Community Based Policing: The factors that influence Police Forces to engage more closely with a local community

Written by Agio Pereira

Díli, December 2011

Abstract

Community based policing has become an important policing option for many developed and developing countries; countries where institutional frailty, particularly in the area of law enforcement sector, consider community policing as an important component of overall policing strategies. Why is community policing is important and how best to approach this policing strategy is still an ongoing debate in the realms of policy-makers as well as academic community and the police force itself. One reason is because crime prevention and crime eradication is a constant part of society and the root-cause of crime is researched but consensus is not an easy place to land. Since Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations, Cesare Beccaria’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ and Colquhoun’s ‘A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis – Containing a detail of the various crimes and misdemeanors by which public and Private Property and Security are, at prefent (sic), injured and endangered and suggesting remedies for their prevention’, considered to be the first book ever comprehensively written on policing, still there is no answer to how communities should deal with crime. One reason is because the problem is not crime itself, but the way communities generate fear and respond to the perceived factors of fear under different circumstances of community’s existence, including the space, the politics, the level of social integration and inter-community relations within a state. In the meantime, ‘beat policing’ is increasingly adopted as the best approach to generate community confidence in the police force because it increases the perception that police officers are present within the community or, at least, readily accessible in case they are needed. Crime cannot be exterminated by the police, but together with the community, the element of fear can be mitigated so that healthy living can be the focus of living as a community. Increasing the cost of crime further contributed towards this end.

 Introduction

Time magazine’s essay ‘Peace Through Security’, by Tim Padgett, rightly argues that Central America’s crisis calls for better policing, not more military.[1] This call reflects concern for legitimacy as well as a reflection on whether the military can ever respond to situations of civil unrest and systemic criminality. Around the world, situation of crises, high criminal rate and systemic disorder, focusing on effective policing in the community has become the answer because the aim is to enhance police legitimacy and the trust of citizens on the institutions of law enforcement and, ultimately, on the state itself. But what is community policing? In short, community policing is a natural phenomenon derived from the survival instinct of the individuals as well as a collective need for survival. Police forces evolved from this basic instinct. Society, community, family and individual citizens are interdependent;[2] and since the division of labor[3] evolved within society, partly imposed by the concept of property,[4] the need for protection became increasingly institutionalized. It is about curbing greed in the society[5] so that predictability can be enhanced and harmonious society becomes viable and strengthened. Man also became ‘conjoined’[6] with citizen and the duties to the state. Community policing is also needed because ‘even if man were born in a condition to desire to enter society, it does not follow that he was born suitably equipped to enter society…distrust, suspicion, precaution and provision against fear are all characteristic of men who are afraid’.[7] The state and the citizen share mutual fear; helping each other to overcome it brings about the state’s prerogative of mutual benefits. Successful community policing can enhance restraints, which in the English of the seventeenth century, Colquhoun posits ‘as the means of preventing Crimes, are fuch (sic) as muft (sic)  produce this falutary (sic) effect, without hindering the privileges of innocence; fince (sic)  they apply to thofe (sic)  claffes (sic)  only, the nature of whole dealings, from being in many inftances (sic) both unlawful and immoral, immediately affect …the Country at large.’[8] Therefore, community policing is about overcoming fear in the community as well as the concern of the police forces about their inability to impose sufficient restraints on the citizens so that society can be free from fear. This essay highlights beat policing as an example of community based policing and then attempts to explain the factors influencing a Police Force to engage more closely with local communities.[9]

