About the
Community Policing
Self-Paced Study Series
This guidebook is part of a self-paced study series prepared by the Kentucky Community Oriented Policing Services Office at Eastern Kentucky University. The purpose of the series is to inform law enforcement officers in rural and small-town Kentucky departments about the principles of community policing. It is the correspondence version of a 40-hour classroom course called “COP: Community Policing Kentucky-Style for Officers” and is made available to officers, deputies, and community leaders who cannot attend that course but wish to learn the same material.
The series contains the following guidebooks:
Introductory Lessons
What Works in Policing (Guidebook 1)
Overview of Community Policing (Guidebook 2)
Philosophical Dimension
Citizen Input (Guidebook 3)
Broad Function (Guidebook 4)
Personalized Service (Guidebook 5)
Strategic Dimension
Reoriented Operations (Guidebook 6)
Prevention Emphasis (Guidebook 7)
Geographic Focus (Guidebook 8)
Tactical Dimension
Positive Interaction (Guidebook 9)
Partnerships (Guidebook 10)
Problem Solving (Guidebook 11)
Organizational Dimension (Guidebook 12)
Getting Started (Guidebook 13)
For more information about this guidebook or the series of which it is a part, please contact the Regional Communtiy Policing Institute at Eastern Kentucky University, 448 Stratton, Richmond, KY 40475. (859) 622-2362.
Self-Paced Study
Guidebook 1
©Taylor and Francis 2015
What Works in Policing
©Taylor and Francis 2015
Contents
1. Introduction...... 1
2. What You Will Learn...... 2
3. Three Eras in American Policing...... 3
4. Effectiveness of Police Methods...... 7
5. Trends in Policing...... 9
6. Today’s Options...... 12
7. Challenges and Questions...... 13
8. Summary...... 14
1. Introduction
In law enforcement today, there’s a lot of talk about community policing. In drips and drabs, from one source or another, you might have heard a lot about this new approach, or only a little—and what you’ve heard might be wrong or incomplete. That’s understandable, as community policing takes different forms in different places. To give you a better picture, this guidebook and the 12 that follow will carefully lay out what community policing is, the benefits it provides, and how you can use its methods.
The 13-part series titled Community Policing: A Dimensial Approach starts with this particular guidebook, “What Works in Policing,” for a very important reason. Community policing is meant to build on, not replace, the type of policing you do now. And before you can wisely build on something, you have to know its strengths and weaknesses—in other words, what works and what doesn’t. That knowledge can also show you how important it may be to make some changes in the way you work.
To understand why so many law enforcement agencies have been looking for a new approach and are adopting community policing, it helps to think about the history of policing. This guidebook briefly describes where policing is today and how it got there. It tells you about some of the ways police have performed and organized their jobs and how successful or unsuccessful those ways have been.
American policing is changing. Community policing now gives law enforcement officers a new way to approach their mission of controlling crime. Experience and careful studies of police effectiveness have led to some interesting findings. For example, the main strategies of the past few decades—random, motorized patrol, rapid response, and follow-up investigations—are not as effective as once thought. Also, it seems that some characteristics of modern policing have tended to isolate the police from the public.
Today, community policing has caught many people’s attention. This guidebook explains why they are interested and why community policing seems promising. Fortunately, adopting community policing does not require a revolution. It is just an evolution, as police and residents search for better ways of making communities safe.
2.What you will learn
After working through this guidebook, you should be able to answer the following questions:
What are the three main eras of American policing?
How effective is random, motorized patrol by police?
How important is it to respond rapidly to all calls for service?
Do follow-up investigations, without leads from victims or witnesses, solve most of the crimes they attempt to solve?
What trends in society and law enforcement make community policing a good choice?
This guidebook ends with a summary of key points.
3.Three eras in American policing
One way to view the history of policing in the United States is to divide it into three eras. It’s not a perfect way to look at things, as police departments have always varied from one area to another and have not all changed at the same pace. Still, the view presented below organizes the major trends into a fairly accurate picture.
Political era
Sir Robert Peel formed the first modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police, in 1829. In the U.S., the first full-time, organized police departments were formed in New York City in 1845 and soon afterwards in Boston. The English and American police departments were organized along the same lines, but they differed in their source of authority. Police in England received authority from the national government, but American police departments were established by local municipalities.
One result of that difference is that American police were hired and managed by political “machines,” the local party organizations that typically ran the cities. That system put the police under the control of the local politician or ward captain, who controlled police hiring and firing at the local or precinct level.
