Understanding community policing

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to explore, in broad terms, how policing needs to be developed in communities today. Approach The approach is normative and analytical, considering the meaning of policing in general, and community policing in particular, and specifying the criteria that such policing has to satisfy in order to be fair and effective in contemporary society. Findings A concept of public self-policing is developed and community policing is then evaluated in the light of this concept. Police officers are understood as street-level bureaucrats, with multiple accountabilities. The ideal relationship between police and public is characterised as a structural coupling between two types of self-organising system. Implications The paper has implications for how policing organisations and governments might develop improved policing strategies in the future. Value of the paper The paper provides a clear, logical summary of thinking about the role of policing, particularly community policing, in today’s society. It offers a novel concept of public self-policing, leading to a new approach to the evaluation of the work of policing organisations

Evolution of Community Policing in New York City

This study examines the various community policing initiatives, or lack of community policing initiatives, within the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from 1984 to present. Community policing is a policing model that is currently in the forefront of the criminal justice field due to strained relationships between many communities and the police. The community policing initiatives examined in this study are organized as follows: the Community Patrol Officer Program (C-POP) under Police Commissioner Ward (1984-1989); the Safe Streets, Safe City Program under Police Commissioner Brown (1989-1992), which established community policing as the dominant operational philosophy in the NYPD; Broken Windows data-driven policing under Police Commissioner Bratton (1994-1996), which ended community policing as the dominant operational philosophy; the Lack of Emphasis on Community Policing under Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly (2002-2014); the Re-emergence of Community Policing under Police Commissioner Bratton’s second term (2014-2016); and currently the Neighborhood Coordination Officer Program (NCO) under Police Commissioner O\u27Neill (2016-present). These initiatives were analyzed as an evolutionary process in order to determine how community policing models have changed in the NYPD as well as attempt to identify the factors driving the change in policing styles. This study includes research of prior community policing initiatives as well as first hand observations of current community policing initiatives within the NYPD. It was ultimately determined that numerous factors influenced the various community policing initiatives. Surprisingly, even though addressing the needs of the community is often cited as the sole or even primary goal of community policing programs, it was determined that this was not necessarily the case across NYPD policing initiatives examined in this study. This research only examines the evolution of community policing initiatives in the NYPD, and perhaps can act as a springboard for future studies on the effectiveness of NYPD community policing practices in terms of community satisfaction

Visibility and the Policing of Public Space

From studies of ‘panoptic’ CCTV surveillance to accounts of undercover police officers, it is often mooted that visibility and invisibility are central to the policing of public space. However, there has been no comprehensive and critical assessment of this axiom. Drawing on the practices of a variety of policing providers and regulators, and the work of geographers, criminologists and other social scientists, this paper examines how and why visibility underpins the policing of public space. We begin by considering the ways in which policing bodies and technologies seek to render themselves selectively visible and invisible in the landscape. The paper then moves on to explore the ways in which policing agents attempt to make ‘incongruous’ bodies, behaviours and signs variously visible and invisible in public space. We then offer a sympathetic critique of these accounts, arguing that more attention is needed in understanding: (i) how other senses such as touch, smell and sound are socially constructed as in and out-of-place and ‘policed’ accordingly; and (ii) how the policing of undesirable bodies and practices is not simply about quantitative crime reduction, but conducted through qualitative, embodied performance. The paper concludes by pinpointing key areas for future research

Police force mergers are unnecessary and miss the point; the best policing is local

Much of the focus during the PCC elections has been on the principle of representation. Will Tanner argues that localism is equally important and that the future of policing in England and Wales must be local and democratic, not regional and bureaucratic

Community Policing and Intelligence-Led Policing: An Examination of Convergent or Discriminant Validity

