Supervising in a Community
Policing Environment
Dr. Phillip Lyons
Texas Regional Community Policing
Institute
Introduction
Phillip Lyons
Asst. Prof. SHSU
Ph.D.--Forensic Psychology, 1997
J.D.--(Law), M.A., 1994
B.S.--Behavioral Science, 1988
A.A.S.--L.E./Police Admin., 1985
Former Detective--Alvin Police Dept.
Master Peace Officer
Asst. Dir. T.R.C.P.I
SECTION I
The Evolution of Policing in
America
The Evolution of Policing in
America
 The
Political Era
 The
Reform Era
 The
Community
Era
What is Community
Oriented Policing?
Community Oriented Policing is a
policing philosophy that promotes
and supports organizational
strategies to address the causes
and reduce the fear of crime and
social disorder through problemsolving tactics and communitypolice partnerships.
Community Policing
A philosophy of police service delivery
that rests on three essential elements:
 Consultation
 Adaptation
 Mobilization
Consultation
The police must consult with
citizens to determine the
policing priorities.
 Neighborhood
meetings.
 Surveys.
 Telephone.
 One on one.
Adaptation
 Police
agencies
and personnel
must be willing
to change in
order to
address
priorities
identified in
the
consultation
process.
 Challenge
the
traditional!
 New Methods.
Mobilization
 We
must
identify all
stakeholders
and resources
and bring
them to the
table.
 Look
both
internally and
externally.
 The police
serve as a
catalyst to
drive them to
action.
SECTION II
The Changing Roles for
Supervisors and Managers
Traditional Management Style
 rigid
hierarchy-chain of
command
 strict supervision
 tight control
 limited officer
discretion
 thick
bureaucratic
regulations
Critique of Current State
of Policing (Goldstein)
The police field is preoccupied
with management, internal
procedures, and efficiency to
the exclusion of appropriate
concern for effectiveness in
dealing with substantive
problems.
How Does Supervision
Need to Change?
Critique of Current State
of Policing (Goldstein)
The police devote most of
their resources to responding
to calls from citizens,
reserving too small a
percentage of their time and
energy for acting on their own
initiative to prevent or reduce
community problems.
How Does Supervision
Need to Change?
Critique of Current State
of Policing (Goldstein)
The community is a major resource
with an enormous potential, largely
untapped, for reducing the number
and magnitude of problems that
otherwise become the business of
the police.
How Does Supervision
Need to Change?
Critique of Current State
of Policing (Goldstein)
Within their agencies, police have
readily available to them another
huge resource: their rank-andfile officers, whose time and
talent have not been used
effectively.
How Does Supervision
Need to Change?
Critique of Current State
of Policing (Goldstein)
Efforts to improve policing have
often failed because they have not
been adequately related to the
overall dynamics and complexity of
the police organization.
Adjustments in policies and
organizational structure are required
to accommodate and
support change.
How Does Supervision
Need to Change?
Supervision Changes
Preoccupation
Resources
Community Potential
Rank and File Officers
Organizational Dynamics
Exercise:
4 Equilateral Triangles
SECTION III
Roadblocks to Implementation
What Roadblocks Do You
Anticipate?
Common Roadblocks
•They have mastered the current
system.
•Power as a zero sum game.
•Zero tolerance for
experimentation and failure.
•Loss of promotional slots if
organizations are flattened or
downsized.
Common Roadblocks (contd.)
•It’s not police work.
•Problem solving and community
engagement don’t make sense
under current conditions.
•We didn’t try it, and it didn’t
work.
•I’m on the B-Team.
• Paramilitarism.
Common Roadblocks (contd.)
•Accountability beyond authority.
•We’re too busy to change.
•The middle managers’ bosses
encourage traditional policing.
•A Desire to stay in the loop.
Common Roadblocks (contd.)
•The management of community
problem solving is hard work.
•Boosting Expectations: “If you
think our crime clearance rates
look bad, wait ‘til you see our
problem closure rate.”
•People hate change.
Key Point:
You, as a supervisor, can
be a primary roadblock!
Exercise
Section IV
How You Be a Facilitator
Rather than a Roadblock
1. Develop Communication Skills
 Communication
is a two way
street.
– Speaking.
– Listening.
– also consider the channel &
feedback.
 Talking with not at or to
 Body Language.
Exercise
2. Empower Your Officers
 Discretion
 Autonomy
 Innovation
Be a part of the community,
not apart from the community
 Be
an Active Member of the
Community
 Consider
all Community
Members as Stakeholders
Sergeant’s Role
 Discuss
with officers identified
service demands.
 Assess, adjust, devise
alternate, and implement plans
as developed.
 Coordinate plans in multiple
neighborhoods.
 Provide feedback to officers.
 Convey feedback to
neighborhood groups.
Sergeant’s Role
 Ensure
efficient utilization of
resources.
 Procure necessary resources.
 Identify training needs to
further enhance officer’s COP
skills.
 Be a facilitator, motivator and
coach to personnel!
 Keep Lt.s informed
Lieutenant’s Role
 Coordinate
recommendations
received from all Sgts.
 Convey to Captain all activities
within command area, districts,
and neighborhoods.
 Coordinate a multitude of
potentially different and similar
requests.(Different from Sgt in
that Lt. must also coordinate
across shifts).
Lieutenant’s Role
 Must
verify information
collected, accuracy of analysis,
availability of resources and
compatibility of the
recommendations.(Practicality)
 Must assume a delicate role in
coordinating the needs of
numerous independent entities,
all of whom have legitimate
concerns.
