chavis, Paul W. Speer, Ira Resnick, and Allison Zippay, “Building community
capacity to address alcohol and drug abuse: getting to the heart of the problem.” In: Robert
C. Davis, Arthur J. Lurigia, and Dennis P. Rosenbaum (Eds.), Drugs and the Community:
Involving Community Residents in Combatting the Sale of Illegal Drugs (Springfield, IL:
Charles C. Thomas, 1993).
13. Dubow and Podolefsky, “Citizen participation in community crime prevention;” Kevin
Hourihan, “Local community involvement and participation in neighborhood watch: a casestudy in Cork, Ireland,” Urban Studies, 24 (1987): 129-136; National Crime Prevention
Council, Uniting Communities Through Crime Prevention.
14. Chavis et al., “Building community capacity to address alcohol and drug abuse: Getting to
the heart of the problem.”
15. Lewis et al., The Social Construction of Reform: Crime Prevention and Community
Organizations; Chavis et al., “Building community capacity to address alcohol and drug
abuse: Getting to the heart of the problem;” Williams, “Community mobilization against
urban crime: Guiding orientations and strategic choices in grassroots politics.”
16. Gordon E. Misner, “Community involvement in crime prevention.” In: Deterrence of Crime
In and Around Residences (U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration, National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, 1973); Dubow
and Podolefsky, “Citizen participation in community crime prevention,” Rosenbaum,
“Community crime prevention: a review and synthesis of the literature,” and Skogan,
Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods.
17. Bursik and Grasmick, Neighborhoods and Crime: The Dimensions of Effective Community
Control.
18. See Emmy Werner, Vulnerable But Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children
and Youth (New York: Adams, Bannister and Cox, 1982); J.D. Hawkins, R.F. Catalano, and
Janet Y. Miller, “Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in
adolescence and early adulthood: Implications for substance abuse prevention,”
Psychological Bulletin, 112 (1992): 129-136; and Timothy E. Burns, From Risk to
Resilience (Dallas: Marco Polo, 1994).
19. See Werner, Vulnerable But Invincible: A Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and
Youth; and Burns, From Risk to Resilience.
20. John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, Building Communities From the Inside Out: A
Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets (Center for Urban Affairs and
Policy Research, 1993).
21. For specific information on the implementation of the community mobilization model in
Hawaii, contact Valerie Mariano at the Department of the Attorney General; Crime
Prevention and Justice Assistance Division; 425 Queen Street; Honolulu, Hawaii 96813;
(808) 586-1416.
22. Ideally, the role of facilitator is played by a representative of the sponsoring law enforcement
agency. Professional facilitators may be encouraged to volunteer their services. A third
option would be to apply for funding from local, state, and federal sources (e.g. COPS, Drug
Free Schools and Community Act, etc.) to hire a facilitator.
23. Kretzmann and McKnight, Building Communities From the Inside Out: A Path Toward
Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets.
24. National Crime Prevention Council, Preventing Crime in Urban Communities (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1986).
25. National Crime Prevention Council, Uniting Communities Through Crime Prevention.
26. Williams, “Community mobilization against urban crime: guiding orientations and strategic
choices in grassroots politics.”