Chapter 11: Community Policing and Problem Solving

What is a Community?

Community: A geographical area that has multiple aspects such as racial diversity, socioeconomic composition, organizational participation, etc. * Socioeconomic Composition: People or families are separated into 3 levels; lower class, middle class, and upper class. It is usually based on one's income, education, or occupation. * Residential Stability: The percentage of people who still resided in the same house as they did a year ago * Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity: A distributional characteristic that is unaffected by the identities of the groups within a community and solely depends on the number and proportion of each. * Local friendship relational networks: These are groups or friends who are connected through friendship or some sort of relationship within a community. * Organizational Participation: This is a group that works based on participation from the public rather than hiring contracted workers. * Supervisory Capacity: These are the responsibilities that allow someone to hire, transfer, promote, demote, or terminate employees.
8 Attributes of a community: * Particular geographic area or location * Recognized legal entity * Social interactions within have a division of labor and interdependence * Citizens share a culture or perspective * Values are spread * Social interactions within creating a shape for itself * There is inclusion and exclusion present * Citizens have a shared sentiment, sense of belonging, and interdependence

Theoretical Underpinnings of Community Policing

Community Ownership: The degree to which a community feels responsible for maintaining a good quality of life in the community.
Broken Windows Theory: The understanding that even minor infractions or quality-of-life transgressions can encourage or breed more major crimes in a neighborhood by luring more criminals and driving away more law-abiding citizens
Contagion Proposition: As the quality of life decreases in geographical location more fear and crime is generated over time.
Public Health Model: Attempts to find risk factors in order to avoid or lessen a certain illness or social issue in a community.

Community Partnership and Problem Solving

Community Policing: A collaboration between the police and the community that identifies and solves community problems.
Partnership: When a police department and community work together to make the community better. The community becomes the officer’s “eyes and ears”
Elements of a partnership: * Working together on a goal * Identifying common goals * Constant communication and sharing of information * Having deadlines and views of the problem similar to one another * Everyone equally works together to find a solution
Empowerment: When everyone in a group feels like they have a similar input and are on the same level as everyone else in the group.
Police departments can work with multiple organizations such as: * Merchant associations * Neighborhood and civic groups * Youth-serving agencies * Tenant associations * Block associations * Community development corporation
Problem Solving: Identifying and finding the causes of problems and researching rather than directly responding to a problem.
Reactive: Acting after a problem occurs to prevent it
Proactive: Acting before a problem occurs to prevent it
Problems: 2 or more problems that the community and police can work together and solve.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED): Recognizing that crime can be stopped by manipulating location dynamics such as target vulnerability.

Community-Oriented and Problem-Oriented Policing

Community-Oriented Policing: Organizational strategies as well as using partnerships and problem-solving techniques are included in this.
Problem-Oriented Policing: Proactive policing strategies that focus on the causes of a problem and how to prevent it in the future.

The SARA Model

SARA: Used by community policing agencies to identify and solve repeat crime and community problems. * Scanning: Identifying problems that are common in the community that is concerning. * Analysis: Recognizing and comprehending the circumstances and events that lead up to and around the issue * Response or Strategy: Brainstorming new ideas and implementing the solutions * Assessment: We collect data to identify if there was a change when the solution was implemented.
Crime Triangle: Displays the three elements necessary in order to take place a victim, offender, and location.
Serious Habitual Offender Criminal Apprehension Program (SHOCAP): A study that allowed us to identify the 3 facts that help the crime triangle begin.
3 known facts the crime triangle begins from: * 10% of offenders account for 55% of all crimes * 10% of victims account for 42% of all victimization * 10% of all locations account for 60% of all call loads to the police

Focusing on Problem Locations

Repeat Victimization: When someone has been victimized multiple times.
Crime Analysis: The analysis of people involved in crimes, particularly repeat offenders, repeat victims, and criminal organizations
Prevalence: The overall incidence of a problem in a geographical location.
Target Area: An area where problems occur the most and so the officers and community work together more to solve the problems there.
Hot Spots: Specific area that has the most crime within the community.

Management Implications of Community Policing

The Strategic Dimension

Structural Changes: The transformation in the structure of society.
Decentralization: Delegation of government responsibilities, authority, and resources to lower levels of government.
Despecialization: Making an organization less specialized and making line officers take on more of these responsibilities as generalists.
Team Policing: Assigning police officers to a small geographical area.
Participatory Management Model: Encourages farmers to employ an adaptive management approach in order to interact with the complex systems in which they live and work in a sustainable manner.

The Programmatic Dimension

Programmatic Dimension: Implementing a series of programs to gradually incorporate community policing into department operations.

Barriers to Implementing Community Policing:

Community Mobilization: Used by law enforcement to involve people from all sectors of the community.

The Relationship Between Causes of Crime and Strategy :

Needs Assessment: To develop a proactive police approach, problems and their sources must be identified in local communities.

Implications of Criminology Theory for Law Enforcement Practice:

Risk Factors: Things are found to increase crime.
Individual Factors * Pregnancy and obesity complications * Low resting heart rate * Internalizing disorders: * Hyperactivity, concentration problems, restlessness, and risk-taking * Aggressiveness * Early initiation of violent behavior * Involvement in other forms of antisocial behavior * Beliefs and attitudes favorable to deviant or antisocial behavior
Family Factors * Parental criminality * Child maltreatment * Poor family management practices * Low levels of parental involvement * Parental attitudes favorable to substance use and violence * Parent-child separation
School Factors * Academic failures * Low bonding to school * Dropping out of school * Moving schools frequently
Peer-related Factors * Delinquent siblings * Delinquent peers * Gang member
Community and Neighborhood Factors * Poverty * Community disorganization * Availability of drugs and firearms * Neighborhood adults involved in crime * Exposure to violence and racial prejudice
Resiliency Theory: The more risk factors that are present the greater the criminal activity or behavior will be.
Comprehensive Plans: Outlines a vision for the community's future and the steps necessary to turn that vision become reality.
Suppression Strategies: These strategies are used to keep cases as low as possible.
Prevention Strategies: Put into place so that it does not happen in the future.
Routine activities theory: For a crime to occur there has to be a motivated offender, a suitable target, and an absence of capable guardianship. All three of these must intersect at the same time and place.