Back then, police provided a wide array of services, including crime control, order maintenance, and certain social services like soup kitchens. Police helped ward captains find work (and even lodging) for immigrants, who in turn supported the local political machine. Early police also helped voters get to and from the polling place and in some cases prevented people from voting.
Police organization was quasi-military, with a decentralized command structure resulting in precincts that were operated like small departments and controlled by ward leaders. Where an officer was assigned was closely tied to the neighborhood he lived in, his neighborhood origin, his ethnicity, and his political machine. The slowness of communications and transportation limited officers’ contact with any central command.
Police delivered their services through foot patrol. That allowed citizens to bring complaints directly to officers, who could deal with problems on the spot. Officers had a lot of discretion. They dealt with problems according to the norms and values of the neighborhood. However, that process was not favorable to all citizens.
Reform or professional era
Early in the 20th century, citizens became increasingly concerned about political influence on policing. Across the nation, people worked to eliminate political involvement in policing and to professionalize police service. Those efforts started what is known as the reform era or professional era.
In mid-century, technological advances aided those efforts and made it possible to change the way police services were delivered. With improvements in transportation and communication technologies, police departments could receive calls at a central location and dispatch officers right from there, and officers could respond more rapidly over a wider area.
Several other changes were part of the reform process:
civil service protections, such as hiring, promoting, and firing based on qualifications, not party affiliation
a greater commitment to training
objective, professional detachment
As police agencies began to focus primarily on enforcing laws, other police services (such as social assistance and employment aid) began to decrease.
The three key operational parts of the professional style of policing are motorized patrol, rapid response, and follow-up investigation. Here’s a brief look at each:
Motorized patrol. Motorized patrol replaced foot patrol mainly because crimes were being committed with the use of cars. The availability of police vehicles also allowed for coverage of larger geographic areas, and “patrol” was becoming a method of crime prevention. O. W. Wilson, a Chicago police superintendent and researcher who is known as the father of modern policing, promoted motorized patrol as “preventive patrol” designed to produce a “feeling of omnipresence.”
Rapid response. Rapid response was considered important for three reasons. First, if you respond to a call quickly, there’s a better chance of catching the perpetrators. Second, if you catch the perpetrators, there’s a better chance of clearing the case. Over time a third reason developed: Police performance began to be judged, in part, by the average time required to respond to a call. In the professional era, because rapid response had become possible, citizens began to expect and require it.
Follow-up investigation. As technologies improved, follow-up investigation became a major component of policing. There were several reasons:
Detective specialization became more popular as a result of changes made in the FBI by J. Edgar Hoover.
Police were focusing on crime control (rather than social services), so follow-up investigations naturally became more important.
Policing as an occupation became more of a profession. Officers were given better education incentives, and they were able to use new scientific techniques (such as blood testing, ballistic testing, and fingerprint identification) in their investigations.
Motorized patrol, rapid response, and follow-up investigations were the cornerstones of the professional era of policing, and of course they are still used today. But over time, many law enforcement departments have changed the way they apply those techniques. For example:
The use of directed and targeted patrol has increased.
As an alternative to handling every call immediately, many departments use differential response (including call stacking or prioritizing)—in other words, responding immediately to emergencies but not necessarily rushing to non-urgent calls. It’s also increasingly common to take reports over the telephone.
Case screening and investigation management are being used to avoid wasting time on cases that are very unlikely to be solved.
These refinements to the techniques of professional-era policing are sometimes known as strategic policing.
Community era
Experience is a great teacher. Time has shown that professional policing has some weaknesses that need fixing. Community policing tries to stengthen the weak parts of that style of policing while preserving its strengths.
The techniques and philosophy of community policing grew out of several factors:
evaluations of the effectiveness and limitations of professional-era policing
a wide range of citizen concerns (about unresponsive police bureaucracies, use of force, etc.)
officer frustration over having to combat the same crimes and criminals repeatedly (revolving-door justice)
In community policing, the police and the community work together. The goal is full-service, personalized policing with a geographic emphasis, where officers and citizens work as partners to identify and solve community problems.
The result of that approach is less disorder, less fear of crime, and more public satisfaction and confidence. Community policing also addresses issues of equity, integrity, accountability, and effectiveness.
4.Effectiveness of police methods
Professional-era policing had its strengths, such as reduced political entanglement and increased officer education. Unfortunately, its methods were not as effective as one would hope at preventing crime, apprehending criminals, or making the public feel safe.
