define problem solving in community oriented policing

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Community-Oriented Policing and Problem-Oriented Policing

In 1979, Hermon Goldstein observed from several studies conducted at the time on standard policing practices that law enforcement agencies seemed to be more concerned about the means rather than the goals of policing. He argued that law enforcement agencies should shift away from the traditional, standard model of policing and that police become more proactive, rather than reactive, in their approaches to crime and disorder (Hinkle et al., 2020; Weisburd et al., 2010). Goldstein’s work set the stage for the development of two new models of policing: community-oriented policing (COP) and problem-oriented policing (POP).

COP is a broad policing strategy that relies heavily on community involvement and partnerships, and on police presence in the community, to address local crime and disorder. POP provides law enforcement agencies with an analytic method to develop strategies to prevent and reduce crime and disorder, which involves problem identification, analysis, response, and assessment (National Research Council, 2018).

Although COP and POP differ in many ways, including the intensity of focus and diversity of approaches (National Research Council, 2004), there are several important similarities between them. For example, COP and POP both represent forms of proactive policing, meaning they focus on preventing crime before it happens rather than just reacting to it after it happens. Further, both COP and POP require cooperation among multiple agencies and partners, including community members (National Research Council, 2018). In addition, POP and COP overlap in that each involves the community in defining the problems and identifying interventions (Greene, 2000).

Although few studies focus on youth involvement in COP and POP, youths can play an important role in both strategies. In COP, youths often are part of the community with whom police work to identify and address problems. Youths can be formally involved in the process (i.e., engaging in local community meetings) or informally involved in efforts to strengthen the relationship between the police and members of the community. For example, a police officer on foot patrol may decide to engage with youths in the community through casual conversation, as part of a COP approach (Cowell and Kringen, 2016). Or police might encourage youth to participate in activities, such as police athletic leagues, which were designed to prevent and reduce the occurrence of juvenile crime and delinquency, while also seeking to improve police and youth attitudes toward each other (Rabois and Haaga, 2002). Using POP, law enforcement agencies may specifically focus on juvenile-related problems of crime and disorder. For example, the Operation Ceasefire intervention, implemented in Boston, MA, is a POP strategy that concentrated on reducing homicide victimization among young people in the city (Braga and Pierce, 2005).

This literature review discusses COP and POP in two separate sections. In each section, definitions of the approaches are provided, along with discussions on theory, examples of specific types of programs, overlaps with other policing strategies, and outcome evidence.

Specific research on how police and youth interact with each other in the community will not be discussed in this review but can be found in the Interactions Between Youth and Law Enforcement literature review on the Model Programs Guide.  

Community-Oriented Policing Definition

Community-oriented policing (COP), also called community policing, is defined by the federal Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services as “a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systemic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime” (Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, 2012:3). This policing strategy focuses on developing relationships with members of the community to address community problems, by building social resilience and collective efficacy, and by strengthening infrastructure for crime prevention. COP also emphasizes preventive, proactive policing; the approach calls for police to concentrate on solving the problems of crime and disorder in neighborhoods rather than simply responding to calls for service. This model considerably expands the scope of policing activities, because the targets of interest are not only crimes but also sources of physical and social disorder (Weisburd et al., 2008).

After gaining acceptance as an alternative to traditional policing models in the 1980s, COP has received greater attention and been used more frequently throughout the 21st century (Greene, 2000; National Research Council, 2018; Paez and Dierenfeldt, 2020). The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 articulated the goal of putting 100,000 additional community police officers on the streets and established the federal Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services. Research from 2013 suggests that 9 out of 10 law enforcement agencies in the United States that serve a population of 25,000 or more had adopted some type of community policing strategy (Reaves, 2015).

COP comprises three key components (Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, 2012):

• Community Partnerships. COP encourages partnerships with stakeholders in the community, including other government agencies (prosecutors, health and human services, child support services and schools); community members/groups (volunteers, activists, residents, and other individuals who have an interest in the community); nonprofits/service providers (advocacy groups, victim groups, and community development corporations); and private businesses. The media also are an important mechanism that police use to communicate with the community.
• Organizational Transformation. COP emphasizes the alignment of management, structure, personnel, and information systems within police departments to support the philosophy. These changes may include increased transparency, leadership that reinforces COP values, strategic geographic deployment, training, and access to data.
• Problem-Solving. Proactive, systematic, routine problem-solving is the final key component of COP. COP encourages police to develop solutions to underlying conditions that contribute to public safety problems, rather than responding to crime only after it occurs. The SARA model (which stands for Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment) is one major conceptual model of problem-solving that can be used by officers (for a full description of the SARA model, see Problem-Oriented Policing below).

At the heart of COP is a redefinition of the relationship between the police and the community, so that the two collaborate to identify and solve community problems. Through this relationship, the community becomes a “co-producer” of public safety in that the problem-solving process draws on citizen expertise in identifying and understanding social issues that create crime, disorder, and fear in the community (Skolnick and Bayley, 1988; Gill et al., 2014; National Research Council, 2018).

COP is not a single coherent program; rather, it encompasses a variety of programs or strategies that rest on the assumption that policing must involve the community. Elements typically associated with COP programs include the empowerment of the community; a belief in a broad police function; the reliance of police on citizens for authority, information, and collaboration; specific tactics (or tactics that are targeted at particular problems, such as focused deterrence strategies) rather than general tactics (or tactics that are targeted at the general population, such as preventive patrol); and decentralized authority to respond to local needs (Zhao, He, and Lovrich, 2003). One Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) survey of MCCA members found that some of the most common COP activities were officer representation at community meetings, bicycle patrols, citizen volunteers, foot patrols, police “mini-stations” (see description below), and neighborhood storefront offices (Scrivner and Stephens, 2015; National Research Council, 2018).

Community members who engage in COP programs generally report positive experiences. For example, residents who received home visits by police officers as part of a COP intervention reported high confidence in police and warmth toward officers, compared with residents who did not receive visits (Peyton et al., 2019). Notably, however, those who participate in COP–related activities, such as community meetings, may not be representative of the whole community (Somerville, 2008). Many individuals in communities remain unaware of COP activities, and those who are aware may choose not to participate (Adams, Rohe, and Arcury, 2005; Eve et al., 2003). Additionally, it can be difficult to sustain community participation. While police officers are paid for their participation, community members are not, and involvement could take time away from family and work (Coquilhat, 2008).