Police, crime and the local community: a symbiotic relationship

On Beat Policing and the Community

A report by the Queensland (Australia) Crime and Misconduct Commission evaluating beat policing in Queensland, asserts that ‘beat policing is expected to have an impact on crime, in part because officers embark on proactive, preventive strategies, and in part because officers provide a visible police presence in the community or shopping centre.’[10] The key findings pertaining to neighbourhood beats include reduction in overall crime rate as well as property crime rates and increase in the rate of reported crime.[11] However, on the perceptions of crime and personal safety, although ‘beat policing aims to build community partnerships and improve the relationship between police and the public’,[12] the report established that, generally, ‘beats do not necessarily make residents feel safer; nor do shopfronts necessarily make shoppers and retailers feel more safe’.[13] Hence, the report recommends that beat officers should be allowed to respond to more matters in their area and manage their workload more effectively,[14] remain focus and continually meet the needs of beat-area residents.[15] Nevertheless, neighborhood beats led to residents in higher perceived levels of crime and disorder to believe that these problems were improving,[16] allowing for the conclusion that ‘beat officers are responsive and effective in addressing crime and disorder in their neighborhoods’.[17] The need to regular evaluation and review of success and failure, as well as effectiveness[18] and relevance[19] were particularly identified as important for successful police beats. One factor favoring beat policing is the rationale related to the ‘utilitarian theory’.[20] It ‘assumes that criminals are rational and balance the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action’,[21] and that ‘when criminals are given the choice of illegal versus legal avenues of economic gain, they more often choose the latter when the costs of crime increase.’[22] It follows that the presence of beat policing can increase the costs of crime, making criminal acts less attractive.      

But what is a local community? - Nowadays, there are virtual communities such as the Facebook community, the twitters community and the Wikileak community. There are the real communities like the Retired Service League (RSL) or the war veterans’ community, the elderly community,[23] the gangs’[24] community and the more geographically emphasised ‘local community’.[25] What is important from community policing point of view is that there are ‘common ties and social interaction’[26] within a local residential area. Citing Lowry Nelson, Hillery points out that “in general, the term community[27] refers to a group of people inhabiting a limited area, who have a sense of belonging together and who through their organized relationships share and carry on activities in pursuit of their common interests.’[28] One challenge for community policing is how to profile the problems facing a particular local community. In the case of Australia, commonness and common interests may be clear in terms of duties towards the state, paying taxes and expecting the Government to deliver social programs reflecting value for money. At a micro level, however, kinship and common historical and ethnic background tend to play more important role in social cohesion. Blocks of buildings, houses and apartments may not necessarily provide opportunities to develop an effective beat policing strategy; residents may ‘supplemented police with the doorman’[29] and ‘protect themselves as individuals and not as a community’,[30] making ‘the battle against crime effectively lost’.[31] Hence, making police presence almost permanent in a local area, through beat policing, may reduce fear. What is uncertain is whether necessarily increases safety in the house where domestic violence,[32] may occur.

Community policing: strategic partnership and empowerment

The inability of the Police Force to impose sufficient restraints against misconducts[33] and crime led to the decision to bring members of the community to bear some degree of responsibility to overcome factors affecting fear, including unexpected acts of misconducts. Alcoholism, high-activity drugs areas or hot spots,[34] youth drug addiction,[35] theft, gangs ‘regular rendezvous’[36] and short run hedonism[37] and gangs’ graffiti,[38] are part of the factors inflicting fear in the community, namely because ‘predictions of intent and character’[39] can be totally unreliable. Individuals and families need an environment free from fear in order to focus on their development; children need not fear their own surrounding so they can focus on learning and growing with faith in making the most of what society has to offer. Hence, the local communities, including the children and youth in general are the most interested parties because solving the problems that impede them to live with peace of mind becomes a step of paramount importance. Strategic community policing is, therefore, also a community empowerment scheme. For this empowerment to be effective, however, local Police Force needs to adequate its own structure and resources to fulfill, both, the expectations of the community as well as those of the Police Force. Hence, the positive move to employ police aids to enhance effective communication between the Police and the members of a local community. Effective proficiency in the foreign but simultaneously local languages is one way to enhance communication between the interested parties – the Police and the members of local communities. In addition, effective Police intelligence gathering also helps to make the right decisions, as opposed to adopting approaches which are based on hear-say, thus hindering success. Above all, it is important to conceive of empowerment of local communities as not only meaning the need to genuinely listening to their concerns but also “making community members active participants in the process of problem solving’,[40] ‘creating a constructive partnership’[41] and ‘reinvigorating communities’.[42] The Police Force ought to be moved by these key factors when decision is made to move closer to local communities. To ensure success in crime reduction, police officers engaged in beat policing, for instance, as a form of community based policing, will need to be adequately trained in community relations and the challenges of youth in underprivileged areas of society.    

