American policing is transitioning from “Community Policing” into “Community Engagement.” They are not the same. Community Engagement was borne out of our efforts to stem the increase in violent crime. We found that the best and most successful efforts included a relationship between the police and the neighbors and community members who work side by side to jointly solve and prevent violent criminal acts in the neighborhoods where they lived, worked, went to school in or drove through.
While similar thinking was at the heart of Community Policing in its partnership, problem-solving and organizational transformation pillars, our concentration was on rapid mobile response to 911 emergency calls. Instead, our efforts were centered on taking non-emergency calls over 911 telephone lines and sending officers by car to respond to and write reports on non-emergency calls. These duties could have been handled in significantly different ways by people other than sworn law enforcement officers.
Our “community policing” efforts largely focused on crime prevention activities, often handled by community policing or community relations personnel assigned to a specialized unit, completely bypassing the officers who actually worked in those communities.
While that model came with some successes, it did not include a similar focus on the thornier issues of mutual trust, legitimacy and cooperation, belying police-community relations that are necessary to have intentional and productive police-community partnerships.
At the same time, efforts like “Ceasefire”, Place-Network Investigations (PNI), Community Violence Intervention (CVI) and, most recently, Community Based Violence Intervention and Crime Prevention Initiative (CVIPI) have demonstrated successful community-based strategies to reduce crime and create improved partnerships between law enforcement and community interests.
In our transition from Community Policing to Community Engagement, we can’t progress from the old way to a new way without bringing forward the Citizen Police Academy, Neighborhood Watch, ride-a-long, volunteer, and other partnership programs and efforts that have given us the achievements we’ve enjoyed. There remains much work to do which requires more department and citizen participation.
At Policing With Our Community© (PWOC) we see expanding citizen participation in three major areas.
Here we build upon our “community policing” programs and activities but expand outreach, training and education which is co-developed and delivered with community and neighborhood resources. It includes greater emergency preparedness based on the local natural and industrial threats at the community level. With emergency preparedness comes an enriched crime prevention and community safety awareness. It likely begins with joint law enforcement and community programs that educate the public on the appropriate use of “911.”
Through the advances we’ve made based largely on ‘intelligence-led policing” or “science-based policing,” our crime analysis and intelligence gathering capacity has likely outpaced our community partnership efforts. As cities, some with significant amounts of gun violence, began adopting or developing Neighborhood Place Investigation (NPI) and similar intervention programs that have had significant community involvement and participation, began to demonstrate successes. We nicknamed it, “Citizen CompStat.”
The police-community view of crime reduction and/or intervention is specific to each neighborhood and community. Therefore, each community and law enforcement agency has to examine their crime and disorder and jointly develop strategies based on their analysis and planning.
Ironically, following years of law enforcement specialization resulting in many city-wide street crimes and career criminal units, the patrol officer has had little or no role in the crime reduction/intervention strategy and have been relegated almost solely to handling low level calls for service.
Here too, responsibilities and duties for all participants are outlined in policy and spelled out for participant stakeholders and department personnel alike.
This area is sometimes referred to as Trust or Legitimacy. Much of the stakeholder effort in this area has resulted in the adoption of one of the police oversight models. These boards or commissions have mixed results and have met overwhelming opposition by law enforcement officers. This is an area that deserves our attention as a part of our community engagement efforts.
We believe there is a place for the discussion on accountability and transparency that includes a local neighborhood and community perspective on the issues associated with legitimacy. We always hope that members of any oversight body have been participants in a community-based law enforcement advisory committee where they became familiar with department personnel, their responsibilities, duties, and organizational culture. We believe this is where the relationship between the police and those they serve begins. We also know when citizens get to know the district, sector, or precinct commander, they will eventually tell them which officers they respect and those they don’t.
Here at Policing With our Community©, we strive to help both law enforcement and community stakeholders on the journey.
