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This book examines one of the most important topics in contemporary law enforcement--problem-oriented community policing. Reporting on how community policing really works on the streets of Chicago, it describes the five-step problem-solving model that the city developed for tackling neighborhood problems ranging from graffiti to gang violence.
The first step was to identify problems and set priorities among them, and in Chicago this featured a great deal of community input. Police and residents were to analyze these problems using a "crime triangle" that called for information on offenders, victims and locations of crimes.
Next they were to devise solutions to priority problems that might deal with their chronic character. Police and residents were trained to "think outside the box" of traditional police enforcement tactics and to apply new resources that had been developed to support problem-solving efforts.
The book describes how the organization was restructured to support these problem-solving steps; specific "organizational design" features were required to give the program a chance of working. Chicago reorganized the way police patrolled, moving away as much as possible from simply responding to 911 calls toward turf-based teams of officers charged with dealing with all of the problems in their area. The department also changed the way these teams were supervised, and there was new emphasis on teamwork across the 24-hour clock. The community's views were represented through district-level advisory committees and monthly public meetings held in neighborhood locations throughout the city. Police could also draw upon the support of all of the city's departments, quickly triggering services ranging from car tows to trash pickups.
To examine how problem solving really worked, the authors selected 15 police beats for detailed study. These neighborhoods represented many of the conditions and life styles of Chicagoans. Residents of some beats were largely white, others were predominately Latino or African-American in composition, and some were extremely diverse. Some beats were dense with large apartment buildings, while single family homes prevailed elsewhere. Some were affluent and some desperately poor.
The problems each beat faced varied as well. Residents of most areas reported that drugs and gangs were at the top of their list of concerns, but social disorder (graffiti, public drinking, etc.) and physical decay also posed problems in many areas. The highly variable and sometimes complex social meaning that residents gave to local problems was precisely the reason for Chicago to adopt a very decentralized policing program: Through their closer association with residents, police could learn about local concerns and act locally in response, and the organizational arrangements created to support problem solving gave them tools to deal with a broad range of problems.
Two chapters examine how communities and the police responded to these problems. The neighborhoods varied greatly in their "natural" self-defensive capacity. Residents of some were willing to exercise a great deal of informal control over local conditions, reportedly standing ready to stop graffiti, halt fights and protect the elderly from harassment. The beats varied greatly in the extent to which residents were active in block clubs, neighborhood watches or patrols, school groups and local churches. They also varied in the extent to which they could extract problem-solving resources from downtown via residents' connections, their aldermen, and electoral politics. Overall, six of the 15 study areas had great capacity to deal with problems on their own; the others would need at least some help. Those in the latter category were generally poor, and many were deeply divided internally by race and class.
However, the amount of effective problem-solving help from the police was variable. Of the police teams working with residents in the 15 beats, only four received an "excellent" rating. Another five were fielding reasonable programs, but two were struggling and four more received a failing grade. Differences between them hinged on local leadership. In beats where sergeants did their job, troops kept focused on the beat's priority problems, did some problem solving and involved the community. It is notable that some of the best policing occurred in some of the poorest and most disenfranchised areas.
Problem solving did not only work well in high-capacity, pro-police, racially homogeneous areas as many had feared. But this did not mean that no one was left out. At least five diverse or African-American beats did not get very good service, and a majority of those beats needed help. A final chapter summarizes these findings and presents a discussion of possible amendments to Chicago's program that might have helped it work better.
Northwestern University
Institute for Policy Research
Program for Law
and Justice Studies
625 Haven
Evanston, IL 60208-4150
PHONE: (847) 491-8353
FAX: (847) 467-4040
For more information on IPR's Community Policing Evaluation, click on Community Policing
Evaluation
For more information on Chicago's community policing initiative, click on Community Policing