Policing Paradigms
Community policing
Development of
American policing
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“Watchman” style of the 19th. and early 20th. centuries
– Officers on foot beats
– Emphasis on order maintenance
– Problems with corruption and nonfeasance
Professional model developed during the mid-20th. century
– Motorized patrol & advances in communications
– Emphasis on quick response to calls for service
– Use statistics to track crime and evaluate response
– Fight crime and violence by making arrests
Community model developed in the late 1970’s
– Riots brought on concerns about community-police relations
– Blamed police isolation from public
– Emphasis on preventing rather than just reacting to crime and disorder
– Partner with citizens and community institutions to identify problems and
develop solutions
What’s so different about
community policing?
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Supposedly more than crime-fighting
– Community defines problems
– Community participates in solutions
– Success measured by citizen satisfaction
To do community policing need:
– Decentralized authority
– Changes in recruitment and training
– Move away from incident-driven (response) policing
– Different measures of output (results)
Major Federal funding
– COPS office in Department of Justice funds community policing
initiatives throughout the U.S.
– 2009 Federal Recovery Act gives COPS $1 billion in grants to preserve
police jobs and aid community policing efforts
How Community Policing advocates compare it
against the Professional model
Professional model
Police role
Solving crimes
Measure police efficiency
Detection and arrest rates
Highest priorities
High-value and violent
crimes
Incidents
What do police deal with?
Determinant of police
effectiveness
View of service calls
Police professionalism
Role of press liaison
Response times
Only if there is no “real
police work” to do
Swift, effective response to
serious crime
Keep the “heat” off
operational officers
Adapted from Peak, Policing America, table 6-1
Community Policing
Broader problem-solving
approach
Absence of crime and
disorder
Whatever problems most
disturb the community
Citizen problems and
concerns
Public cooperation
Vital function and great
opportunity
Keeping close to the
community
Coordinate an essential
channel of communication
with the community
In the middle of it all...
“Broken Windows”
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Landmark article by James Q. Wilson and
George Kelling in March 1982 Atlantic Monthly magazine
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Proposed that taking care of neighborhood deterioration -- rowdiness,
disrepair, drunkeness -- can prevent an area’s lapse into serious crime
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Skepticism of policing innovations
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Motorized patrol  distance from citizens
–
Uniform Crime Reports  policing becomes a numbers game
Decriminalizing minor transgressions may not be such a good idea
–
Laws provide police with leverage
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Protecting communities just as important as protecting individuals
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Gave impetus to community policing movement
Concerns about the
community model
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Is it rhetoric or reality?
Are areas impacted by crime and violence
really “communities”?
– Are citizens well informed about crime?
– Is there a consensus about what’s needed? Can one even be formed?
– How much can citizens really help?
 Problem of witness intimidation -- it may mask crime
Is “community policing” potentially more intrusive?
Are there enough officers to do it?
– Officer coverage (1997 data)
 L.A.: 9500 officers (2.5/1,000 pop.)
 Chicago: 13,671 officers (4.8/1,000)
 New York: 35,404 officers (4.3/1000)
Resource issues
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Community policing strategies
inevitably draw on the officer pool,
making fewer available for motorized patrol and responding to calls
But prompt police response isn’t an option: it’s what citizens have come to
expect
– Who else can handle serious crimes and violence?
– How else can police cover large areas?
– Best opportunity to catch a criminal, identify witnesses and preserve
evidence is in the moments after a crime occurs
Patrol, though, seems undervalued by promoters and even some detractors of
community policing
– Both Peak (Policing America) and Walker (“Broken Windows and
Fractured History”) feel that its crime control role is greatly exaggerated
See next slide 
WITHIN
COMPARISON BETWEEN - Demographically different
Demographically similar
More patrol
Less patrol
No change
Five groups of three
beats each
1973 -- Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment
1973 Kansas City
Preventive Patrol Experiment
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Does routine patrol deter crime?