Several important studies in the early and mid-1980s looked at the techniques of professional-era policing to see how effective they are. Here’s a summary of three of those studies:
Kansas City preventive patrol study
To see if the visible presence of police had an effect on criminal activity, the Kansas City Police Department conducted a study. In one area of the city, the department allowed no marked police vehicles except in response to a call; in another area, it performed an extra high level of marked, vehicular patrol; and in a third area, it performed regular preventive patrol. After a 12-month test, the study found no difference in criminal activity between the three areas. That result called into question the impact of a visible police presence on criminal activity.
Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) response time study
Some crimes involve victims directly at the scene, while other crimes are discovered by a victim or witness after the perpetrator has fled. The PERF study found that 75 percent of all reported crimes are the “discovered” type. Of the 25 percent that include direct involvement of a victim or witness, there is a substantial delay in reporting. People often call a friend or family member before calling the police. The study ultimately found that rapid response led to arrest only 3 percent of the time. That finding caused some observers to doubt the logic of responding quickly to all types of reported crime.
RAND criminal investigation study
This study reported a 20 percent national clearance rate for Part I crimes. It also found that in most of the cleared cases, success resulted from information from victims or witnesses. In other words, even though investigators use highly technical methods, most cases are solved because somebody tells the police who committed the crime. Follow-up investigation is very important for successful prosecution, but most cases are not solved by keen investigative skills. In fact, only 10 percent of cleared crimes (those where an arrest is made) are solved by the investigative efforts of a detective.
......
Those studies and others that followed caused police to rethink the three main strategies used in professional-era policing. The Kansas City study suggests that motorized patrol has little effect on crime. The PERF study suggests that rapid response leads to arrest in only a small percentage of cases. And the RAND study suggests that follow-up investigation leads to case clearance in only a fraction of cases. It’s worth noting that the heyday of the professional model (the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s) is also a period that saw a great increase in crime rates.
5.Trends in policing
Today’s interest in making a change is based on more than just studies about the effectiveness of various law enforcement techniques. Several trends in society and in criminal justice thinking have also led people to become interested in community policing.
Police–community relations
There has been a notable increase in public concern about police-community relations. Issues of cultural conflict, language, respect, and use of force, among others, have made some citizens and police wonder whether the police–community relationship could be improved. The very name of community policing suggests a heightened effort to improve that relationship.
Concern for victims
People are demonstrating greater sympathy for crime victims these days. Victims’ rights organizations, victim–witness coordinators in prosecutors’ offices, and victim impact statements in court all testify to public concern for crime victims. Community policing is good at satisfying that concern. Especially helpful is its emphasis on crime prevention, which lowers the number of victims to begin with, and the way community policing brings police closer to people generally.
Fear of crime
Many people have a great fear of crime, and the level of their fear is often much higher than is justified by the actual level of crime in their area. Even when crime rates fall, many law-abiding citizens maintain a high level of fear.
That fear is not trivial. First, it is stressful to those who are afraid. Second, it causes them great inconvenience as they try to avoid various areas and situations, and community life suffers. Third, when law-abiding citizens avoid public places like parks and shopping districts, law-breaking citizens tend to move in to fill the gap. The circular effect is something like this: Crime causes fear of crime. Police work to reduce crime, but the fear lingers even after the crime level is reduced. That fear causes good citizens to stay away from areas where they fear crime. Their absence makes those places more desirable to criminals, who move in, take over, and start to raise the level of crime again. That starts the process all over. But community policing attempts to interrupt that process. The many aspects of community policing that increase police officers’ personal contact with citizens have been shown to reduce the public’s fear of crime.
Crime prevention
Crime prevention programs and techniques have developed considerably over the last few years. As a law enforcement officer, you have a wide range of choices: target hardening, prevention work with youths, community crime prevention, etc. More than professional-era policing, community policing is organized specifically to encourage you to perform those activities. The growth and success of the private security field, which relies heavily on crime prevention, says something about the effectiveness and popularity of such efforts.
“Out of vehicle” patrol methods
Foot patrol and other “out of vehicle” methods like bike or horse patrol have been rediscovered as effective methods of delivering police service. Those methods give several benefits:
closer contact with citizens
better sources of information
greater success at controlling neighborhood disorder
less fear of crime among the public
“Out of vehicle” patrol methods, specifically downplayed in professional-era policing, are a hallmark of community policing.
“Broken windows” thesis
In 1982, Atlantic Monthly magazine published an influential article on criminal justice. The article was called “Broken Windows” and was written by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. The authors’ ideas about crime and disorder have led many in criminal justice to embrace community policing.