Specific Types of COP Programs

Because COP is such a broad approach, programs that involve the community may take on many different forms. For example, some COP programs may take place in a single setting such as a community center, a school, or a police mini-station. Other COP–based programs, such as police foot patrol programs, can encompass the entire neighborhood. The following are different examples of specific types of COP programs and how they can affect youth in a community.

School Resource Officers (SROs) are an example of a commonly implemented COP program in schools. SROs are trained police officers who are uniformed, carry firearms and a police department badge, and have arrest powers. They are tasked with maintaining a presence at schools to promote safety and security (Stern and Petrosino, 2018). The use of SROs is not new; SRO programs first appeared in the 1950s but increased significantly in the 1990s as a response to high-profile incidents of extreme school violence and the subsequent policy reforms (Broll and Howells, 2019; Lindberg, 2015). SROs can fulfill a variety of roles. They are intended to prevent and respond to school-based crime; promote positive relationships among law enforcement, educators, and youth; and foster a positive school climate (Thomas et al., 2013).

The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), the largest professional organization of SROs, formally defines the SRO roles using a “triad model,” which aligns with community policing models (May et al., 2004), and includes the three primary functions of SROs: 1) enforcing the law; 2) educating students, school staff, and the community; and 3) acting as an informal counselor or mentor (Broll and Howells, 2019; Fisher and Hennessy, 2016; Javdani, 2019; Thomas et al., 2013). There may be significant variability in how these roles and responsibilities are balanced, as they are usually defined through a memorandum of understanding between the local law enforcement agency and the school district (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016). Even with the SRO responsibilities formally spelled out, there may still be tensions and ambiguities inherent to the SRO position based on their positioning at the intersection of the education system and the juvenile justice system, which often have competing cultures and authority structures (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016). As members of the police force, the SROs may view problematic behaviors as crimes, whereas educators view them as obstacles to learning. Another ambiguity is that as an informal counselor/mentor, the SRO is expected to assist students with behavioral and legal issues, which may result in a conflict of interest if the adolescent shares information about engaging in illegal activities (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016).

Evaluation findings with regard to the effectiveness of the presence of SROs in schools have been inconsistent. In terms of school-related violence and other behaviors, some studies have found that SROs in schools are related to decreases in serious violence (Sorensen, Shen, and Bushway, 2021; Zhang, 2019), and decreases in incidents of disorder (Zhang, 2019). Others have found increases in drug-related crimes (Gottfredson et al., 2020; Zhang, 2019) associated with the presence of SROs in schools, and other studies have shown no effects on bullying (Broll and Lafferty, 2018; Devlin, Santos, and Gottfredson, 2018). In terms of school discipline, one meta-analysis (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016) examined the relationship between the presence of SROs and exclusionary discipline in U.S. high schools. Analysis of the seven eligible pretest–posttest design studies showed that the presence of SROs was associated with rates of school-based disciplinary incidents that were 21 percent higher than incident rates before implementing an SRO program. However, in another study, of elementary schools, there was no association found between SRO presence and school-related disciplinary outcomes, which ranged from minor consequences, such as a warning or timeout, to more serious consequences such as suspension from school (Curran et al., 2021).

Further, several studies have been conducted on the effects of SROs on students’ attitudes and feelings. One example is a survey of middle and high school students (Theriot and Orme, 2016), which found that experiencing more SRO interactions increased students’ positive attitudes about SROs but decreased school connectedness and was unrelated to feelings of safety. Conversely, findings from a student survey, on the relationship between awareness and perceptions of SROs on school safety and disciplinary experiences, indicated that students’ awareness of the presence of SROs and their perceptions of SROs were associated with increased feelings of safety and a small decrease in disciplinary actions. However, students belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups reported smaller benefits related to SROs, compared with white students (Pentek and Eisenberg, 2018).

Foot Patrol is another example of a program that uses COP elements. Foot patrol involves police officers making neighborhood rounds on foot. It is a policing tactic that involves movement in a set area for the purpose of observation and security (Ratcliffe et al., 2011). The primary goals of foot patrol are to increase the visibility of police officers in a community and to make greater contact and increase rapport with residents. Officers sometimes visit businesses on their beat, respond to calls for service within their assigned areas, and develop an intimate knowledge of the neighborhood. Additionally, police officers on foot patrols may offer a level of “citizen reassurance” to community members and may decrease a resident’s fear of crime by bringing a feeling of safety to the neighborhood (Wakefield, 2006; Ratcliffe et al., 2011; Walker and Katz, 2017). Another duty of foot patrol officers is to engage youth in the community, and some are instructed to go out of their way to engage vulnerable youth. For example, if an officer sees a group of youths hanging out on a street corner, the officer may stop and initiate casual conversation in an effort to build a relationship (Cowell and Kringen, 2016).

Though foot patrols limit the speed at which an officer can respond to a call (compared with patrol in a vehicle), research has found that community members are more comfortable with police being in the neighborhood on foot. Residents are more likely to consider an officer as “being there for the neighborhood” if they are seen on foot (Cordner, 2010; Piza and O’Hara, 2012).

While there are mixed findings regarding the effectiveness of foot patrols on crime (Piza and O’Hara, 2012), improved community relationships are one of the strongest benefits. Research has shown that foot patrol improves the relationships between community members and police officers through increasing approachability, familiarity, and trust Ratcliffe et al. 2011; Kringen, Sedelmaier, and Dlugolenski, 2018). Foot patrols can also have a positive effect on officers. Research demonstrates that officers who participate in foot patrol strategies have higher job satisfaction and a higher sense of achievement (Wakefield, 2006; Walker and Katz, 2017).

Mini-Stations are community-forward stations that allow police to be more accessible to members of a community. Mini-stations (also known as substations, community storefronts, and other names) can be based in many places—such as local businesses, restaurants, or community centers—and can be staffed by police officers, civilian employees, volunteers, or a combination of these groups, and have fewer officers stationed in them (Maguire et al., 2003). These stations allow officers to build on existing relationships with businesses in the area and give citizens easier access to file reports and share community concerns. Additionally, they are a means to achieving greater spatial differentiation, or a way for a police agency to cover a wider area, without the cost of adding a new district station (Maguire et al., 2003). Residents can also go to mini-stations to receive information and handouts about new policing initiatives and programs in the community. Police mini-stations also increase the overall amount of time officers spend in their assigned patrol areas. The concept of mini-stations stems from Japanese kobans , which gained prominence in the late 1980s. Officers who worked in kobans became intimately familiar with the neighborhood they served and were highly accessible to citizens (usually within a 10-minute walk of residential homes) [Young, 2022].