City divided into 15 beats
Created five groups, each with three demographically similar beats
For one beat, patrol was left as before; for the second, patrol was increased;
For the third, patrol was removed
Compared results within groups of beats and between groups of beats
Conclusions
– Crime did not change regardless of amount of patrol
– Citizen fear of crime and attitudes about police did not change
– Police ability to respond to calls did not change
Issues
– General v. specific deterrence
– Experiment kept secret from citizens and crooks
– Officers did not respect boundaries when answering calls
– Differences between actual patrol levels was slight
Four years later:
1977 Kansas City patrol study
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Response time
– Findings: Faster police response does not help
(reducing delay in crime reporting does help)
– Issue: Was response time significantly decreased?
One versus two-officer cars
– Finding: One-officer patrol cars just as safe
– Issues
 Are “solo” officers equally proactive? Can they be?
 Is it really “solo” when multiple cars respond to a hot call?
On-view arrests during routine patrol
– Finding: Officers seldom “stumble across” felonies in progress
But what about . . . 
Stumbling: Murder of husband and
mother of Federal judge
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On Feb. 28, 2005 the husband and mother of
Federal judge were found shot to death in the
Lefkow’s Chicago home
Suspicion was immediately placed on right-wing
militants against whom Lefkow had ruled on a civil
lawsuit. A huge investigation got under way.
Three days later a West Allis, Wisconsin patrol officer pulled over Bart Ross
for suspicious activities.
Ross, an unemployed electrician and cancer victim, shot himself as the officer
walked up. The officer almost got hit.
Inside the car was a note in which Ross confessed to the shootings. He was
angry at the judge for dismissing his suit against his doctors.
Ross’s DNA was matched against DNA left on a cigarette butt left behind in
the Lefkow residence.
Stumbling: Oklahoma
City bombing
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On the morning of April 19, 1995,
Timothy McVeigh parked a rented
truck full of explosives in front of the
Federal Building, got in a car and
escaped.
At 9:02 a.m. a massive explosion occurred, killing 168 persons.
Two hours later McVeigh was stopped by a Oklahoma Highway
Patrol officer because his vehicle lacked a license plate. The officer
noticed a bulge in McVeigh’s jacket and arrested him for carrying a
loaded .45.
Suspicions about McVey and his resemblance to sketches of the
person who rented the truck led police to call the Feds.
Stumbling:
Lakewood shooter
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About 12:45 am, 12/1/09 a Seattle
police officer on routine patrol
spotted a parked car with the hood
open and the engine running. He ran the plate and determined the
vehicle was stolen.
While in his car doing paperwork he noticed a man approaching the
driver’s side of the police car. The officer exited the car and ordered
the man to stop and show his hands. The man walked away and
reached into his waistband. The officer fired, striking the man twice.
He died at the scene.
The man was identified as Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in the
killing of four Lakewood (Wash.) officers two days earlier. He was
armed with one of the dead officer’s handguns.
Problem-oriented Policing
What is problemoriented policing?
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Crime incidents may only be symptoms
– To extinguish need to deal with the
“real”, underlying problems
This is supposedly different from “community-oriented policing”
– Acceptance that traditional crime-fighting methods may be ineffective
– BUT -- no value judgments as to police role (fact-based rather than
ideological)
– To respond to problems police must be flexible and willing to experiment
– Emphasis on crime prevention, not responding “after the fact”
Like in community policing, external relationships are important
– Collaborate with other agencies, politicians, community groups, private
service providers, local businesses
Environmental design important (“target hardening”)
Not necessarily a “kinder and gentler” approach
– May call for more intrusion, not less
SARA
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Scan to identify problems
– Personal observations
– Citizens and businesses
– Other officers
– Available data
Analyze problems
– Collect information from various sources
– Break down problem into constituent parts
– Look for patterns among incidents
– Crime analysis & mapping
– Detailed analysis of incidents and calls for service
– Modus operandi, location, persons, times, events
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Response -- develop and implement solutions
– Example: street drug sales
 Soft responses: No incoming pay phone calls;
cleaning up junk and graffiti; urging landlords to
screen and evict drug-dealing tenants
 Hard responses: Gang injunctions; concentrated enforcement;
surveillance and undercover work
Assessment -- evaluate effectiveness of response with traditional and nontraditional measures
– Crime trends, clearance rates
– Citizen complaints
– Truancy
– Fear
– Business profits
– Property values
Combining community policing &
problem oriented policing:
The best of both worlds?
