Not in My Backyard

Northwestern study finds major concerns about crime motivates high citizen participation in Chicago's Community Policing Program

RELEASE DATE: December 6, 1996

Citizens of Chicago cited crime as "the number one problem" facing the city and their own neighborhoods, and such concerns motivated a significant number of them to attend community policing beat meetings to solve neighborhood problems, according to a just released study from Northwestern University. Citizens affiliated with community organizations were particularly likely to have an impact on citizen participation in the policing partnership and on decision making, according to the findings.

The findings were part of an evaluation of the city's Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) program. The study also examined the public's perception of police performance, citizens' awareness of CAPS, the effectiveness of the Joint Community-Police Training program and the extent to which certain aspects of the CAPS program had been fully implemented throughout the city three years after the community policing strategy began.

"If anything, CAPS has gotten more ambitious during the past year," said Wesley G. Skogan, professor of political science and faculty fellow at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research (IPR). Skogan, an internationally known criminologist, directed the evaluation in conjunction with researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Loyola University and DePaul University. The multi-year study is funded by grants from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and the U.S. Department of Justice.

CAPS was instituted in 1993 in five experimental districts that represented a spectrum of crime problems. In autumn 1994, elements of the program such as coordinated city services, training for patrol officers and supervisors, and new dispatching procedures began to be introduced in police districts throughout the city.

Among the findings of the 1996 CAPS study:

• Eighty-five percent of survey respondents rated police officers as "helpful when dealing with people in [their] neighborhood," and 80 percent gave them positive ratings for expressing concern for people with problems and for treating people fairly. The police also received high marks for politeness, but less positive assessments were given by citizens on how well officers helped crime victims and how effectively they worked with residents to solve local problems.

• More than half of all city residents were aware of CAPS. Knowledge of the program was widespread, with between 40 and 60 percent of all demographic groups knowing of Chicago's community policing program. This awareness, combined with citizens' concerns about crime, positively affected rates of attendance at beat meetings, which are a forum at which neighborhood problems are brought to the fore and, ideally, strategies to combat those problems are developed.

• Between January 1995 and April 1996, cumulative attendance at CAPS-related meetings exceeded 80,000. Attendance rates were somewhat higher in African-American communities than in white neighborhoods. Turnout rates were also higher in rental areas compared to those with more home ownership. However, within beats, those who came to meetings tended to represent the best-off elements of the community, and they were the most supportive of the police and citizen involvement in community policing.

• Social disorder problems, including public drinking, loitering youths and panhandling, were most commonly discussed at beat meetings. Attempts to develop solutions to those problems took place at three-quarters of meetings at which social disorder was discussed. Beat meeting topics such as physical decay problems, serious gang problems, drugs, property crime and predatory crime did not always elicit corresponding problem-solving discussion.

• Residents generally brought up neighborhood problems, but police mainly identified the solutions to them that were discussed at beat meetings. A survey of residents who attended beat meetings found that while 64 percent were involved in tackling beat problems, few citizens reported trying to do so on their own; rather, they frequently contacted the police, their alderman, or neighbors for assistance. The most reliable sources of assistance for residents with problems were beat meetings and block and community organizations.

• As of the end of July 1996, the Joint Community-Police Training (JCPT) program, developed to clarify CAPS roles for the police and residents throughout the city, hosted hundreds of training-related meetings for the thousands of citizens who attended. Many of the residents who participated were active members of the community. The majority of all attendees seemed interested in learning how to fight crime in their neighborhoods, and they appeared ready to participate in problem solving on their beat. A training-participant survey showed that individuals who were most active in community organizations were most apt to engage in problem-solving activities.

• Community organizations also lend "political capacity," the ability to identify and express the interests of residents and then effect change. Neighborhood political capacity can have an impact on CAPS because residents involved with such organizations often have the requisite skills and experience to engage in collective decision-making. Also, neighborhoods with political capacity are often able to provide resources that enable residents to assume a partnership role in CAPS. In two Chicago communities studied, however, researchers found that while political capacity provided expected benefits such as higher levels of involvement in beat meetings and less reliance on the police for information, not all groups were enthusiastically mobilized around CAPS. Some community groups believed that CAPS competed for their members' time and effort, that it might diminish their organizations' political capacity by spreading resources more thinly across competing groups and that CAPS offered no advantage to their already-established relationship with police in their district.

• Components of Chicago's community policing program that involve police interaction with citizens and city agencies were more developed at the time of the 1996 study than were those requiring change within the police organization. These findings were based on observations, interviews and analysis of documents and quantitative data on police activities in a sample of Chicago Police districts. The program was more advanced in districts with strong leadership, fewer societal and environmental challenges, younger officers working in the district and creative, enthusiastic sergeants and lieutenants.

Data for the 1996 study were gathered in multiple ways: monitoring meetings; riding in patrol cars with beat officers; surveying officers and residents; observing station-house activities and citizen and officer training; monitoring physical conditions in neighborhoods; and analyzing department documents and data.

"CAPS is the most ambitious and comprehensive community policing program in the country," said Susan M. Hartnett, project director and research associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research. "The success of the CAPS program in comparison to efforts in other big cities is attributable to Chicago's commitment to the program and the resources allocated to it. A unique CAPS feature that is also vital to the success of the program is the improved delivery of city services throughout the city."

Components that have become a regular part of the Chicago Police Department's patrol strategy as a result of CAPS include coordinated city services; new police dispatching procedures; advisory committees composed of citizens; civilian administrative managers who free up some of the commanders' time to work with citizens; and a computer system capable of crime analysis. A new police department General Order, enacted in April, 1996, formalized the procedures and activities that comprise Chicago's community policing strategy.

In the remaining years of the evaluation, CAPS researchers will also examine the problem-solving process; the inclusion of the Detective Division in the community policing program; the introduction of technology to the department; officer and citizen training efforts; and the implementation of community policing in public housing.

The full 1996 study is available from the Illinois Criminal Information Authority as part of its series of studies on drug abuse and violent crime in Illinois. Copies may be obtained by contacting the Authority at (312) 793-8550 or by writing the Authority at 120 S. Riverside Place, Suite 1016, Chicago 60606. Fifteen related project papers, listed in the Authority's new report, may be ordered from the Institute for Policy Research. Project paper summaries can also be accessed by clicking here.