In modern urban America, that's much more myth than reality. But as Wesley G. Skogan (IPR-Political Science) and IPR Research Associate Susan Hartnett describe it in their new book, Community Policing, Chicago Style (Oxford University Press, 1997), mythology may be one more element in the growing popularity of this revolutionary policing strategy for combatting crime and disorder.
The book is one of the first detailed portraits of community policing in action. It is based on a large-scale process-and-outcome evaluation of the Chicago experiment by a research team headed by Skogan and coordinated by Hartnett that covers the first three years of implementation through 1995. The authors examine the roots and development of Chicago's "unique homegrown approach"to community policing and its impact on community involvement, the quality of life in the neighborhoods, and the police involved in the program.
"Fostering innovation in police departments is a tough job," say the authors, who think the process involved virtually "reinventing policing" and more than a bit of reinventing government as well.
Skogan and Hartnett suggest four guiding principles that are key to community policing: 1) organizational decentralization; 2) a commitment to problem-oriented policing, which requires police to shift from their traditional crime-fighting orientation to one that identifies the causes of problem situations and recognizes patterns; 3) police willingness to respond to citizens when setting priorities and developing tactics; and 4) the concept of police and citizens as "co-producers of safety." In this latter role, police help neighborhoods to solve crime problems through their community organizations and prevention programs.
Politics played a big role in positioning Chicago to accept community policing, the authors maintain. They cite the rising political power of African-Americans and Hispanics, and an urgency to prevent urban violence, as powerful stimuli to Mayor Richard Daley's full-fledged support of the initiative.
The emergence of more well-educated police administrators and the growing networks of police managers and policymakers who exchange information have also made inroads into the traditional culture of policing and its highly centralized structure. The wider societal trends toward decentralization and privatization of public services, and widespread use of pagers, cellphones, and other technological devices have also contributed to its acceptance. And the current fiscal crisis has motivated police to look for ways to get more out of less money, they note.
Hartnett and Skogan are quick to point out that community policing has certainly not been an unqualified success. They attribute the many failures of earlier programs in large measure to a police culture that fears loss of control, to the lack of adequate police personnel, to supervisors who did not understand the new agenda, and to problems of interorganizational cooperation. Furthermore, they say the strategy is difficult to implement in neighborhoods fragmented by race, class, and lifestyle, and community involvement is hard to sustain, especially in poor neighborhoods that are traditionally suspicious of police and fearful of retaliation by gangs and drug dealers.
Nonetheless, the researchers see reason for optimism in Chicago's experiment. They found changes in the visibility of policing, new optimism about the quality of police service, and evidence that crime, social disorder, and physical decay decreased in the community policing districts. "Every district registered some successes,"they report, including homeowners, renters, whites, and African-Americans. Hispanics, however, did not share the same levels of success. Their awareness and participation were low and thus they did not see a significant improvement in the quality of their lives. The researchers believe that addressing language and cultural barriers, which got less attention early on in the program, should help remediate this problem.