Mini-stations can also be helpful to youth in the community. For example, Youth Safe Haven mini-stations are mini-stations that are deployed in 10 cities by the Eisenhower Foundation. These mini-stations were first developed in the 1980s and are located in numerous youth-related areas, including community centers and schools (Eisenhower Foundation, 2011). In addition to crime outcomes (such as reduced crime and fear of crime), goals of youth-oriented mini-stations include homework help, recreational activities, and providing snacks and social skills training. Older youths can be trained to be volunteers to assist younger youths with mentoring and advocacy. There are mixed findings regarding mini-stations and their effect on crime rates, but research has shown that adults and older youths who participate in mini-station community programs (or have children who participate) are more likely to report crime, and younger youths are more comfortable speaking with police (Eisenhower Foundation, 1999; Eisenhower Foundation, 2011).

Theoretical Foundation

COP approaches are usually rooted in two different theories of crime: broken windows theory and social disorganization theory (Reisig, 2010; National Research Council, 2018). Both focus on community conditions to explain the occurrence of crime and disorder.

Broken Windows Theory asserts that minor forms of physical and social disorder, if left unattended, may lead to more serious crime and urban decay (Wilson and Kelling, 1982). Visual signs of disorder (such as broken windows in abandoned buildings, graffiti, and garbage on the street) may cause fear and withdrawal among community members. This in turn communicates the lack of or substantial decrease in social control in the community, and thus can invite increased levels of disorder and crime (Hinkle and Weisburd, 2008). In response, to protect the community and establish control, the police engage in order maintenance (managing minor offenses and disorders). Four elements of the broken windows strategy explain how interventions based on this approach may lead to crime reduction (Kelling and Coles, 1996). First, dealing with disorder puts police in contact with those who commit more serious crimes. Second, the high visibility of police causes a deterrent effect for potential perpetrators of crime. Third, citizens assert control over neighborhoods, thereby preventing crime. And finally, as problems of disorder and crime become the responsibility of both the community and the police, crime is addressed in an integrated fashion. COP programs rooted in broken windows theory often use residents and local business owners to help identify disorder problems and engage in the development and implementation of a response (Braga, Welsh, and Schnell, 2015).

Social Disorganization Theory focuses on the relationship between crime and neighborhood structure; that is, how places can create conditions that are favorable or unfavorable to crime and delinquency (Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003). Social disorganization refers to the inability of a community to realize common goals and solve chronic problems. According to the social disorganization theory, community factors such as poverty, residential mobility, lack of shared values, and weak social networks decrease a neighborhood’s capacity to control people’s behavior in public, which increases the likelihood of crime (Kornhauser, 1978; Shaw and McKay, 1969 [1942]). Researchers have used various forms of the social disorganization theory to conceptualize community policing, including the systemic model and collective efficacy (Reisig, 2010). The systemic model focuses on how relational and social networks can exert social controls to mediate the adverse effects of structural constraints, such as concentrated poverty and residential instability. The model identifies three social order controls with decreasing levels of influence: 1) private, which includes close friends and family; 2) parochial , which includes neighbors and civic organizations; and 3) public, which includes police (Bursik and Grasmick, 1993; Hunter, 1985). Community policing efforts based on the systemic model can increase informal social controls by working with residents to develop stronger regulatory mechanisms at the parochial and public levels (Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003; Resig, 2010). Collective efficacy, which refers to social cohesion and informal social controls, can mitigate social disorganization. Community policing can promote collective efficacy by employing strategies that enhance police legitimacy in the community and promote procedurally just partnerships, to encourage residents to take responsibility for public spaces and activate local social controls (Resig, 2010).

Outcome Evidence

Although there are numerous programs that incorporate COP, there are limited examples of COP programs that directly target youth, and fewer that have been rigorously evaluated (Forman, 2004; Paez and Dierenfeldt, 2020). The following programs, which are featured on CrimeSolutions , are examples of how COP has been implemented and evaluated in different cities.

The Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS , developed in 1993, incorporates aspects of both community and problem-oriented policing (see Problem-Oriented Policing, below). The CAPS approach has been implemented by dividing patrol officers into beat teams and rapid response teams in each of the districts. Beat teams spend most of their time working their beats with community organizations, while rapid response teams concentrate their efforts on excess or low-priority 911 calls. Meetings occur monthly for both teams, and they receive extensive training. This structure enables officers to respond quickly and effectively to problems that they have not been traditionally trained to handle but have learned how to do by receiving training, along with residents, in problem-solving techniques. Civic education, media ads, billboards, brochures, and rallies have been used to promote awareness of the program in the community (Skogan, 1996; Kim and Skogan, 2003).

To evaluate the effects of the CAPS program, one study (Kim and Skogan, 2003) examined the impact on crime rates and 911 calls. Data were collected from January 1996 to June 2002, using a time-series analysis. The study authors found statistically significant reductions in crime rates and 911 calls in police beats that implemented the CAPS program, compared with police beats that did not implement the program.

Some studies have found that foot-patrol interventions make varying impacts on different types of street violence. Operation Impact , a saturation foot-patrol initiative in the Fourth Precinct of Newark, NJ, was selected as the target area based on an in-depth analysis of the spatial distribution of street violence. The initiative primarily involved a nightly patrol of 12 officers in a square-quarter-mile area of the city, which represented an increase in police presence in the target area. Officers also engaged in proactive enforcement actions that were expected to disrupt street-level disorder and narcotics activity in violence-prone areas. One study (Piza and O’Hara, 2012) found that the target area that implemented Operation Impact experienced statistically significant reductions in overall violence, aggravated assaults, and shootings, compared with the control area that implemented standard policing responses. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the target and control areas in incidents of murder or robbery.

With regard to community-based outcomes, other studies have shown that COP programs have demonstrated positive results. A COP intervention implemented in New Haven, CT , consisted of a single unannounced community home visit conducted by uniformed patrol officers from the New Haven Police Department. During the visits, the patrol officers articulated their commitment to building a cooperative relationship with residents and the importance of police and residents working together to keep the community safe. One evaluation found that residents in intervention households who received the COP intervention reported more positive overall attitudes toward police, a greater willingness to cooperate with police, had more positive perceptions of police performance and legitimacy, had higher confidence in police, reported higher scores on perceived warmth toward police, and reported fewer negative beliefs about police, compared with residents who did not receive home visits. These were all statistically significant findings. However, there was no statistically significant difference in willingness to comply with the police between residents in households that received home visits, compared with those who did not (Peyton et al., 2019).

