Community Policing, Broken Windows & CPTED

What does community policing involve?

Increase & improve police/community interaction by moving the police strategy from patrolling a community to networking and mingling with the community 

Police/community partnerships are when:

• Create an environment where policing becomes a partnership enterprises

• A product of the degree to which you are willing to partner up

E.g. of police/community partnerships

• Team up civilians and cops together to develop strategies to deal with the crime problem

• Watching for each other's houses 

How does community policing level the status hierarchy?

Atmosphere of partnering police with civilians implies that both are equally important in solving a crime problem 

How does community policing emphasize problem solving?

• Intuitive and innovative to develop new strategies to solve problems

• If continuously integrated into communities, take those solutions when they work and share them with other communities with the same problems to maximize crime prevention 

How does community policing decentralize & embed police?

• Small regional based police departments to ensure officers are sprinkled into areas of the community at all times 

• Behind the push to spread “police micro stations” = tiny police offices in common areas, e.g. mall 

Community policing is a co-production of:

Order and control, crime prevention should not be the sole responsibility of police 

How does community policing improve PR, trust and legitimacy?

People will trust officers more and see their authority as legitimate, add a create public relations boost to policing 

What does community policing look like?

• Neighborhood watch 

• Community meetings

• Door-to-door visits

Late 70s-80s of community policing:

• innovation period

• crime, deindustrialization, racial tensions

Late 80s-90s of community policing:

• diffusion period

• CP units, funding, more focus

Mid 90s of community

period of official mandate

Does community policing reduce fear?

• Gill et al: yes

• Crowl: not really

Does community policing have an impact on crime?

not much

Community policing is more embraced by:

senior officers and less by patrol officers

Subcultural challenges of community policing:

• crime fighting

• status differentials

Organizational challenges of community policing:

• Training – cops are not highly trained to do this

• Resource intensive 

• Demands of reactive policing – balancing this with traditional demands of being an officer

Gill on community policing:

• systematic review

• mixed outcomes on crime reduction

• have more consistent effect on reducing disorder

• generally reduces fear of crime

• enhances satisfaction w/ trust

• should prioritize community engagement and transparency

Weisburd et. al on broken windows:

• found that disorder policing strategies do not have a significant impact on fear of crime

• 4 directions for improving research in this area: explore underlying mechanisms, uses measures of disorder distinct from crime, longitudinal designs, observational analyses

What is the objective of CPTED?

• Generated perception of risk 

• Rendered citizens willing to “defend” property and well being 

Techniques of CPTED include:

• access control

• territoriality

• natural surveillance

• image

Why design for access control?

Want to use physical design to improve access control to your home, business etc

Access control includes:

• Secure points of entry and exit (doors, keys, key card)

• Grant access to those who are “desirable” 

How do you tell who is desirable and undesirable?

• Normally homeless people are undesirable 

• Can lead to stereotypes and classism being present 

Why design for territoriality?

• Use design to amplify 

• Demonstrate that the territory on the vicinity beings to you and that you take care of it and that anything that falls in the mark areas you take care of 

Territoriality includes:

• Clearly defined property border 

• Bushes, fence, shrubs 

Why design for natural surveillance?

• Sighlines 

• Make sure that all public zones are seen by people in other locations

Natural surveillance includes:

• Activity generators are visible (picnic tables)

• Foliage does not block lines of sites 

• Proper lighting  

• Organize and encourage variable flows of activity over time and space 

Examples of natural surveillance:

• Plexiglass fences 

• Wire mesh fencing 

• Glass stairwell 

• Lighting positions 

Why design for image?

Keep clean and organized who people that you take care of it and will protect it if necessary

Examples of image in CPTED:

• Mississauga 

  • Angled houses 

  • No sidewalks 

  • Narrow streets 

  • Porches 

Who is involved in CPTED?

• Landscape architects 

• Urban planners 

• Security professionals 

• Police officers 

How can police cultivate expertise/demand with CPTED?

• Need to cultivate demand for their expertise 

• to make their expertise demanded, make sure that people need them

Importance of language & symbolic communication in CPTED:

• How are they cultivating demand 

• Communication process, the way the communicate and the ability to get people to do what they want them to do  

How do police cultivate their expertise with foreseeable danger?

• When they would meet with a customer they would convince them that criminal activity is foreseeable and that they had the ability to see the future

• And then say that they need to follow CPTED because they could see the crimes going to happen, that they could see foreseeable danger 

What is the limited complexity of foreseeable danger?

• Crime is related to causal experience 

• Make it obvious to CPTED expertise 

• If you have a bush someone can hide behind and they will sexual assault someone

• Ignored what's hard to predict 

• Simplifies the causal sequence, Crime appears amenable to CPTED 

Depoliticization in CPTED:

• When they described crimes they stayed away from things that are politicized 

• Class, race, ethnicity etc, are avoided 

• Offender are “self-evident”

How are offenders “self-evident” in CPTED?

It doesn't make offenders self-evident it sets up an environment for people to use their stereotypes to decide who belongs and who doesn't

How is expertise/status established via responsibilization?

• Prudent, responsible people & risk expertise

• Moral obligation to use CPTED

• Police offloading responsibility to prevent crime onto citizens

How is compliance exercised via liability?

• Draw citizens attention to the importance of liability

• Specifically those who own public places – restaurants, stores

How is risk used as leverage?

• To comply with expertise

• Drawing attention to risk strategically 

• Speaks to relationship between understanding risk 

• Understanding control and influence 

How does CPTED fuse social control & landscape together?

• Because it is deliberately trying to control people and their behaviors 

• Instilling fear in architecture 

How is the legitimacy of expertise connected to the construction of risk?

• Relationship of expertise on CPTED and risk 

• Police have to explain risk in a effective way for crime prevention 

• Need to be able to articulate these issues correctly and effectively to citizens