Following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain, the effectiveness of policing and police reform have reemerged as a prominent topic of debate both in the United States and in communities around the world. One popular method of police reform is community policing, defined generally as law enforcement systems where officers build and maintain active, reinforcing relationships with local stakeholders, including citizens and community leaders. Show
The principle underpinning this philosophy is simple; when law enforcement officers create a personal, responsive presence in a community, they are better able to do their job, benefit from citizens’ cooperation, and overall safety improves. But gauging the actual effectiveness of these practices has proven challenging to study in a controlled and rigorous way. In a first-of-its-kind study led by Graeme Blair (Dept. of Political Science, University of California–Los Angeles), Jeremy Weinstein (Dept. of Political Science, Stanford and FSI Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law) and Fotini Christia (Dept. of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), a group of intercollegiate researchers have published new research examining the effectiveness of community policing in the Global South. To mark the publication of the new findings in the journal Science this week, Blair, Christia and Weinstein spoke to us about what their findings reveal about the usefulness of community policing practices in a global context, and what more needs to be done to implement police reform in diverse systems.
Weinstein: Community policing is perhaps the most celebrated policing reform in recent decades. The idea is pretty simple in theory: the police should involve regular citizens directly in their work by building channels of dialogue and improving police-citizen collaboration. In practice, community policing takes lots of different forms including frequent beat patrols, decentralized decision-making, community engagement programs, and problem-oriented policing. After compelling evidence emerged about the efficacy of community policing in Chicago in the 1990s, the approach took off around the United States. By 2015, nearly all U.S. cities identified community policing as a core element of their mission. Increasingly, advocates have promoted the export of community policing to countries in the Global South where issues of insecurity and mistrust in the police are significant. We wanted to figure out whether these practices work in a wholly different context. Community policing doesn’t build trust between citizens and police, it doesn’t lead to citizens to share the kinds of tips and information with police that might improve police efficiency, and, perhaps not surprisingly then, it does not lead to lower crime. Graeme Blair Assistant Professor of Political Science, UCLA journal article Theme and Variation in Community PolicingCrime and Justice Vol. 10 (1988) , pp. 1-37 (37 pages) Published By: The University of Chicago Press https://www.jstor.org/stable/1147401 Read and download Log in through your school or library Read Online (Free) relies on page scans, which are not currently available to screen readers. To access this article, please contact JSTOR User Support. We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader.With a personal account, you can read up to 100 articles each month for free. Get StartedAlready have an account? Log in Monthly Plan
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Abstract Community policing appears to be increasingly popular around the globe. Recent research in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia indicates that community policing is a coherent concept grounded on the notion that, together, police and public are more effective and more humane coproducers of safety and public order than are the police alone. Programmatic elements constituting community policing include community-based crime prevention, reorientation of patrol to stress nonemergency service, increased accountability to the public, decentralization of command, and sometimes, civilianization. "Community policing" does not always achieve these unifying elements. Impediments to the development of community policing include norms grounded in traditional notions of the police role, police needs to react to emergencies, resource limitations, traditional assumptions about patrol strategies, assessment problems, customary public expectations of the police role, and bureaucratic isolation of community programs within the police department. Despite the obstacles, the community-policing movement is likely to grow because of benefits to the public from enhanced crime prevention and police accountability and to the police from increased legitimation through consensus building with the public, increased morale, and enhanced career opportunities. Journal Information Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue.Since 1979, the Crime and Justice series has presented a review of the latest international research, providing expertise to enhance the work of sociologists, psychologists, criminal lawyers, justice scholars, and political scientists. The series explores a full range of issues concerning crime, its causes, and its cures. In both the review and the thematic volumes, Crime and Justice offers an interdisciplinary approach to address core issue in criminology. Publisher Information Since its origins in 1890 as one of the three main divisions of the University of Chicago, The University of Chicago Press has embraced as its mission the obligation to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard and to publish serious works that promote education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Today, the Journals Division publishes more than 70 journals and hardcover serials, in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the social sciences, the humanities, education, the biological and medical sciences, and the physical sciences. Rights & Usage This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. When implementing the community policing philosophy the proper order of steps to take is quizlet?When implementing the community policing philosophy, the proper order of steps to take is: vision statement, mission statement, needs assessment, strategic planning. The smallest number of citizens and organizations needed to support and sustain a community policing initiative is called critical mass.
When forming partnerships conflicts within communities are not as important to recognize as the commonalities?When forming partnerships, conflicts within communities are not as important to recognize as the commonalities. Traditional shift and beat rotation work to build partnerships with the community. The International Association of Chiefs of Police is researching a possible collaboration between public and private police.
Which examines the amount of change as a result of the response quizlet?Quantitative data examines the amount of change as a result of the response.
Which of the following is not a basic element in a problem solving approach?Which of the following is not a basic element in a problem-solving approach? Adopting a reactive stance. Problem-solving policing requires police to: Group incidents & Identify underlying causes.
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