Police Do Not Lower Crime Rates?

[Pancho Villa]

Can someone explain to me what "community policing" is?

[flan7211]

Community policing was an alternative policing strategy developed in the mid-70 off of studies such as the broken window theory and your articles' theory that less cops working with a community would improve crime rates. It's basic tenants were to help communicate with citizens about issues, instead of being a silent "foreign" enforcement group that were there just to arrest and suppress crime. Google it you'll find some good stuff, not in complete agreement but some decent ideas. You'll usually have it defined as a liberal theory.

[Inspector Fowler]

Community policing has a couple different faces.

The ideal face, when administrators come up with a community policing plan, is that police officers work directly with the community they serve to meet their needs directly - maybe the police are focusing on one problem when another is more important.

This works through community meetings and liaisons with citizens. So let's say you work early week midnight shift, when there aren't as many drunks on the road or rowdy parties in your community. You meet with some local businesses, maybe even just walk in, and ask them what has been bothering them. A lot of people don't report things like transient issues, graffiti, minor thefts, etc. If the police make a good relationship, the odds are good that citizens will feel more comfortable participating in law enforcement, rather than thinking they can't get help.

In reality, it doesn't often work that way. There are a lot of reasons for that. The face that community policing usually takes is the following:

2/3rds of a department works, essentially, at night. That's a simple but effective obstacle to communication. Coming in on a day off is an option, but a poor one - even if your department will authorize the comp or overtime, it's not a whole lot of fun to flip your sleep schedule and come in on a day off so you can meet with some people at what is essentially 1:00 AM for you.

Another issue is that there isn't usually any accountability. Sure, the administration says, "All right, guys, get with the business owners, HOAs, and other groups in your beat. Do some meetings, get some good intel. I want results!" But afterwards, there isn't any follow up. It becomes a bullet point for the department website, safety brochures, and press releases, but nobody is actually doing it.

Let's throw another thing into the mix - most cops feel like the community they serve ignores them at best, and hates them at worst. I feel really strongly about this, but there aren't any easy solutions. I think that realistically, most people are pretty ambivalent about cops - there are some bad ones, and some great ones, and most of them are okay, just like anybody else. But all the training cops get (everybody is out to get you) coupled with the occasional media frenzy focusing on the truly terrible cops, coupled again with the strong sense of brotherhood leads to a vicious "us vs them" mentality in some departments. So if you really think that most of the people in your town think you're a dick, you're not real likely to schedule a bunch of meetings and ask them what scares them.

I think the last big obstacle is communication. A lot of departments leave the community policing to a "crime prevention officer" or two. This position gives a cop a chance to wear a "soft" uniform, have a day shift for a few years, and he doesn't have to ride around, responding to calls or dealing with drunken assholes for a while. This often shuts other cops ears, so when he comes back and says, "Hey guys, the businesses on north Main St have been telling me they've been cleaning a lot of gang graffiti on the back sides of their businesses - can we get over there and do some extra patrols?", they typically blow him off because they see him (even if it's just for the duration of this assignment) as the guy with the easy job who is just giving them info so the bosses can't say he isn't doing his job.

Now, this isn't everywhere - I think it works great some places, if they take care to overcome the obstacles listed above (and more). I also think that responding to the community's needs is the easiest way to actually lower crime. I subscribe to the Robert Peel's (paraphrased here) thought that everybody's duty is to help fight crime, cops just get paid to do it full time and give it all their energy. The only way to do that is to get truly involved with the city you serve and make sure that the citizens are equal partners, but when you start talking like that, cops eyes glaze over

That's my view on it - it's how every department should work, in an ideal world.

[Elhuero]

back when I shared a house on the south end with some friends, the mexicans down the street would rip up and down the block in their mustang at about 80. (well, they still do.. I just don't live there anymore)

if community policing was in effect, my buddy could have waved them down, then directed their attention to me on the porch holding my rifle, then asked them politely to slow down.

it is not used because

A. self defense is criminalized and

B. [insert lazy cops comment here]

[KevDen2005]

back when I shared a house on the south end with some friends, the mexicans down the street would rip up and down the block in their mustang at about 80. (well, they still do.. I just don't live there anymore)

if community policing was in effect, my buddy could have waved them down, then directed their attention to me on the porch holding my rifle, then asked them politely to slow down.

it is not used because

A. self defense is criminalized and

B. [insert lazy cops comment here]

It is used however it depends on the size of the city, number of police officers, and call load for that department. Different departments will have different effects. My PD works fairly closely with a lot organizations and we also have community service officers that their sole duty is to make contact with community leaders, businesses, etc.

I would also suggest that research has shown that criminals watch patterns of police officers and once they get used to a certain pattern the criminal strikes (i.e. breaking into cars or houses). It is important for an officer for community safety as well as personal safety to not e complacent and not to be repeat their actions whenever possible during patrolling.

You make a point about lazy officers, I have worked with some that I have criticised to their face because they aren't pro-active enough in their areas. Some PD's just don't have the time.

[Elhuero]

It is used however it depends on the size of the city, number of police officers, and call load for that department. Different departments will have different effects. My PD works fairly closely with a lot organizations and we also have community service officers that their sole duty is to make contact with community leaders, businesses, etc.