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It’s now assumed that “community policing”
incorporates problem-solving
How to implement
– Provide leadership: convince the troops that
prevention better than after-the-fact response
– Train officers in addressing problems
Provide incentives to get on board
– Broader role for street cop: think about problems and develop solutions
– Supposedly more job satisfaction
Evaluation criteria must change -- not just making arrests
– Need commitment from managers and executives
Reduce barriers to implementation
– Allocate necessary time, resources, manpower
Overcome resistance
– Give officers leeway in innovation
– Emphasize centrality of patrol
Selective/concentrated
enforcement techniques
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Selective enforcement / gang suppression
– Uniformed officers look for gangsters
in high-crime areas
– Use stop-and-frisk to find guns and contraband
Hot-spot policing (Police Issues posting)
– Flood problem areas with cops (“hot spot” policing)
– Police presence as a deterrent
– Lessen response time to violent incidents
No free lunch
– Diverting patrol officers to these techniques means less patrol and
increased response time in non-selected neighborhoods
– Citizens may feel harassed in selected areas
– Aggressive enforcement can create legal issues
Evaluating police strategies
Problem-oriented policing
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Many studies found improvements after POP was implemented
Scholars often attribute these improvements to “soft” and innovative
strategies rather than to the traditional “hard” strategies (coercive
police presence) of the professional model
But since every POP implementation inevitably infuses an area with
more attention from the police and other official agencies, it’s
impossible to apportion success to a specific tactic
Go to Police Issues Strategy and Tactics -- Slapping Lipstick I & II
Slapping Lipstick I
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Ceasefire -- a mixed approach
– Law enforcement campaign to curb gun
trafficking, plus a softer “pulling levers”
approach to reduce the demand for guns
– Hard: Feds and police arrested gun sellers and
possessors
– Soft: Gang members called in and warned
– SACSI implemented Ceasefire in ten cities
Project Exile -- a hard approach
– Federal career criminal laws used to imprison armed felons
PSN -- Project Safe Neighborhoods -- a blend of the above
– U.S. Attorneys worked with police chiefs, probation and parole
– Participants urged to incorporate Ceasefire’s “pulling levers” approach
– Difficulty in getting non-police agencies to participate
– At the end, level of Federal prosecution seemed most important
Slapping
Lipstick II
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Article in Criminology & Public
Policy evaluated Ceasefire in
Boston, Project Exile in
Richmond and Compstat in NYC
Ceasefire
– Youth homicide dropped 30 percent compared to 16 percent in nonCeasefire cities
– But actual numerical gains were very small, thus statistically nonsignificant (pre-Ceasefire mean of 3.5 deaths a month, post-Ceasefire
mean of 1.3 a month)
– Can’t tell if improvement was due to more policing or “pulling levers”
Project Exile in Richmond, Virginia
– Twenty-two percent yearly decline in gun homicide, considered a success
Compstat in New York City
– No demonstrable effect
Evaluation of community & problem
oriented policing in Chicago
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Ten-year evaluation of largest project of its kind in
the U.S.
Split-force concept for entire city
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Officer teams in each police beat spend their time on community projects
and problem-solving efforts
“Rapid response” units respond to calls for service
Compstat used to plan police deployment
“Final grades”
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Public involvement: B
Agency partnerships: A
Reorganization: A
Problem-solving: C
RHETORIC –v- REALITY:
What helped Compton?
“Community policing”?
“Problem oriented policing”?
The “professional” model?
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Compton had 65 homicides in 2005, a record
In response, LASD doubled manpower
– Doubled patrol deputies
– Instituted night detectives
Citizens report greatly improved security
– Much greater police visibility
– More citizens report being stopped
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L.A. Times reports great drop in
homicides:
– 1/1/05 - 3/22/05 = 22
– Same period 2006 = 3
Why?
– Many say it’s more police
– Some say it’s more citizen
reporting, involvement
– Some say it’s gang outreach
Can it be kept up?
– Compton, a contract city, is
not paying for more officers
– Most expect coverage will
have to be reduced
What happened?
Crime in Compton, 2002-2007
70
60
50
Viol crimes X
100
Murder
40
30
20
10
0
2002
2006 2007
2002 2003 2004 20052006
Crime data from FBI UCR
More on this at PoliceIssues