Problem-Oriented Policing Definition

Problem-oriented policing (POP) is a framework that provides law enforcement agencies with an iterative approach to identify, analyze, and respond to the underlying circumstances that lead to crime and disorder in the community and then evaluate and adjust the response as needed (Braga et al., 2001; Hinkle et al., 2020; National Research Council, 2004). The POP approach requires police to focus their attention on problems rather than incidents (Cordner and Biebel, 2005). Problems, in this model, are defined “as chronic conditions or clusters of events that have become the responsibility of the police, either because they have been reported to them, or they have been discovered by proactive police investigation, or because the problems have been found in an investigation of police records” (National Research Council, 2004:92).

The POP strategy contrasts with incident-driven crime prevention approaches, in which police focus on individual occurrences of crime. Instead, POP provides police with an adaptable method to examine the complicated factors that contribute and lead to crime and disorder, and develop customized interventions to address those factors (National Research Council, 2018).

As noted previously, the idea behind the POP approach emanated several decades ago (Goldstein, 1979) from observations that law enforcement agencies seemed to be more concerned about the means rather than the goals of policing, or “means-over-ends syndrome” (Goldstein, 1979; Eck, 2006; MacDonald, 2002). In 1990, this work was expanded to systematically define and describe what it meant to use POP approaches in policing. During the 1990s, law enforcement agencies in the United States and other countries (such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom) began to implement POP strategies (Scott, 2000).

The traditional conceptual model of problem-solving in POP, known as the SARA model, consists of the following four steps (Weisburd et al., 2010; Hinkle et al., 2020; National Research Council, 2004):

• Scanning. Police identify problems that may be leading to incidents of crime and disorder. They may prioritize these problems based on various factors, such as the size of the problem or input from the community.
• Analysis. Police study information about the identified problem or problems, using a variety of data sources, such as crime databases or surveys of community members. They examine information on who is committing crimes, victims, and crime locations, among other factors. Police then use the information on responses to incidents — together with information obtained from other sources — to get a clearer picture of the problem (or problems).
• Response. Police develop and implement tailored strategies to address the identified problems by thinking “outside the box” of traditional police enforcement tactics and creating partnerships with other agencies, community organizations, or members of the community, depending on the problem. Examples of responses in POP interventions include target hardening, area cleanup, increased patrol, crime prevention through environmental design measures, multiagency cooperation, and nuisance abatement.
• Assessment. Police evaluate the impact of the response through self-assessments and other methods (such as process or outcome evaluations) to determine how well the response has been carried out and what has been accomplished (or not accomplished). This step may also involve adjustment of the response, depending on the results of the assessment.

The SARA model was first defined by a POP project conducted in Newport News, VA, during the 1980s. The Newport News Task Force designed a four-stage problem-solving process . A case study of the project revealed that officers and their supervisors identified problems, analyzed, and responded to these problems through this process, thus leading to the SARA model (Eck and Spelman, 1987).

Since the creation and development of SARA, other models have been established, in part to overcome some noted weaknesses of the original model, such as an oversimplification of complex processes or a process in which problem-solving is nonlinear. These other models include the following 1) PROCTOR (which stands for PROblem, Cause, Tactic or Treatment, Output, and Result); 2) the 5I’s (Intelligence, Intervention, Implementation, Involvement, and Impact); and 3) the ID PARTNERS (which stands for I dentify the demand; D rivers; P roblem; A im, R esearch and analysis; T hink creatively; N egotiate and initiate responses; E valuate; R eview; and S uccess) [Sidebottom and Tilley, 2010]. However, compared with these models, the SARA model appears to be used more often by agencies that apply a POP approach to law enforcement (Sidebottom and Tilley, 2010; Borrion et al., 2020).

A POP approach can be used by law enforcement agencies to address youth-related issues, including offenses committed by youths (such as gun violence, vandalism, graffiti, and other youth-specific behaviors such as running away from home or underage drinking.

For example, in the 2019–20 school year, about one third of public schools experienced vandalism (Wang et al., 2022). If a police agency wanted to tackle the problem of school vandalism , often committed by youth, they could apply the SARA model to determine the scope of the problem, develop an appropriate response, and conduct an overall assessment of efforts. A problem-oriented guide, put together by the Problem-Oriented Policing Center at Arizona State University, outlines the steps that law enforcement agencies can take to use the SARA model and address the issues of vandalism committed specifically at schools (Johnson, 2005).

Thus, during the scanning step of the SARA model, to identify the problem police would focus on the specific problem of school vandalism by examining multiple sources of data, including information gathered from both police departments and school districts. During the analysis step, police would ask about the specific school vandalism problems they are targeting, such as 1) how many and which schools reported vandalism to the police, 2) which schools were vandalized, 3) what are the characteristics (such as the age, gender, school attendance rate) of any youth identified as committing the vandalism, and 4) on what days and times the vandalism occurred. The analysis step also should include information from various data sources, including official reports to the police of school vandalism incidents, interviews with SROs, and information from students at the school (Johnson, 2005).

Once police have analyzed the school vandalism problem and have a clear picture of the issue, they would then move on to the response step. The response depends on what police learn about the vandalism problem at schools. For example, if police find that vandalism occurs because youths have easy access to school grounds, especially after school hours, they might suggest a response that improves building security. Finally, during the assessment stage, police would determine the degree of effectiveness of their response to school vandalism through various measures of success, such as the reduction in the number of incidents of vandalism, the decrease in the costs for repair of damaged property, and the increase of incidents (when they do occur) in which the person or persons who engaged in vandalism are identified and apprehended (Johnson, 2005).

Overlap of POP With Other Policing Strategies

POP shares several similarities and overlapping features with other policing models, such as focused deterrence strategies and hot-spots policing. Hot-spots policing involves focusing police resources on crime “hot spots,” which are specific areas in the community where crime tends to cluster. Hot-spots policing interventions tend to rely mostly on traditional law enforcement approaches (National Research Council, 2004; Braga et al., 2019). Focused deterrence strategies (also referred to as “pulling levers” policing) follow the core principles of deterrence theory. These strategies target specific criminal behavior committed by a small number of individuals who repeatedly offend and who are vulnerable to sanctions and punishment (Braga, Weisburd, and Turchan, 2018).