I would also suggest that research has shown that criminals watch patterns of police officers and once they get used to a certain pattern the criminal strikes (i.e. breaking into cars or houses). It is important for an officer for community safety as well as personal safety to not e complacent and not to be repeat their actions whenever possible during patrolling.

You make a point about lazy officers, I have worked with some that I have criticised to their face because they aren't pro-active enough in their areas. Some PD's just don't have the time.

Kev great post and thanks again for what you do.

we mentioned the problem several times to CSPD and they just couldn't be bothered with it.

[ldmaster]

Community policing, like most general policies adopted and used by modern police departments start out very well in the conceptual phase...

Then "community policing" turns into something else.

It becomes a by-word, used like D.A.R.E. to reassure the public that a police department is "doing something".

Want a good example of HOW community policing works? Ask any regular patrol officer in denver if, at times, they are asked to "deemphasize" any particular classification of crime.

In Aurora public schools, and Cherry Creek Schools violent crimes are simply not written up as violent crimes. Get beat up at school, and you WONT find a crime report written about it. Drug buy? "de-emphasized" by school administration on school grounds.

so, as long as politicians can de-emphasize any particular police activity, any statistics associated with police work are inherently a lie.

When they study drugs in clinical trials, they use "double blind" so even the researchers dont know who is getting what.

how does the study affect the outcome? the politicians KNOW the study is taking place, or the time period when it will take place - and policies are changed to affect that study.

I was sort of wondering, in Albuquerque when crime rate went to 0 - was this from the UCR? Because the FBI gets it's stats directly from departments, it simply follows that if a department isn't writing up any crime, then the stats MUST be 0.

For folks that actually think that they have an 'effective' community policing effort - ask 10 residents who their PAR officer is - if 1 out of 10 knows the answer, I'd be surprised. Ask any PAR officer what the vacancy rate is in an apartment complex, and they wouldn't know that -

In short, "community policing" doesn't encourage an actual intimate relationship with the neighborhood you are assigned to. Even if it DID, between calls for service and the required paperwork, there is almost NO time that can be spent learning things about people in a neighborhood who ARENT criminals.

[KevDen2005]

Kev great post and thanks again for what you do.

we mentioned the problem several times to CSPD and they just couldn't be bothered with it.

I appreciate it brother,

something I should add is funding. I have a friend that works for CSPD I'm not going to defend them, but they are literally about 300 cops understaffed given their city size, etc. That being said when we get into a financial crisis, police and fire are some of the first things to get funding reduced, then there goes the ability to have things like Community Service Officers and have time to reach out to the community. If one looks at Colorado they can see that Law Enforcement including all of the Jails and services takes up less than 3 percent of the state budget, so cutting doesn't really cut that much.

Anyway, I hope it gets better with CSPD for you. So I thought this budgeting light might be helpful.

[KevDen2005]

Community policing, like most general policies adopted and used by modern police departments start out very well in the conceptual phase...

Then "community policing" turns into something else.

It becomes a by-word, used like D.A.R.E. to reassure the public that a police department is "doing something".

Want a good example of HOW community policing works? Ask any regular patrol officer in denver if, at times, they are asked to "deemphasize" any particular classification of crime.

In Aurora public schools, and Cherry Creek Schools violent crimes are simply not written up as violent crimes. Get beat up at school, and you WONT find a crime report written about it. Drug buy? "de-emphasized" by school administration on school grounds.

so, as long as politicians can de-emphasize any particular police activity, any statistics associated with police work are inherently a lie.

When they study drugs in clinical trials, they use "double blind" so even the researchers dont know who is getting what.

how does the study affect the outcome? the politicians KNOW the study is taking place, or the time period when it will take place - and policies are changed to affect that study.

I was sort of wondering, in Albuquerque when crime rate went to 0 - was this from the UCR? Because the FBI gets it's stats directly from departments, it simply follows that if a department isn't writing up any crime, then the stats MUST be 0.

For folks that actually think that they have an 'effective' community policing effort - ask 10 residents who their PAR officer is - if 1 out of 10 knows the answer, I'd be surprised. Ask any PAR officer what the vacancy rate is in an apartment complex, and they wouldn't know that -

In short, "community policing" doesn't encourage an actual intimate relationship with the neighborhood you are assigned to. Even if it DID, between calls for service and the required paperwork, there is almost NO time that can be spent learning things about people in a neighborhood who ARENT criminals.

You make a very interesting point about stats, that I wasn't planning on talking about but wanted to mention. If officers aren't taking reports than nothing gets reported.

There was a study done several years ago (I wish I could remember where I saw it now, but I can't) it was either about child abuse or child sex assault or something very similar. It went up several hundred percent. At first it appeared that the statistic came out of nowhere but it was then realized through study that people were reporting the occurance more often rather than not, hence the huge increase of reports to the FBI.

[alxone]

Statistics may not be without bias.

If census workers go on strike, does the "0" recorded means all the illegals are gone? Some crimes might not be statistically reported if nobody is there to do the paperwork....

^ this ^ a+