Community Policing: Building Trust And Legitimacy In Public Safety

The Emergence of Community Policing

In what way has the community policing movement contributed toward public trust and police legitimacy?

There is an urgent and compelling need to adopt innovative approaches to solutions to many pressing problems in society.  In the 21^st century the military model of policing is shifting to community-based-policing where primary emphasis is on prevention approaches (Kurke & Scrivne, 2009).  Community policing is a philosophy of law enforcement bodies that focuses on cooperation, empathy, and support between the locals of a particular area and police force.  Community policing is the latest development in policing policies whose main aim is to stop crimes.  This is a supportive strategy, a new tactic adopted and implemented in developed countries to quell crime by building a rapport with the residents of the area.  This strategy is designed after careful analysis from qualitative and quantitative studies that demonstrate that citizens are most likely to cooperate with police and abide by the laws if they think the police as legitimate. (Mazerolle, Bennett, Davis, Sargeant, & Manning, 2012)

Ericson stated that “community policing is best understood as the policing of communications about risk and security in late modern society.”  Since communities are organic and continuously changing, the approach needed is flexibility and not the previous kind of militarism or communitarianism.  The main aim behind this development is that community policing serves as a deterrent helps officers to develop a bond, rapport with the residents so that the citizens aid officers if a crime or incident occurs.  This is a public relations ploy that aids in prevention of crime and is a positive public method of policing. However this new endeavor has been misinterpreted and has created great confusion amongst communities that has adopted this methodology. This philosophy is shrouded with debates and its effectiveness is being questioned because police administrators are perceived as aggressive law enforcers who leave the citizens feeling victimized, humiliated and violated.  Thus the most common concern about community policing is “can the police actually use this model effectively?” (Ferreira, 2017)

Despite community policing has been accepted as a workable concept by the police themselves in countries like Australia and Canada, yet there is conceptual confusion and there is no standardized definition of this method.  For some this is an ideal imperative that can encourage cooperation between the police and public and simultaneously enhance the perception of police legitimacy.  But the proponents of traditional policing believe that community policing can have adverse effects and reduce arrests as police officers will become friendly with residents and exhibit favoritism with them (Miller, Hess, & Orthmann, 2017).

Benefits and Challenges of Community Policing

Although, the effectiveness of community policing is young and there is resistance to this change from the traditional bureaucratic police community but the fact is “actively involving the community in preventing and reducing crime” cannot be denied.  Community policing has long-lasting effects and can be rightly said that this is a “crime prevention strategy” that also strengthens high levels of trust and confidence towards police in the communities. (Putt, 2010).  The psychology behind community policing is to provide restorative justice which is beyond traditional law enforcement.  It is alternative model of policing that provides nonviolence conflict resolution.  After repeated failures of various crime prevention programs, it seems that community policing or the restorative justice might help to prevent crimes (Perry, 2002). 

The concept of community policing can be traced back in the 19^th century in USA when the main tactic involved was police officers going on foot patrols in the neighborhood they served.  Community policing has been defined as “depending on community involvement, community policing is the best way to engage a community and invites its members to participate in law enforcement.” (U.S Department of Justice, 2002) the goal behind this is to strive towards prevention of crime.  Community policing is a law enforcement strategy which is receiving great attention across the globe.  This is a major paradigm shift from the conventional professional model of policing.  Community policing encourages inclusive partnership between the locals and the police to solve crimes and maintain security and peace in the area.  This is different from the traditional bureaucratic law enforcement practices that are forcefully powered down against not-so-serious offences.  Community policing is a new coined philosophy that emerged in the 21^st century to create bond between the local residents in the area and police to prevent crime before it occurs.  It encourages the citizens of the area to participate with the law enforcement body and help in creating law and order in society.  Many public safety agencies are engaging residents and boosting community policing initiatives via technology and social media platforms (Lortz, 2016).

Community policing has its up and downs but in the modern era there are several static and dynamic ways in which this has been implemented.  This new style of policing received resistance from officers because it demanded giving up of the centralized bureaucratic style of policing.  It required re-structuralizing patrol, emphasizing on proactive techniques and relying more on civilian education and the neighborhood watch (Kappeler & Gaines, 2012). 

