18 Facts About Community policing

Community policing, or community-oriented policing, is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members.

Community policing is related to problem-oriented policing and intelligence-led policing, and contrasted with reactive policing strategies which were predominant in the late 20th century.

Values of community policing have been linked to Sir Robert Peel's 1829 Peelian Principles, most notably John Alderson, the former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police.

The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act established the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services within the Justice Department and provided funding to promote community policing.

Community policing says the innovation period occurred following the civil unrest of the 1960s, in large part as an attempt to identify alternatives to the reactive methods developed in mid-century.

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Experimentation with team Community policing was recommended in the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice in 1967.

Neighborhood team Community policing was seen by many as a promising way to address problems of over-centralization and bureaucratization of police agencies and an increasing sense of alienation of citizens and police.

In those cases, Mike Brogden says community policing could be seen as a restoration of an earlier ideology, which had been overshadowed by reactive policing after the rise of automobiles and telecommunications.

Community policing is concerned with solving the crimes that the community is concerned about by working with and gaining support from the community.

Community policing requires departments to flatten their organizational pyramid and place even more decision-making and discretion in the hands of line officers.

Community policing is more complicated than simply comparing crime rates and there are no universally accepted criteria for evaluating community policing.

Researchers and officers say that one possible way to determine whether or not community policing is effective in an area is for officers and key members of the community to set a specific mission and goals when starting.

US federal government continues to provide support for incorporating community policing into local law enforcement practices through funding of research such as through the National Center for Community Policing at Michigan State University, small COPS grants to local agencies, and technical assistance.

Similarly, C B Klockars and David Bayley both argue that community policing is unlikely to bring fundamental change to how police officers work, with Klockars calling it "mainly a rhetorical device".

Unlike Klockars, Steven Herbert believes that community policing is proposing a fundamental change to policing, but says that it would be a difficult one to achieve.

Community policing says the progressive and democratic ethos of shared governance inherent in community policing runs counter to central elements in police culture and more widespread understandings of crime and punishment.

Charles P McDowell proposed in 1993 that because community policing was a radical departure from existing ideology, implementing it would take time.

Community policing says this could be in turn could be problematic, in that it could entice corruption or vigilantism.