While POP, focused deterrence, and hot spots policing are three distinct policing strategies, there can be an overlap in techniques. For example, a POP approach can involve the identification and targeting of crime hot spots, if the scanning and analysis of the crime problems in a community reveal that crime is clustering in specific areas. Further, a hot-spots policing intervention may use a problem-oriented approach to determine appropriate responses to address the crime in identified hot spots. However, POP can go beyond examination of place-based crime problems, and hot-spots policing does not require the detailed analytic approach used in POP to discern which strategy is appropriate to prevent or reduce crime (Hinkle et al., 2020; National Research Council, 2018; Gill et al., 2018). Similarly, POP involves targeting resources to specific, identified problems, in a similar way that focused deterrence strategies target specific crimes committed by known high-risk offenders. However, focused deterrence strategies tend to rely primarily on police officers to implement programs, whereas POP may involve a variety of agencies and community members (National Research Council, 2004).

Although POP, focused deterrence, and hot-spots policing differ in some distinct ways (such as intensity of focus and involvement of other agencies), these strategies may often overlap (National Research Council, 2004).

POP draws on theories of criminal opportunity to explain why crime occurs and to identify ways of addressing crime, often by altering environmental conditions (Reisig, 2010). While much criminological research and theory are concerned with why some individuals offend in general, POP strategies often concentrate on why individuals commit crimes at particular places, at particular times, and against certain targets (Braga, 2008; Goldstein, 1979; Eck and Spelman, 1987; Eck and Madensen, 2012). Thus, POP draws on several theoretical perspectives that focus on how likely individuals (including those who may commit a crime and those who may be victimized) make decisions based on perceived opportunities. These include rational choice theory, routine activities theory , and situational crime prevention (Braga, 2008; Braga et al., 1999; Eck and Madensen, 2012; Hinkle et al., 2020; McGarrell, Freilich, and Chermak, 2007). These three theories are considered complements to one another (Tillyer and Eck, 2011).

Rational Choice Theory focuses on how incentives and constraints affect behavior (Cornish and Clark 1986; Gull, 2009). In criminology, rational choice theory draws on the concepts of free will and rational thinking to examine an individual’s specific decision-making processes and choices of crime settings by emphasizing their motives in different situations. The starting point for rational choice theory is that crime is chosen for its benefits. Thus, rational choice theory informs POP by helping to examine and eliminate opportunities for crime within certain settings. Eliminating these opportunities should help to intervene with a potential offender’s motives to commit a crime (Karğın, 2010).

Routine Activity Theory , formulated by Cohen and Felson (1979), is the study of crime as an event, highlighting its relation to space and time and emphasizing its ecological nature (Mir ó–Llinares , 2014). It was originally developed to explain macro-level crime trends through the interaction of targets, offenders, and guardians (Eck, 2003). The theory explains that problems are created when offenders and targets repeatedly come together, and guardians fail to act. Since its formulation, routine activity theory has expanded. In terms of POP, routine activity theory implies that crime can be prevented if the chances of the three elements of crime (suitable target, motivated offender, and accessible place) intersecting at the same place and at the same time are minimized (Karğın, 2010). The SARA problem-solving methodology allows law enforcement agencies to examine and identify the features of places and potential targets that might generate crime opportunities for a motivated offender and develop solutions to eliminate these opportunities, thereby preventing future crime (Hinkle et al., 2020).

Situational Crime Prevention was designed to address specific forms of crime by systematically manipulating or managing the immediate environment with the purpose of reducing opportunities for crime. The goal is to change an individual’s decisionmaking processes by altering the perceived costs and benefits of crime by identifying specific settings (Clarke, 1995; Tillyer and Eck, 2011). Situational crime prevention has identified a number of ways to reduce opportunity to commit crime, such as: 1) increase the effort required to carry out the crime, 2) increase the risks faced in completing the crime, 3) reduce the rewards or benefits expected from the crime, 4) remove excuses to rationalize or justify engaging in criminal action, and 5) avoid provocations that may tempt or incite individuals into criminal acts (Clarke 2009). Certain POP strategies make use of situation crime prevention tactics during the response phase, such as physical improvements to identified problem locations. These may include fixing or installing street lighting, securing vacant lots, and getting rid of trash from the streets (Braga et al., 1999).

Although the POP approach is a well-known and popular approach in law enforcement, there have been a limited number of rigorous program evaluations, such as randomized controlled trials (National Research Council 2018; Gill et al. 2018), and even fewer evaluations specifically centered on youth. 

One meta-analysis (Weisburd et al., 2008) reviewed 10 studies, which examined the effects of problem-oriented policing on crime and disorder. These included various POP interventions and took place in eight cities across the United States (Atlanta, GA; Jersey City, NJ; Knoxville, TN; Oakland, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Philadelphia, PA; San Diego, CA; and one suburban Pennsylvania area.) and six wards in the United Kingdom. The studies evaluated interventions focused on reducing recidivism for individuals on probation or parole; interventions on specific place-based problems (such as drug markets, vandalism and drinking in a park, and crime in hot spots of violence); and interventions that targeted specific problems such as school victimization. Findings across these studies indicated that, on average, the POP strategies led to a statistically significant decline in measures of crime and disorder.

The following programs, which are featured on CrimeSolutions, provide a brief overview of how POP has been implemented and evaluated in the United States. Programs with examined youth-related outcomes or a specific focus on youth are noted; however, most of the research on POP interventions does not focus on youth.

Operation Ceasefire in Boston (first implemented in 1995) is a problem-oriented policing strategy that was developed to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities. Specifically, the program focused on reducing homicide victimization among young people in Boston (Braga and Pierce, 2005). The program involved carrying out a comprehensive strategy to apprehend and prosecute individuals who carry firearms, to put others on notice that carrying illegal firearms faces certain and serious punishment, and to prevent youth from following in the same criminal path. The program followed the steps of the SARA model, which included bringing together an interagency working group of criminal justice and other practitioners to identify the problem (scanning); using different research techniques (both qualitative and quantitative) to assess the nature of youth violence in Boston ( analysis ); designing and developing an intervention to reduce youth violence and homicide in the city, implementing the intervention, and adapting it as needed ( response ); and evaluating the intervention’s impact ( assessment ). An evaluation of the program found a statistically significant reduction (63 percent) in the average number of youth homicide victims in the city following the implementation of the program. There were also statistically significant decreases in citywide gun assaults and calls for service (Braga et al., 2001). Similarly, another study found a statistically significant reduction (24.3 percent) in new handguns recovered from youth (Braga and Pierce, 2005).