Critics of beat policing argue that a dilemma in crime reduction is that successful beat policing in reducing crime may cause ‘crime displacement’.[43] This can be true but not impossible to overcome because ‘crime is opportunistic’[44] and ‘protection is only as good as its coverage’.[45] Therefore, community policing can make a real difference to local communities in reducing fear because effective community based policing means policing is more integrated with the security problems and needs of local communities. The strategic importance and value-added effect of community policing are that beat patrol provides for a permanent visibility of police force, not only in residential areas but also where local communities and vulnerable groups perform educational and leisure activities. Such visibility is even more important in areas where the phenomenon of ‘broken windows’,[46] the downgrading of social order occurs. Effective Police-Community partnership can enhance the capacity to manage law and order by ‘impeding “small” (offences) slide by’,[47] thus nurturing the trust of the citizens on their Police Force.  If community policing does little to crime deterrence but instead it correlates with crime displacement,[48] one  value-added is that the Police Force can understand better some motives of crimes committed within a particular geographical area. Kelling and Coles rightly posit that, in small and homogenous neighborhoods and communities, ‘even the most seriously deranged individuals are known personally to those in the community: everyone knows how far they will go, so their behavior is predictable, even if defiant.’[49] Thus, listening to the community members’ own understanding of the magnitude, frequency and motives of these crimes enhances such understanding. Although crime displacement is a complex phenomenon to prove,[50] relieving community’s stress and not letting the community feel alone in coping with the effects of crime and misconducts, can enhance certainty and minimize ‘social disorganization’;[51] and the ‘inability of local communities to realize their common values or solving commonly experienced serious problems’ can also be overcome.[52] In return, the Police Force gains enhanced legitimacy and respect from their own community – the Police reason d’être. As the Police become more engaged with the local community, familiarity with community concerns about safety is developed, which brings about the responsibility to manage community expectations successfully. This means adopting a two-track approach; giving ‘priority to problems of more current and intense concern’ and balance this by addressing ‘less visible problems of equal magnitude and seriousness, lest the process deteriorate so that the police once again assuming a reactive stance.’[53]           

Conclusion

Community based policing is part of the strategy of making the Police Forces more pro-active in response to disturbances and crime within local communities, leading to a Police Force with enhanced legitimacy and a community empowered with problem-solving capacity. There are a number of factors which rightly influence the Police Force to work towards stronger and more strategic engagement with local communities. First, crime cannot be eradicated by the Police Force because the institution is not devised to be crime exterminator. Nevertheless, this is precisely the expectation of the community; that the Police keep the communities safe from crime. Secondly, the Police Force has the responsibility to protect the citizens and the community in general. Therefore, nurturing trust between the Police and the community it exists to serve and to belong is sacrosanct. Third, the Police Force may not be prepared to be crime exterminator but dealing with crimes in ways that makes the community feel safer is a responsibility the Police cannot escape from. Therefore, find the best possible ways is a must. The best ways must include key policing strategies. First, promoting active Police-community interaction to increase the costs of crime; in a gain-pain scenario, the perpetrators rationally make decisions bearing in mind the cost of crime and if the cost unacceptably higher, crime be reduced. Secondly, there is the need to listen and to reinvigorate the community. The fighting spirit, not the surrendering spirit, needs to be upheld within the community so the potential perpetrators do not feel like fish in the ocean but simply fish in a tiny lake, which also requires nurturing an ongoing constructive police-community partnership. The expected outcome, after all, is to create an environment where local communities can be free from fear. As Miller contends, ‘it matters little how economically sound, aesthetically appealing, administratively efficient, or environmentally unobtrusive an area is if the people who live there live in fear. Under such conditions the area will decline.’[54] To stop local communities decline into a disturbance–ridden environment is a noble Police goal, but achieving such a goal requires effective partnership between local communities and their Police Forces. Hence, community based policing!