Purpose Despite increased scholarly inquiry regarding intelligence-led policing (ILP) and popularity among law enforcement agencies around the globe, ambiguity remains regarding the conceptual foundation and appropriate measurement of ILP. Although most scholars agree that ILP is indeed a unique policing philosophy, there is less consensus regarding the relationship between ILP and the ever-present model of community-oriented policing (COP). Consequently, there is a clear need to study the empirical distinctions and overlaps in these policing philosophies as implemented by US law enforcement agencies. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Data were gleaned from the 2007 LEMAS and 2009 NIJ Intelligence surveys. A total of 227 unique police agencies in the USA are included. A series of bivariate, exploratory factor analyses and structural models are used to determine discriminatory or convergent validity across COP and ILP constructs. Findings The goal was to answer the question: are these two policing philosophies are being implemented as separate and distinct strategies? Results of our exploratory and structural models indicate that COP and ILP loaded on unique latent constructs. This affirms the results of the bivariate correlations, and indicates that COP and ILP have discriminant measurement validity. In other words, COP and ILP are conceptually distinct, even when implemented in police departments across the USA. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. Originality/value This is the first study to empirically test the discriminant or convergent validity of COP and ILP

Nodal policing in the Netherlands

This article focuses the nodal orientation of the police, which is an innovative and controversial target of Dutch policing. This target states that the police should focus on flows, and on places where the various flows coincide. The success factors for implementation nodal policing are discussed as well as its (strategic) implications for Dutch policing. We focus on the key features of Dutch nodal policing; the strategies that have been followed to implement nodal policing, the current state of affairs of nodal policing in The Netherlands, and what the future prospects for nodal policing in The Netherlands are

Communities as allies

A popular axiom attributed to British policing is the police are the public and the public are the police. Inherent in this term is a blurring of the distinction between the police and the public they serve; the police are cast as being little different from the citizenry and citizens are cast into a role of responsibility for the safety and well-being of the community. In effect, communities are framed as allies in the fight to ensure safe and secure neighborhoods. Across space and time this idea has held uneven sway within American policing ideologies. This essay considers the relationship between the police and the policed, as well as how that relationship might be influenced be technological and social evolutions. The essay begins with an overview of the very notion of ―community‖ and their relationship with crime and disorder. This is followed by a brief review of the historical trajectory of police-community interactions within American policing. We then consider how emerging and future technologies might modify what ―community‖ means. The essay concludes with a consideration of police and community interactions and partnerships in the digital age

Self-policing in a Targeted Enforcement Regime

This paper adds to the debate over whether self-policing can increase environmental protection by considering an issue that has been ignored in previous models—that self-policing may influence future enforcement. The model combines self-policing with targeted enforcement and allows for both deliberate and inadvertent violations. As expected, rewarding self-policers with more lenient future enforcement increases auditing, remediation, and disclosure of inadvertent violations. Self-policing can also serve as a complement to deliberate compliance and can thus further increase environmental performance. However, under reasonable conditions, self-policing can be a substitute for deliberate compliance and could therefore be detrimental to environmental protection

Illuminating Black Data Policing

The future of policing will be driven by data. Crime, criminals, and patterns of criminal activity will be reduced to data to be studied, crunched, and predicted. The benefits of big data policing involve smarter policing, faster investigation, predictive deterrence, and the ability to visualize crime problems in new ways. Not surprisingly then, police administrators have been seeking out new partnerships with sophisticated private data companies and experimenting with new surveillance technologies. This potential future, however, has a very present limitation. It is a limitation largely ignored by adopting jurisdictions and could, if left unaddressed, delegitimize the adoption and use of new data-driven technologies. Simply put: all big data policing technologies have a “black data” problem. “Black data” connotes three overlapping concerns. First, big data policing is opaque, lacking transparency because most of the magic happens as a result of “black box” proprietary and mathematically complex algorithms. Second, big data policing is racially encoded, colored by the history of real-world policing that disproportionality impacts communities of color. Finally, big data policing faces legal uncertainty as old constitutional doctrines built on small data principles no longer work in the new big data age. The future path of traditional Fourth Amendment law is uncertain, dark, and distorted. This brief essay, part of a symposium at Ohio State Law School on Criminal Law, Big Data, and the Promotion of Justice, seeks to raise the questions that must be resolved to overcome the black data problem. This symposium essay examines: (1) the puzzle of data-driven transparency; (2) the concern of biased data; and (3) the struggle for constitutional clarity in the face of new technologies