Another program implemented in the same city, the Boston Police Department’s Safe Street Teams (SSTs) , is an example of a place-based, problem-oriented policing strategy to reduce violent crime and includes some components targeting youth. Using mapping technology and violent index crime data, the Boston Police Department identified 13 violent crime hot spots in the city where SST officers could employ community- and problem-oriented policing techniques such as the SARA model. SST officers implemented almost 400 distinct POP strategies in the crime hot spots, which fell into three broad categories: 1) situational/environment interventions, such as removing graffiti and trash or adding or fixing lighting, designed to change the underlying characteristics and dynamics of the places that are linked to violence; 2 ) enforcement interventions, including focused enforcement efforts on drug-selling crews and street gangs, designed to arrest and deter individuals committing violent crimes or contributing to the disorder of the targeted areas; and 3) community outreach/social service interventions, designed to involve the community in crime prevention efforts. Examples of these activities included providing new recreational opportunities for youth (i.e., basketball leagues), partnering with local agencies to provide needed social services to youth, and planning community events. One evaluation (Braga, Hureau, and Papachristos, 2011) found that over a 10-year observation period areas that implemented the SSTs interventions experienced statistically significant reductions in the number of total violent index crime incidents (17.3 percent), in the number of robbery incidents (19.2 percent), and in the number of aggravated assault incidents (15.4 percent), compared with the comparison areas that did not implement the interventions. However, there were no statistically significant effects on the number of homicides or rape/sexual assault incidents. The study also did not examine the impact on youth-specific outcomes.

The Problem-Oriented Policing in Violent Crime Places (Jersey City, N.J.) intervention used techniques from hot spots policing and POP to reduce violent crime in the city. The program and evaluation design followed the steps of the SARA model. During the scanning phase, the Jersey City Police Department and university researchers used computerized mapping technologies to identify violent crime hot spots. During the analysis phase, officers selected 12 pairs of places for random assignment to the treatment group, which received the POP strategies, or to the control group. During the response phase, the 11 officers in the department’s Violent Crime Unit were responsible for developing appropriate POP strategies at the hot spots. For example, to reduce social disorder, aggressive order maintenance techniques were applied, including the use of foot and radio patrols and the dispersing of groups of loiterers. During the assessment phase, the police department evaluated the officers’ responses to the problems, and either adjusted the strategies or closed down the program to indicate that the problem was alleviated. An evaluation found statistically significant reductions in social and physical incivilities (i.e., disorder), the total numbers of calls for service, and criminal incidents at the treatment locations that implemented POP techniques, compared with the control locations (Braga et al., 1999).

COP and POP are two broad policing approaches that, while sharing many characteristics, are still distinct—owing to the focus of their respective approaches. COP’s focus is on community outreach and engagement and does not necessarily rely on analysis methods such as the SARA model. For POP, the primary goal is to find effective solutions to problems that may or may not involve the participation of the community (Gill et al., 2014).

Though COP and POP may differ in their approaches, the end goal is the same in both models. Both are types of proactive policing that seek to prevent crime before it happens. COP and POP also both rely on cooperation from numerous different parties and agencies, including community members (National Research Council, 2018). The two models are similar enough that they often overlap in implementation. For example, the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) incorporates elements from both models. Using aspects of COP, police officers divide into beat teams and spend most of their time working with community organizations. With regard to POP, CAPS trains officers and residents to use problem-solving techniques that stem from its theoretical basis (Skogan, 1996; Kim and Skogan, 2003).

There are, however, limitations in the research examining the effectiveness of these models. For example, evaluation studies on COP and POP tend to focus on results related to crime and disorder; other outcomes, such as collective efficacy, police legitimacy, fear of crime, and other community-related outcomes are often overlooked or not properly defined (Hinkle et al., 2020; Gill et al., 2014). Exploring other community-related outcomes would be useful, as community involvement is an important component to both models. Further, some researchers have noted specific limitations to the implementation of COP and POP interventions. With regard to COP programs, for example, the definition of “community” is sometimes lacking. This can be an important factor to define, as community may mean something different across law enforcement agencies (Gill et al., 2014). Regarding POP programs, it has been noted that the rigor of the SARA process is limited and that law enforcement agencies may take a “shallow” approach to problem-solving (National Research Council, 2018:193; Borrion et al., 2020). To date, the research on both models has lacked focus on youth; only a few evaluations have focused on youth in either in the implementation process or in examined outcomes (Braga et al., 2001; Gill et al., 2018). Despite these limitations, however, the outcome evidence supports the effectiveness of COP and POP interventions to reduce crime and disorder outcomes.

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About this Literature Review

Suggested Reference: Development Services Group, Inc. January  2023. “Community-Oriented Policing and Problem-Oriented Policing.” Literature review. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/model-programs-guide/literature-reviews/community-oriented-problem-oriented-policing

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Community-oriented policing to reduce crime, disorder and fear and increase satisfaction and legitimacy among citizens: a systematic review

• Published: 02 August 2014
• Volume 10 , pages 399–428, ( 2014 )

Cite this article

• Charlotte Gill 1 ,
• David Weisburd 2 , 1 ,
• Cody W. Telep 3 ,
• Zoe Vitter 1 &
• Trevor Bennett 4  

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Systematically review and synthesize the existing research on community-oriented policing to identify its effects on crime, disorder, fear, citizen satisfaction, and police legitimacy.

We searched a broad range of databases, websites, and journals to identify eligible studies that measured pre-post changes in outcomes in treatment and comparison areas following the implementation of policing strategies that involved community collaboration or consultation. We identified 25 reports containing 65 independent tests of community-oriented policing, most of which were conducted in neighborhoods in the United States. Thirty-seven of these comparisons were included in a meta-analysis.

Our findings suggest that community-oriented policing strategies have positive effects on citizen satisfaction, perceptions of disorder, and police legitimacy, but limited effects on crime and fear of crime.

Conclusions

Our review provides important evidence for the benefits of community policing for improving perceptions of the police, although our findings overall are ambiguous. The challenges we faced in conducting this review highlight a need for further research and theory development around community policing. In particular, there is a need to explicate and test a logic model that explains how short-term benefits of community policing, like improved citizen satisfaction, relate to longer-term crime prevention effects, and to identify the policing strategies that benefit most from community participation.