Reference

Barnes, G, ‘Defining and Optimizing Displacement’, in Crime and Place, J Eck & D Weisbury (eds.), Crime Prevention Studies, Vol. 4, pp.95 – 113, Criminal Justice Press, Willow Tree Press, 1995, p.104

Beccaria, C, ‘On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings’, R Bellamy (ed.) & R Davies (trans.), Cambridge university Press, 2003

Bureau of Justice Assistance, ‘Understanding Community Policing – A Framework for Action’, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance Response Center, Washington DC, August 1994

Bursik, R, ‘Social Disorganization and Theories of Crime and Delinquency’, Criminology, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp.519-551

Cohen, A, Delinquent Boys – The Culture of the Gang’, Free Press, Illinois, USA, 1955

Colquhoun, P, ‘A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis – Containing a detail of the various crimes and misdemeanors by which public and Private Property and Security are, at prefent (sic), injured and endangered and suggesting remedies for their prevention’, H. Fry, Finsbury – Place, London, UK, 1797

De Becker, The Gift of Fear- and other survival signals that protect us from violence’, Dell Publishing, New York, USA, 1997

Durkheim, E, ‘The Division of Labor’, The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, USA, 1947

Eck, J, & Weisburd, D, Crime and Place, Criminal Justice Press, New York, USA, 1995

Edgar, D, Earle, L, & Fopp, R, ‘What is Australian Society?’, Introduction to Australian Society, 2^nd Ed., Prentice Hall, Melbourne, pp.1-15,1993

Goldstein, H, Problem-Oriented Policing, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, USA, 1990

Hillery, G, ‘Definitions of Community: Areas of Agreement”, Rural Sociology, 20, 2:111-123, 1995, p.118

Hobbs, T, Man and Citizen, Gert, B (ed.), Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, USA, 1991

Hobbs, T, ‘On the citizen’, R Tuck & M Silverthorne (eds.), Cambridge University Press, UK, 2005

Jeffery, C, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, SAGE Publications, Inc., California, USA

Kelling, G, & Coles, C, Fixing Broken Windows- Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities’, Touchstone, New York, NY, USA,1996

Levine, M, Broken Windows, Broken Business- How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards’, Warner Business Books, New York, NY, USA, 2005

Marvel, T & Moody, C, ‘Specification Problems, Police Levels and Crime Rates’, Criminology, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp.609 – 646

Mazerolle, P, Adams, K, Budz, D, Cockerill, C, & Vance, M, On the Beat – An Evaluation of beat policing in Queensland’, Crime and Misconduct Commission Research Report, Brisbane, Australia, 2003

Miller, E, ‘Crime’s Threat to Land Value and Neighborhood Vitality, in P Brantingham & P Brantingham (eds.), Environmental Criminology, Waveland Press, Inc., Illinois, USA, 1981

Moore, J, Homeboys – Gangs, Drugs, and Prison in the Barrios of Los Angeles, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, USA, 1978

Newman, O, Defensible Space – Crime Prevention Through Urban Design, The Macmillan Company, New York, NY, USA, 1972

Newsquest Media Group, ‘Police take waiting duties at elderly dinner in Welwyn Garden City’, St Albans Review St. Albans, SO January 2011, accessed 21 January 2011, www.stalbansreview.co.uk 

Padgett, T, ‘Peace Through Security – Central America’s crime crisis calls for better policing, not more military’, Time, October 2011

Smith, A, ‘The Wealth of Nations’, Bantam Classic, New York, USA, 2003

The Administrator, ‘Launch of Gang Resistance Education Training (GREAT) Program, Belize’ 20 January, 2011, accessed 21 January 2011, www.guaridan.bz/all-news/59-other-news/2757-launch-of-gangs-resistance-education...

Weisburd, D, & Green, L, ‘Policing Drug Hot spots: The Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Experiment’, Justice Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp.711 – 735

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[1] T Padgett, ‘Peace Through Security – Central America’s crime crisis calls for better policing, not more military’, Time, October 2011, p.54.

[2] D Edgar, L Earle & R Fopp, ‘What is Australian Society?’, Introduction to Australian Society, 2^nd Ed., Prentice Hall, Melbourne, pp.1-15,1993

[3] E Durkheim, ‘The Division of Labor’, The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, USA, 1947

[4] A Smith, ‘The Wealth of Nations’, Bantam Classic, New York, USA, 2003

[5] C Beccaria, ‘On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings’, R Bellamy (ed.) & R Davies (trans.), Cambridge university Press, 2003

[6] T Hobbs, ‘Man and Citizen’, B Gert (ed.), Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, USA, 1991, p.35

[7] T Hobbs, ‘On the citizen’, R Tuck & M Silverthorne (eds.), Cambridge university Press, UK, 2005, p.25

