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COMMUNITY POLICING
IS NOT POLICE COMMUNITY RELATIONS
By
Robert C. Trojanowicz, Ph.D.
Director, School of Criminal Justice
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
Confusion persists concerning what community policing is,
how it works, and what it can accomplish. Much of the continuing
criticism suggests that community policing merely retreads
shopworn elements of police-community relations and repackages
them with a trendy new buzz word.
This misperception is used to argue that community policing,
therefore, cannot address serious contemporary problems, like
crime and drugs. It also provides detractors with hope that
community policing will someday be discarded as yet another
great-sounding gimmick that failed to make a valid difference in
the real world. As one sergeant recently said to me, ``We
waited the chief out on other programs, so we can wait him out
on community policing, too.''
Much of the blame for this persistent misunderstanding
rests with academics, myself included, because we have hesitated
to state clearly that police-community relations was not an
evolutionary step on the way to community policing, but an
unfortunate detour. In 1972, I wrote a piece bemoaning the
loss of the decentralized and personalized police service
provided by foot patrol officers: ``The direct, extended,
face-to-face relationship between police officers and citizens
is missing.'' (1)
But we were like the automakers in Detroit who tried to
solve deep and fundamental problems with the quality of their
cars by tacking on more chrome and bigger fins at the end of the
process. We knew that the police had to forge new positive
links to the law-abiding people, particularly in inner-city
minority communities. We also understood that the police had to
shift to becoming more proactive. And, we were beginning to see
that fear of crime, heightened when people feel powerless to
protect themselves, was becoming as big a problem as crime
itself.
However, instead of proposing a restructuring of the
overall mission of the police and insisting that the community
take a more active part, we invested our energies in
police-community relations. The benefit of 20/20 hindsight
makes it seem obvious that such monumental challenges could not
be met by merely tinkering at the margins. From today's vantage
point, it seems clear that these piecemeal programs all too
often ended up as token add-ons--peripheral to the day-to-day
operation of the ``real'' police in the community. Likewise,
the community could continue to have unrealistic expectations of
the police.
This is not meant to denigrate the many well-meaning,
dedicated, and sincere people who struggled to try to make these
doomed efforts succeed. The failure was not in the nobility of
our intentions, but in the scope of our vision. Police-community
relations advocates argued that social conditions of the time
required that something be done, because improved police-community
relations was a necessity and focusing efforts in a Police-
Community Relations Unit was practical and made sense.
To meet the challenge of becoming more proactive, many
departments inaugurated or expanded Crime Prevention Units, and
these efforts offered concrete help to the community by showing
people how they could do more to prevent their own victimization.
In part, it was the success of these efforts that helped to spur
interest in how to do more to help communities help themselves.
Most crime prevention specialists are enthusiastic supporters of
community policing, and many work closely with community
officers, training them on the latest techniques and assisting
them in presentations in the community.
COMPARISONS AND CONTRASTS
By comparing and contrasting the differences between
community policing and police-community relations, we can clear
up lingering confusions. At the same time, we can clarify how
community policing works.
Theory
Both community policing and police-community relations are
grounded in their respective theoretical frameworks. Community
policing is based on organizational theory, open systems theory,
critical theory, normative sponsorship theory, and public policy
analysis. Police-community relations are based on conflict
theory, intergroup relations theory, and communications theory. (2)
Mission
Community policing requires a department-wide philosophical
commitment to involve average citizens as partners in the process
of reducing and controlling the contemporary problems of crime,
drugs, fear of crime, and neighborhood decay, and in efforts to
improve the overall quality of life in the community.
Police-community relations is not a philosophy, but rather a
limited approach that was often viewed as public relations aimed
at reducing hostility toward the police among minorities. In
essence, police-community relations implies a narrow,
bureaucratic response to a specific problem, rather than a
fundamental change in the overall mission of the department and
increased expectations of the community.
Organizational Strategy
Community policing requires everyone in the department,
sworn and civilian personnel at all levels, to explore how they
can carry out the mission through their actions on the job.