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Citizens’ reactions to hot spots policing: impacts on perceptions of crime, disorder, safety and police

Rethinking Community Policing – Collective Efficacy First

We thank an anonymous peer reviewer for this useful description.

Studies were not excluded on the basis of language, but we lacked resources to conduct our search in languages other than English.

Note that meta-analysis is performed on the log odds ratio, but we present findings as odds ratios for simplicity.

If we assume that crime counts follow a Poisson distribution, the standard error would be the same as for the odds ratio because Poisson is a generalization of the binomial distribution. However, this assumption is not realistic at places: counts tend to be overdispersed (see Bowers et al. 2011 ).

The method for calculating the variance of this adjusted OR varies depending on whether the same people were interviewed in the pre- and post-intervention surveys. If the samples are different, the variance is simply the sum of the variances of the pre- and post-test ORs. If the studies report panel data (measures based on the same sample), the variance falls between the post-test variance and the sum of the variances, depending on the pre-post covariance, which is not reported in studies. In this analysis, it was not always clear from the original studies whether panel samples were used, although it appeared that most studies surveyed different people in each wave. We performed sensitivity analyses and elected to use the sum of the variances for all effect size calculations based on survey data, which is correct for the majority of studies, and a more conservative estimate for the panel studies because it overestimates the variance of these studies.

Note that the numbers in the table are based on the 65 independent treatment–control comparisons reported in the studies, not the 25 publications.

All the studies involved some degree of community collaboration in order to meet our eligibility criteria.

We did not code organizational transformation because this was rarely discussed in studies and was not well operationalized.

Some reported outcome measures were ineligible for our review, even if the overall study was eligible. For example, in some studies, crime outcomes were measured pre- and post-intervention in treatment and control sites, but citizen surveys were only conducted in the treatment sites or only in the post-intervention period. Studies also reported an array of findings, not all of which were relevant to our outcomes of interest or comparable with outcomes measured in other studies.

Only 34 of these comparisons are included in the meta-analyses. Pate et al. ( 1986 ) included 5 comparisons across two sites, but each site used a common control group so we picked one comparison from each of the two sites at random (PCS in Houston and CCPP in Newark) to maintain statistical independence.

The five studies are Connell et al. 2008 , Segrave and Collins 2005 , and three comparisons reported in Uchida et al. 1992 (Kingston, Gate City, and Oakland).

Note that, in the References:* Denotes a reference to a study included in the systematic review** Denotes a reference to a study included in both the systematic review and meta-analysis

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**Cordner, G., Roberts, C., & Jacoby, K. (1999). National evaluation of Weed & Seed case study: Manatee and Sarasota Counties, Florida (NCJ 175698). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.

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**McElroy, J., Cosgrove, C. A., & Sadd, S. (1990). CPOP: The research. An evaluative study of the New York City Community Patrol Officer Program . New York, NY: Vera Institute of Justice.

**Sabath, M., & Carter, H. (2000). Evaluation of efforts to strengthen police-resident relations in El Centro, California: A final report (No. NCJ 181051). Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.

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Acknowledgments

This systematic review was supported by a grant from the National Policing Improvement Agency (UK) to the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed here are those of the authors alone. We are grateful to a number of colleagues who have provided helpful feedback on presentations of the preliminary results, and to the graduate students at George Mason University who assisted with data collection and coding.

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Charlotte Gill, David Weisburd & Zoe Vitter

Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

David Weisburd

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

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Gill, C., Weisburd, D., Telep, C.W. et al. Community-oriented policing to reduce crime, disorder and fear and increase satisfaction and legitimacy among citizens: a systematic review. J Exp Criminol 10 , 399–428 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-014-9210-y

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18 Community and Problem-Oriented Policing

Michael D. Reisig is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University.

• Published: 18 September 2012
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This article is divided into five sections. Section I provides an overview of community and problem-oriented policing, highlighting the key of elements of the two approaches. Section II discusses the history of the American police, with an emphasis on the antecedents and outcomes associated with prior reform efforts. Section III describes the federal government's involvement in community and problem-oriented policing via the COPS program, and reviews the research assessing the impact of the program on crime rates is reviewed. Section IV focuses on the theoretical frameworks that guide community and problem-oriented policing interventions, and extant empirical research. Community policing is rooted in two theories of neighborhood crime (i.e., broken windows and social disorganization), whereas problem-oriented policing is often couched in theories of criminal opportunity (i.e., rational choice and routine activity). Section V concludes with a discussion specifying priorities for future research.

For the better part of the twentieth century, police departments throughout the United States directed their efforts toward suppressing crime. In the 1960s, however, critics charged that the crime-attack model was too aggressive, often resulting in high levels of citizen disaffection with local police, especially in inner-city African American neighborhoods. In the 1970s, several high-profile studies called into question the effectiveness of crime-control policing strategies, such as the use of routine motorized patrols to deter crime. Two reform initiatives—community and problem-oriented policing—emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, sparking a lively debate on the role of American police that has continued for three decades.

Community policing is an organizational strategy in which police activities are geared toward addressing the conditions that give rise to public safety concerns, including crime, disorder, and fear of crime. Two community policing archetypes can be identified. One approach, which is rooted in “broken windows” theory, emphasizes the use of disorder-reduction police strategies (e.g., misdemeanor arrests, situational prevention, and citizen involvement) to reduce neighborhood crime. The second, which is guided by the basic tenets of social disorganization theory, focuses on bolstering local community social processes that mediate the adverse impact of structural constraints (e.g., poverty) on crime, disorder, and analogous outcomes. Although these two approaches rest on different assumptions about the disorder-crime connection, they employ a variety of common strategies and tactics to improve neighborhood quality of life.

Problem-oriented policing is an analytic framework used by police to identify and solve troubles that prompt citizens’ calls for service. Such concerns may be large or small, cross police districts or be contained to a single street corner, or be directly related to crime or not. Although specific strategies often vary from one problem to the next, a common approach to addressing crime and disorder involves reducing opportunities for disorderly and criminal behavior by manipulating environmental conditions.

The literature on these subjects supports a number of conclusions:

Community policing is a multidimensional concept. Its elements can be grouped into four key dimensions—philosophical, strategic, tactical, and organizational.

Problem-oriented policing is a flexible analytic framework that police departments can use to address a wide variety of crime and non-crime problems.