Lieutenant’s Role
 Organize
demands, manage
implementation and assess
effectiveness by conducting
field inspections.
 Be a facilitator, motivator and
coach to personnel.
Captain’s Role
 Ultimate
responsibility is to
approve or disapprove all plans.
 Compare the Officer’s, Sgt’s,
and Lt’s performance .within
the criteria developed for the
activities, strategies or
programs administered.
Captain’s Role
 Review
the progress of all plans
so a determination of the
results can be made.
 Coordinate the distribution of
resources.
 Procure resources.
 Be a facilitator, motivator, and
coach to personnel!
 Report progress and results to
superior officers.
EMPOWERMENT
ask yourself...
•Is it right for the Community?
•Is it right for the department?
•Is it ethical and legal?
•Is it something for which you are
willing to be held accountable?
•Is it consistent with Departmental
values and policies ?
If YES . . . JUST DO IT
SECTION V
Organizational Structure
and Community Policing?
Communication
Four styles:
 Telling-instructing what to do
 Selling-persuading about your idea
 Participating-working together to
decide best course of action for
issue
 Delegating-Allowing the individual to
think on his/her feet without
permission from you
Changing Management Style
 Focused
on ends rather than
means.
 Rewards for behaviors not
only geared toward crime
control.
 Emphasize and model
consistency in implicit and
explicit communication.
 Ability to translate mission of
the agency to the officers.
Changing the Structure
 Bureaucratic,
yet decentralized
 Pigeonholes within which officer works
autonomously, but subject to controls
of profession
 Wide spans of control over
professional work, & large support
staff to support professionals
SECTION VI
Evaluating the COP
Officer
Assessment
Keeping the old, but
combining the new
Previous performance
evaluation
 Focused
on “bean counting”
 High numbers, high success
– Traffic violations
– Suspects arrested
– Cases closed
New Performance Evaluation
 Includes
assessment of degree and
types of contact with the community.
 Degree of effectiveness with program
implementation/problem resolution.
 Community surveys/interviews on how
well area police work to
identify/alleviate
problems in the
community.
Mastrofski’s Five
Techniques for Evaluation
 Officer’s
self-report
 Reports of citizen participants
 Evaluations by partner agencies
– Social Service/D.A.’s offices
 Video recording
 Third-party Direct Observation
– Ride-alongs/Supervisor working with
officer
Potential Quality Measures
for police officers
Great Job!!
Combining patrol officer and
crime prevention & community
relations specialist evaluation
techniques
Patrol Officers
 Response
time and # of repeat calls
 Reports - rejected vs. completed and
accurate
 Safety record
 Complaints received and investigated
 Citizen surveys & feedback
 Supervisor follow-up
Crime prevention & Community
relations Specialist
 Appearance/function
in officer role
 Citizen feedback on # and types of
contacts, customer survey
 Professional development
 Coordination with other agencies,
both social service and law-related
 Successful follow-up
Community policing officer
 Maintain
certain aspects of
traditional evaluation (#
counting…)
 Include further assessment
techniques as outlined in Crime
Prevention & Community
Relations specialist area
Denton Police
Department
Annual Performance
Evaluation
(Refer to Handout)
Working together with
community
Need citizens’
participation
to effectively
diagnose and
alleviate
community
problems.
Balance
between crime
control and
communitypolice
partnership.
Exercise
The “lifeboat.”
SECTION VII
Preparing for Change
• Benefits
• Ongoing Difficulties
Benefits
 People
decide both means and
objectives of the police.
 Community
policing enhances the
quality of life.
 People
get good service from police.
 People
play a role in supervising and
accessing police performance.
Benefits
 Police
officer is the community’s
problem-solver.
 Police
supervisor delegates power and
control to the community.
 Police
supervisor allows officers the
freedom and autonomy to manage
social problems.
Ongoing Difficulties
 Will
police be able to determine
accurately what all members of the
community want?
 Does
community policing result in an
inability of citizens to make the police
accountable for crime control?
Ongoing Difficulties
 Does
the police institution become
more controlling and invasive?
 Will
police be allowed both to direct
community will and to interpret the
quality of their own performance?
 Will
the police institution completely
surrender its power to citizens?
Credits:
 Elizabeth
 Leo
DeValve
Chiou
 Robert Werling
 Scott Vollum
College of Criminal Justice
Sam Houston State University
References
Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving [TRCPI, auth]. (2000).
http://www.shsu.edu/cjcenter/lyons/training/copps200.ppt.
Goldstein, H. (1990). Problem-oriented policing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hoover, L. T. (1992). Police management: Issues and perspectives. Washington, DC:
Police Executive
Research Forum.
Jez, M. W. (2000). Supervising COP.
http://www.shsu.edu/cjcenter/lyons/training/jez.ppt
MacKenzie, G. (1996). Oribiting the giant hairball: A corporate fool’s guide to
surviving with grace. New York: Viking.
Mastrofski, S. D. (1996). Measuring police performance in public encounters. In L.
T. Hoover (Ed.). Quantifying quality in policing. Washington, DC: Police
Executive Research Forum.
Mintzberg, H. (1989). Mintzberg on management. New York: Free Press.
Kuykendahl, J., & Unsinger, P. (1990). The leadership styles of police managers. In
S. Stojkovic, J. Klofas, & D. Kalinich (Eds.). The administration and management
of criminal justice organizations: A book of readings. Waveland Press.
Peak, K. J., & Glensor, R. W. (1996). Community policing and problem solving:
Strategies and practices. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Swanger, G. & Geller, W. A. (1995). Managing innovation in policing: the untapped
potential of the middle manager. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research
Forum.