Community Policing, International

Community policing is essentially a conceptual frame for a new paradigm of policing that was developed in academic circles in the United States. The tumultuous events of the 1960s, including mass civil disorder and rising crime rates, prompted political effort to reevaluate police's effectiveness as an institution. Media coverage of overly reactive and forceful police response to apparently peaceful civil rights demonstrations and violent disorder in some of the largest cities resulted in widespread public perception of the police as a violent and ineffectual institution. Worse, there was little confidence that policing was capable of suppressing the upsurge in violent, interpersonal crime that seemed to accompany the vivid scenarios viewed nightly on the national news. Hence, during the Johnson administration, the work of a Congressional commission (the Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice), whose findings prompted funding of academic research that resulted in the development of innovative strategies, led to the concept of community policing.

The term itself is somewhat of a catchall phrase for the innovative strategies that were developed in response to rising crime rates in the United States from the 1960s on into the 1970s and 1980s. This new perspective on the status and function of police within society was intended to break down the barriers between the police and the communities they served. The early advocates of community policing argued that a disproportionate segment of most police officers' day was wasted due to an overreliance on the 911 response system. Officers' time was prioritized so that they would remain “in service” awaiting the next emergency call. However, Herman Goldstein, James Q. Wilson, and others suggested that police officers spent a relatively small percentage of their day in activity that was related to crime suppression and that most of that activity was in reaction to crimes that had already been committed. Community policing strategies sought to incorporate a more proactive outlook to policing, allow street officers to break free of what was termed the “911 mentality,” and develop more effective crime reduction strategies. Under this model the police were also encouraged to become “stakeholders” in the communities they served. The inclusion of community representatives within the process of crime suppression was thought to hold tremendous potential in terms [Page 1020]of solutions to intractable and persistent issues affecting the neighborhood.

One of the most central assumptions was that the isolation of the police officer in a radio-equipped patrol car had fostered an estrangement between police officers and their communities. Advocates of community policing argued that a more personal style of patrol such as on foot or bicycle would bring the police closer to the public. The tactics and overall strategies of community policing continue to be influential. It is important to remember that even though the idealistic proposals of the early advocates have been somewhat modified over the past decade in the interest of cost-effectiveness and other considerations, this style of policing remains as the “gold standard” of American policing. The implementation of the “problem-solving” community police paradigm has largely been credited for the dramatic reduction in violent crime in the urban areas of the United States, and many other police agencies throughout the world have assimilated its principles, tactics, and strategies.

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