As it turns out, the most successful policing to mitigate a community’s fear of crime and disorder is pretty basic: foot patrol. Appointing officers on foot allows for more interactions not centered in law enforcement, a practice called community policing.
What is Community Policing?
Community policing is a philosophy that promotes partnerships and problem-solving techniques at a system level to proactively mitigate conditions that can cultivate public safety issues, including crime, disorder, and a fear of crime. This includes developing collaborative partnerships within the community, transforming organizational management and information systems to support a proactive, community-level approach, and championing a problem-solving mentality.
Community-Oriented Policing vs. Problem-Oriented Policing
Instead of simply responding to crimes after they are committed and enforcing the law, community-oriented policing takes a more holistic approach. This includes working with the community to manage not just crimes but maintain general peace and order and really understand the neighborhood and its needs. This allows police officers to proactively manage crime and disorder instead of reacting to events when they occur, which may be less of a deterrent to crime.
Problem-oriented policing is a specific approach to solving problems, as opposed to community-oriented policing, which is a governing philosophy.
Three Generations of Community Policing
Since its inception in the 1800s, community policing can be broken down into three generations:
- Innovation (1879-1886): During this time, police forces conducted some isolated experiments, with some seeing positive results, but not all.
- Diffusion (1987-1994): This generation launched a unit approach, where specific teams would respond to reports from a road patrol.
- Institutionalization (1995 – today): Beginning in the mid-90s, community policing has seen widespread implementation, evolving into a philosophy, rather than just a unit approach.
Although community policing is now ubiquitous, each neighborhood has different needs, and individual departments tend to take different approaches.
Does Community Policing Reduce Crime?
Research conducted in Police Foundation’s Newark Foot Patrol Experiment indicates that foot patrols may not reduce crime, but this kind of personal interaction can curb a communities fear of crime. In turn, residents believe their communities are safer and express greater satisfaction with police services. This also fosters information sharing through frequent policing contact, ultimately arming police with the information they need to control crime and maintain order.
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For example, when the National Police Foundation studied random preventative stops in Kansas City and examined shortened police responses times, the foundation increasingly found that the real value came from door-to-door interaction and foot patrols in cultivating close relationships with neighborhoods, reducing fears and concerns about crime or disorder, and improving satisfaction with the police force and the areas they serve.
The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy agrees: community policing may not reduce crime, but it does reduce the fear of crime and improve the legitimacy of the police force in the eyes of the community.
Why is Community Policing Important?
Community policing is important because it acknowledges the connected relationships police functions have between road patrols, investigators, and administrators. It also enables a more effective use of personnel and reduces dependence on the criminal justice system. Police develop a growing understanding and knowledge of their assigned areas, which allows them to improve police response.
When all police and citizens alike approach maintaining the peace and reducing crime with a shared sense of responsibility, the problems that spur crime can be better managed before they fester into egregious crimes and disorder – and everyone wins.
Examples of Community Policing Programs
When officers and citizens work together and build trusting relationships, both parties can help build safer communities. Across the country, many different approaches to community policing are seeing positive results.
In Mankato, Minnesota, The Tapestry Project connects refugees with the broader community through education, mentorship, and cross-cultural communication. The goal is to prevent crime and other social issues that can stem from a lack of understanding, and is aimed at addressing all the conditions (political, cultural, social or cultural) that can provoke crime.
Mankato earned the Community Policing Award from the IACP and Cisco in 2013 for the town’s commitment to community policing.
In other cases, the efforts can be individual. Corporal Randall White, in Winston-Salem, lends citizens a helping hand by fixing cars, offering rides to stranded citizens, and pitching in when he sees a need.
Chicago-based Officer Roderique McClain hosts meet-and-greets at senior living facilities and ensures senior citizens in the communities have registered for emergency medical bracelets, according to the November 2017 issue of the COPS’ e-newsletter, The Dispatch.
Community Policing: A Part of Florida Tech’s Curriculum
Florida Tech’s online BA in Criminal Justice provides a holistic curriculum, combining a liberal arts foundation with specialized coursework in criminal justice, policing and legal issues. Courses in the online program include:
- Correctional Systems
- Community Corrections
- Contemporary Policing Strategies
- Police Organizations and Administration
Explore Florida Tech’s online criminal justice programs.