The Impact of Community Policing on Public Trust and Police Legitimacy

Globalization has significantly changed the traditional localized and geographically confined concepts of community.  The physical concept of communities is not totally lost but the confined social fabric has been eroded due to various variables.  Modern communities are more complex and in this new and continuously changing community landscape community policing is preferably a resilient concept.  For successful policing, this law enforcement body needs to be restructured and the need is that it works in conjunction with different partners like communities.  Knowledge-based policing is the new emerging concept which is closely linked with community engagement in policing. (Putt, 2010)Although, law enforcement bodies pay less emphasis on features like respect, neutrality, dignity, participation, and trustworthy motives but the fact is that these features promotes citizen compliance with law and increases citizen’s cooperation with police.  Community policing alone is not an effective way of policing but it definitely contributes in making improvements in society that is affordable and manageable by the police (Tyler, Goff, & MacCoun, 2015).

In 2014 a study was published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology namely “Community-Oriented Policing to Reduce Crime, Disorder and Fear and Increase Satisfaction and Legitimacy among Citizens: A Systematic Review”.  This quantitative study was conducted in the neighborhoods of USA to study the outcomes of implementing community policing.  Approximately 65 independent tests were conducted which demonstrated that community policing had positive effects on perception of order, police legitimacy, citizen satisfaction but had limited effect on fear of crime. (Gill, Weisburd, Telep, Vitter, & Bennett, 2014)

This is the case study of one local police department in USA that experienced increased crime rates and low police officer morale after the focus of community policing shifted to reactive policing after 9/11.  To counter terrorism, shifting occurred in USA and the police adopted tactics which violated community policing like search, phone tapping, etc. This forceful enforcement of law did not reduce crime but on the contrary enraged people and led to hostile attacks.  The best example of this is Oklahoma City bombing which was a reaction against hard tactics of policing.  Similarly various stories of interaction shared by people in the minority community demonstrated that the tools adopted by traditional policing generated hatred and mistrust (DeMeester, LaMagdeleine, & Norton, 2016).

On the contrary the soft tactics used in conjunction with community policing proved to be more effective in countering terrorism.  The best success example of this cited by Brown in his case study ‘rebirth of community policing’ are: apprehension of the Washington D.C. snipers in 2002 and the apprehension of “railway killer,” Angel Maturino Resendez.  This was possible due to citizen cooperation.  Similarly, after 9/11 and 7/7, Muslim young men were made soft targets and were taken as suspects.  This created mistrust and hatred towards law enforcement agencies.  But by interviewing and interacting with police officers from Muslim Contact Unit, it became obvious that with transparency and openness this could be regained.  MCU later on served as a bridge between Muslim community and police.

Successful Examples of Community Policing

Police community has embodied community policing in various ways.  Some have designated a unit or an individual to be the community police and still some use “Neighborhood policing,” in distressed area like St. Louis neighborhoods and Columbia Heights which had high crime rate, low income, limited resources and were socially isolated (Gau & Brunson, 2009).  The research study conducted in this area demonstrated that people in this area believed that their socioeconomic status, way of dressing, poverty and race made them ‘suspicious person’ and were subjected to scrutiny. Such communities re-embraced community policing and presently the crime rate has gone down. In certain diverse communities community is quite satisfied with the police.  The quantitative research data suggests that the change from controlling crime with arrests, threats, stops and frisks, and enforcement to focus on relationship building and community connection has served the purpose of reducing crime.

There are multiple examples of community policing efforts that have proved to be successful for example police working with youths in athletic leagues or clubs provide an opportunity to interact informally with youth and learn about their socioeconomic status and their cultural background and way of thinking.  The evolution of policing is laying emphasis on management policing, training police officers in community policing techniques, etc.  A 1987 report on community policing efforts highlighted that this form have proved to be successful in police administration and there is no doubt that it has tremendous potentials (Peak & Glensor, 1999). 

The development of new experimental approach and social policy experimentation to cure some societal evils has proved to be effective or not is still debatable.  Since 1990s the ‘Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) funded thousands of dollars to community policing in an attempt to improve law has yielded mixed response.  It has its own limitations because violent crime can be reduced with strict law enforcement and the message that future violence will meet with predictable and clear consequences must be conveyed clearly.  The propagators of community policing also hold that this approach alone will not work.  They call for a change in approach where police must aim to reduce fear and adopt ‘problem-oriented’ approach and address the nagging concerns.  Several incidents have been recorded where community policing has failed.  For instance if drugs are being sold in a community, an undercover officer unknown to the community can investigate and law enforcement arsenal like search warrant, eviction can be used.  The community police must be the ear and eye of law enforcement agency and not just an information booth (Morgenthau, 1990).