[8] P Colquhoun, ‘A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis – Containing a detail of the various crimes and misdemeanors by which public and Private Property and Security are, at prefent (sic), injured and endangered and suggesting remedies for their prevention’, H. Fry, Finsbury – Place, London, UK, 1797, pp. xii-xiv

[9] Detailed reference is provided as much as possible in view that those who access this short essay may wish to pursue more in-depth research on the same topic

[10] P Mazerolle, K Adams, D Budz, C Cockerill & M Vance, On the Beat – An Evaluation of beat policing in Queensland’, Crime and Misconduct Commission Research Report, Brisbane, Australia, 2003, p.23

[11] P Mazerolle et. al, p.38

[12] Ibid

[13] Ibid, p.39

[14] Ibid, p.88

[15] Ibid

[16] Ibid, p.45

[17] Ibid

[18] Herman Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, USA,1990, p.36

[19] Ibid

[20] Thomas Marvel & Carlisle Moody, ‘Specification Problems, Police Levels and Crime Rates’, Criminology, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp.609 – 646, p.609

[21] Ibid

[22] Ibid

[23] Newsquest Media Group, ‘Police take waiting duties at elderly dinner in Welwyn Garden City’, St Albans Review St. Albans, SO January 2011, accessed 21 January 2011, www.stalbansreview.co.uk 

[24] The Administrator, ‘Launch of Gang Resistance Education Training (GREAT) Program, Belize’ 20 January, 2011, accessed 21 January 2011, www.guaridan.bz/all-news/59-other-news/2757-launch-of-gangs-resistance-education...

[25] P Mazerolle et. al, op.cit.

[26] George Hillery, ‘Definitions of Community: Areas of Agreement”, Rural Sociology, 20, 2:111-123, 1995, p.118

[27] Emphasis in the original

[28] Ibid, p.117

[29] Oscar Newman, Defensible Space – Crime Prevention Through Urban Design, The Macmillan Company, New York, NY, USA, 1972,  p.3

[30] Ibid

[31] Ibid

[32] H Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing,1990, p.91

[33] P Colquhoun, 1797, op.cit, p.xii

[34] David Weisburd & Lorraine Green, ‘Policing Drug Hot spots: The Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Experiment’, Justice Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp.711 – 735, pp. 713-4

[35]Joan Moore, Homeboys – Gangs, Drugs, and Prison in the Barrios of Los Angeles, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, USA, 1978

[36] A Cohen, Delinquent Boys – The Culture of the Gang’, Free Press, Illinois, USA, 1955, p.30

[37] Ibid

[38]J Moore, 1978, p.37

[39] G de Becker, The Gift of Fear- and other survival signals that protect us from violence’, Dell Publishing, New York, USA,1997, p.89

[40] Bureau of Justice Assistance, ‘Understanding Community Policing – A Framework for Action’, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance Response Center, Washington DC, August 1994, p.vii

[41] Ibid

[42] Ibid

[43] Geoffrey Barnes, ‘Defining and Optimizing Displacement’, in Crime and Place, J Eck & D Weisbury (eds.), Crime Prevention Studies, Vol. 4, pp.95 – 113, Criminal Justice Press, Willow Tree Press, 1995, p.104

[44] C. Ray Jeffery, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, SAGE Publications, Inc., California, USA, p.229

[45] Ibid, p.228

[46] Michael Levine, Broken Windows, Broken Business- How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards’, Warner Business Books, New York, NY, USA, 2005, p.1

[47] Ibid

[48] John Eck & David Weisburd, Crime and Place, Criminal Justice Press, New York, USA, 1995, pp.102-3

[49] George Kelling & Catherine Coles, Fixing Broken Windows- Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities’, Touchstone, New York, NY, USA,1996, p.15

[50] Ibid

[51] Robert Bursik, ‘Social Disorganization and Theories of Crime and Delinquency’, Criminology, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp.519-551

[52] Ibid, p.521

[53] H Goldstein, ‘Problem-Oriented Policing’,  p.79

[54] Eldon Miller, ‘Crime’s Threat to Land Value and Neighborhood Vitality, in P Brantingham & P Brantingham (eds.), Environmental Criminology, Waveland Press, Inc., Illinois, USA, 1981, p.117