Equally essential is that the department must permanently deploy
a portion of its patrol force as community officers in specified
beats so they can maintain direct, daily contact with average
citizens.
Police-community relations is an isolated specialty unit,
made up exclusively of staff personnel whose duties are bound
by the narrow definition of their goals. These units have
limited ongoing, intensive outreach to the community and no
mechanism to effect change within the police department itself.
Operational Goals
A department-wide commitment to community policing means
that everyone's job must be reassessed in light of the new
mission. For example, this may mean providing motor patrol
officers new freedom to experiment with problem-solving
techniques. It can also mean small courtesies, such as
providing civilian personnel a revised telephone directory
designed to allow them to connect a caller to the right person
on the first try.
Yet, the ultimate success or failure of community policing
rests primarily with the new community officers, the generalists
who operate as mini-chiefs within their own beat areas. They act
as full-service law enforcement officers who react to problems as
they occur, but their mandate also requires them to involve
average citizens in short- and long-term proactive efforts aimed
at the department's expanded mission. The resulting improvement
in police-community relations is a welcomed byproduct of
delivering decentralized and personalized police service, but is
not the primary goal.
Freed from the isolation of the patrol car and the incessant
demands of the police radio, community officers serve as the
department's community outreach specialists and problem-solvers.
The community officer must both overcome apathy and restrain
vigilantism, recognizing that the police alone cannot hope to
maintain order and solve crucial contemporary neighborhood
problems. Citizens can no longer expect the police to be ``guns
for hire.'' They need to discard the ``mask'' of anonymity and
become actively involved.
As the community's ombudsman and liaison, community officers
not only have the right but also the responsibility to mobilize
others, individually and in groups. Many situations require
input and assistance from other government agencies--code
enforcement, animal control, mental health, sanitation. Other
solutions require help from nonprofit groups, such as advocates
for the homeless. Community officers also involve local
businesses in developing new initiatives. The scope of these
community-based, police-supervised local efforts is bound only by
the time available, the collective imagination and enthusiasm of
the community officer and the citizens involved, and the specific
resources available.
Because community officers work so closely with people in
their neighborhoods, they build trust and they often generate
more and better information than other officers and units can.
Therefore, the job requires them to share what they know with
other units in the department.
In contrast to this grassroots approach that involves
average citizens who live in the neighborhood, police-community
relations officers tend to communicate most often with the
elite, both inside and outside the department. Their outreach
consists of meetings with blue-ribbon panels and community
leaders, particularly those who represent the predominant
ethnic, religious, and racial minorities (and who may or may
not have their fingers on the pulse of their constituents).
These sessions usually focus on resolving formal complaints
and discussing issues and concerns, but police-community
relations officers have no direct authority to implement change.
Instead, the officers serve as advisors to police command, which
means that results depend less on the officer's specific actions
than on the willingness of top police administrators to take
action.
Police community relations officers enjoy few sustained
contacts with the community, so they are unlikely to generate
specific information on crime, drugs, and disorder to share with
the rest of the department. Conversely, these jobs also provide
no opportunity for the officers to identify local priorities or
to initiate and follow up on creative community based
initiatives. Unlike the community officer, they do not have a
stake in specific neighborhoods and are viewed as outsiders.
Performance Measures
Community policing implies moving away from narrow
quantitative measures of success--number of arrests, average
response time, clearance rates, number of complaints against
officers--toward qualitative measures, such as citizen
involvement, fear of crime, improvement in quality of life, and
real and perceived improvement in chronic problems.
Accountability
Community officers are not only supervised by superiors but
the new relationship with the community also means that average
citizens serve as an additional check on their behavior.
Community officers must confront every day the people who care
most about whether their new solutions are working.
Since police community relations officers have no direct
authority to make changes, they are often perceived by the
community as ``flak catchers'' bureaucrats with no real power
who are there merely as a buffer between the community and the
police department. Particularly in departments where there is
little commitment to resolving problems, police community
relations officers often find themselves trapped between angry
community leaders and a defensive police administration.