The Boston’s violence reduction strategy known as Operation Ceasefire was a problem oriented policing project that aimed at preventing and controlling serious violence targeted arm trafficking and implemented deterrent strategy.  Their focus was to convey that violence will not be tolerated and hence they adopted extreme law enforcement steps to put a stop to shooting.  A U.S. department of justice sponsored Ceasefire drew positive results and the youth violence in Boston fell by two-thirds. (Ulmenstein & Sultan, 2011).  In the same vein the Cincinnati Police Department pulled all levers to control serious violence like gun shooting, illegal gambling and prostitution business (Ulmenstein & Sultan, 2011).The arrests helped to regain the legitimacy and confidence in police and the violence reduced to 40% after the arrests.

Undoubtedly, the research data and evidences prove that community policing has decreased the crime rate.  The effective problem-solving partnership between the police and community improves the quality of life and prevents crime and disorder.  Community policing promotes and advocates change in behavior which is a psychological component. In 1980s, law enforcement bodies resisted psychology but later on APA leaders were asked to give their inputs in managing the social pressing problems and this cultural shift gave birth to community policing.  Community policing is now being incorporated to improve the relationship between the police and the urban citizens (Scrivner, 2002). For various reasons the crime rate has fallen in USA after 1993 to 48% as per the FBI Uniform crime reports but the trust and confidence in police has not risen.  According to Reuter’s poll, 35% of Americans believed that police unfairly targeted the minorities and 31% believed that police routinely lie for their personal interest.  This shows that trust and confidence the most important issue is not addressed properly by the deterrence models.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that police benefit from community cooperation in resolving crimes and apprehending criminals.  Working with police in the neighborhoods, the community can help the police to attend community meetings, join clubs as neighborhood watch.  These actions are obviously more proactive, positive and organized.  If people believe that police are legitimate, they will more likely participate in the police efforts.  It is clear that community policing must incorporate police legitimacy as this will enhance police trust and reduce crime behavior.  Higher legitimacy will increase community’s willingness to obey the law and lower the hostility towards the police.  There are empirical evidences that portray that police can enhance citizen’s attitude towards compliance, confidence and cooperation by demonstrating dignity and trust in citizens, neutral in their decision and building an understanding by engaging with citizens to combat crime.

In order to reduce crime rate and establish safe and secure communities, police community alone or citizens alone cannot win the battle.  Cooperation from citizens is a must and this potentially involves motivation and legitimacy.  Police agencies are incorporating IT to achieve their goals. The police can gain leverage if they can inculcate the perception that their actions or reactions are legitimate.  This realization of legitimacy will motivate and create a feeling of obligation to abide by the law (Tyler & Fagan, 2008). These kinds of legitimacy can be developed only when police deal fairly with the public and maintain neutrality (Tosun, 2016).

The empirical evidences of historical reduction in crime and high level of community support in diverse, poor or less fortunate communities is due to the successful cooperation of citizens.  The significant drop rate of crime in USA since 1993 to 2002 is solely due to the programs like COPS.  In brief community policing is a philosophy an endeavor and not a tried and tested program.  It is a new model of police and community relations which highly relies on change in attitude and psychological behavior and perception.  The drop in the Boston crime rate provides enough evidence that community policing can proactively address the pressing problems with nonviolent means (Jayachandran, 2016). Psychology plays pivotal role in shaping and changing the police-community relations and the main driver of cooperation is legitimacy.  The law and legal system can foster the willingness to act on their behalf only if the citizens feel that they are safe in the presence of police.  The police must give up their racial and ethnic stereotyping conduct against certain communities and groups.  In Australia a range of programs focus on improving police legitimacy and are working to develop long-term effective prevention strategies like enhancing cultural awareness training, recruiting police officers from diverse cultures, using community meeting to discuss local problems and unanimously finding solutions to the pressing issues (McDaniel, 2016).

References

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