The problem is compounded because police-community relations
officers are never the officers who respond directly to the crime
calls, so people cannot hold them directly accountable. It also
removes them from the feedback loop that might allow them to
tailor their recommendations to local situations. Civilian
review boards and ``blue-ribbon'' committees are often viewed as
the appropriate methods of insuring police accountability.
In general, the public perception is that community officers
are real, personalized police officers who offer concrete help,
whereas police-community relations officers are strangers whose
assistance, although well-meaning, is sporadic and limited.
Scope of Impact
A department-wide community policing mission carried out
directly by community officers on the streets can make dramatic
changes fast. Particularly in the case of illegal drugs,
community policing has demonstrated the flexibility to respond to
emerging problems in creative ways. People who live in
crack-infested neighborhoods need relief not only from the
dealers but also from intoxicated addicts on the street.
Involving average citizens in community-based, police-supervised
anti-drug initiatives to drive drug dealing from their
neighborhoods offers new solutions that do not focus exclusively
on arrest, which rarely does more than clog the rest of the
criminal justice system. Citizens are expected to take an active
part in solving many of their own problems, using the officer as
a leader and catalyst when necessary. In community policing,
unlike police-community relations, the officer educates citizens
on issues like response time and how they can effectively use
scarce resources rather than expect increased services.
Also, in community policing, average citizens nominate the
problems and cooperate in setting the police agenda. This
process often reveals that the community views social and
physical disorder--from potholes to panhandlers--as higher
priorities than actual crime. Because they have been involved
in setting priorities, they are more willing to cooperate in
finding solutions.
Within departments as well, community policing has a much
greater impact than police-community relations. In police-
community relations, change trickles down from the top
with ``blue ribbon'' committees and top command having the most
influence. With community policing, change can bubble up from
the bottom. The entire department benefits from enhanced
understanding about the underlying dynamics and concerns at
street level as viewed by average citizens and patrol officers.
When this information reaches the chief and other high-ranking
officials, it allows them to balance the needs of powerful
special-interest groups, who have always had access to the top,
with the needs of many who might otherwise be ignored. The chief
of police sees a broader picture and becomes an advocate for the
effective delivery of both law enforcement and social services
in the jurisdiction.
THE FUTURE
Most police-community relations programs have faded away,
and unrelenting budget pressures will no doubt mean that others
will die--often so that the department can put those resources
directly into community policing.
The advent of community policing has also threatened budgets
for crime prevention units. However, because the goals dovetail
so well, many departments find that community policing can help
reinvigorate crime prevention. In larger units, budget cuts can
mean some staff officers in crime prevention simply switch to a
line function and become community officers. Most prove to be
``naturals'' at the job, because of their experience in
organizing block watchers and neighborhoods associations and in
teaching proactive techniques.
Those who remain in staff positions in crime prevention
often find themselves serving more as a resource for others in
the department than as direct providers to the community. Many
work closely with community officers, providing training and
keeping them abreast of the latest advances and assisting them in
community projects.
Community policing owes a debt to both police-community
relations and crime prevention for clarifying the scope of the
problem and attempting to solve it. However, community policing
most directly addresses the need to restructure and refocus
officer selection, training, evaluation, and promotion. As we
approach the 21st century, we see that community policing is the
wave of the future because it delivers direct services and
challenges the community to do its share.
Among the trendsetting big-city police departments
nationwide, more than half have formally and visibly adopted
community policing. As urban, rural, and suburban police
departments of all sizes follow their lead, community policing
makes the transition from being a promising trend to becoming the
mainstream.
The challenge ultimately will be to drop the ``community''
from community policing, as everyone recognizes that it is
synonymous with quality policing. As the police continue to
strive for excellence, community policing is rapidly becoming the
standard by which all departments will be judged.
FOOTNOTES
(1) Robert C. Trojanowicz, ``Police-Community Relations:
Problems and Process,'' Criminology, vol. 9, No. 4, February
1972, pp. 401-425.
(2) For an extended discussion, refer to Police Management
in the 21st Century, Robert Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqueroux,
Prentice-Hall (in progress).