From 1995 to 2008, the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program distributed approximately 13.6 billion nominal dollars in funding to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The research evidence addressing whether the COPS program has reduced crime is inconclusive.

Studies using various methodological designs have shown that broken windows policing tactics (e.g., misdemeanor arrests) have a modest impact on crime and disorder.

The crime-disorder nexus remains a topic of controversy. While some studies find support, other researchers report evidence that the effect of disorder on crime is spurious once neighborhood-level social processes are accounted for.

Neighborhood-level research on the effects of formal/informal social control linkages on crime and crime-related outcomes is limited. Available research does indicate, however, that police-community collaboration mediates the adverse effect of structural disadvantage on perceived safety and incivilities.

Despite the growing number of important empirical contributions to the community and problem-oriented policing literatures, gaps and limitations remain. Future research needs to develop more complete measures of order-maintenance policing, evaluate the potential intervening role of collective efficacy on the effect of misdemeanor arrests on violent crime, and assess whether community policing practices (e.g., beat meetings) promote levels of collective efficacy.

This chapter is divided into five sections. Section I provides an overview of community and problem-oriented policing, highlighting the key of elements of the two approaches. Section II discusses the history of the American police, with an emphasis on the antecedents and outcomes associated with prior reform efforts. In section III , the federal government’s involvement in community and problem-oriented policing via the COPS program is described, and the research assessing the impact of the program on crime rates is reviewed. Section IV focuses on the theoretical frameworks that guide community and problem-oriented policing interventions, and extant empirical research. Community policing is rooted in two theories of neighborhood crime (i.e., broken windows and social disorganization), whereas problem-oriented policing is often couched in theories of criminal opportunity (i.e., rational choice and routine activity). Section V concludes with a discussion specifying priorities for future research.

I. An Overview

Community and problem-oriented policing are distinct concepts, yet in practice they are often used in tandem. Both concepts are quite expansive in nature. Community policing, for example, is sometimes framed as an amorphous philosophy that permeates every aspect of a police department. While this conceptualization may be partially correct, individuals have used this view to mislabel traditional law enforcement tactics, such as exploratory traffic stops, as community policing. Others view community policing as limited to specific police activities, such as school-based drug prevention programs and foot patrols. In practice, community policing often includes specific operational programs and tactics, but it encompasses much more.

Community and problem-oriented policing are sometimes conceptualized as “organizational strategies.” Moore ( 1992 ), for example, argues that both concepts are best understood as strategic attempts to redefine the traditional functions of the police, to modify key programs, tactics, and technologies upon which the police rely, and to redefine sources of police legitimacy. This approach is helpful. If properly implemented, community and problem-oriented policing entail changing the way in which police work has been conducted for much of the twentieth century.

Community policing is a multidimensional concept. Cordner ( 1999 ) groups the many elements of community policing into four key dimensions—philosophical, strategic, tactical, and organizational. The philosophical dimension includes the core ideas and beliefs about what the police should do. For example, community policing values and promotes the active solicitation of input from neighborhood residents and civic organizations, especially with regards to decisions and policies that affect local residents. Citizens often want the police to address a variety of problems, such as maintaining social order and providing non-emergency assistance to area citizens, which go beyond the traditional police mandate (Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux 1990 ; Skogan 2008 b ). Community policing also involves the adoption of a personal service orientation to police work, which requires that local norms and values are taken into consideration, along with organizational, professional, and legal factors, during decision making at all levels of the police organization.

When the philosophical elements of community policing are translated into police action, Cordner ( 1999 ) contends, the focus shifts to the strategic dimension . From an operational standpoint, community policing requires police officers regularly to seek out face-to-face interactions with the general public. Two strategic elements aid officers in this. First, police officers spend less time in their squad cars by adopting alternative patrol strategies (e.g., foot and bike patrol). Second, police officers are assigned to specific beats for extended time periods. These two elements not only help officers develop positive relationships with local residents but also familiarize them with neighborhood concerns. Breaking down the social distance between the police and public can pay off in the form of increased levels of public trust and support.

Specific police practices and behaviors are included in the tactical dimension (Cordner 1999 ). One of the key tactical elements of community policing is problem solving. Following the four-step, problem-solving process established by Goldstein ( 1979 , 1990 ), police officers are encouraged to investigate and develop an understanding of local problems and tailor community-specific solutions to address them (Goldstein 1987 ). Police-community partnerships to solve local problems lie at the heart of community policing. The ability of police officers to build meaningful partnerships with local residents hinges to a great extent on how officers conduct themselves during everyday, routine interactions with the public. Officers who treat citizens respectfully, take time to listen to their concerns, and inquire about local problems on a regular basis are better able to cultivate active participation among residents in collaborative problem-solving projects, which also helps to ensure that police services are consistent with citizens’ expectations.

The organizational dimension concerns altering traditional structural arrangements within police departments to support community policing activities (Cordner 1999 ). The paramilitary organizational structure that dominated American policing during the mid-twentieth century is not conducive to collaborative problem-solving practices (Greene 2000 ). Instead, community policing requires flattening the organizational hierarchy (i.e., reducing the number of ranks), and increasing the formal authority and responsibility of low-ranking officers. Rules and supervisory practices are loosened to allow beat officers to use their creativity to solve local problems (Kelling and Moore 1988 ). Finally, community policing requires police departments to be systematic information seekers. Programs are evaluated, crime patterns are analyzed, and information is shared within the organization, with other municipal agencies, and with the community. In this way, police departments become catalysts for community change.

Over the past two decades, American police departments have adopted and implemented different community policing elements. The result has been a hodgepodge of organizational arrangements, strategies, and tactics, which varies from one city to the next. Different forms of community policing can also be observed within cities across beats. This is to be expected. After all, neighborhood problems and resources (both financial and social) vary both qualitatively and quantitatively between and within cities (Skogan 2008 b ). Despite widespread variation in the practice of community policing, an overarching conceptual definition has been advanced: “Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime” (U.S. Department of Justice 2009 a , 3).

Problem-oriented policing entails identifying and solving the broad range of troubles that prompt citizens to call on the police for service and assistance. In his influential article, Goldstein ( 1979 ) provides the basic structure of problem-oriented policing. First, the police work to define a problem. To successfully accomplish this task, the police should avoid broad classifications based on criminal codes (e.g., robbery, assault, burglary). Broad labels, according to Goldstein, are problematic because they are too heterogeneous. Instead, Goldstein insists that the police develop highly nuanced and precise problem definitions. At the second step, the police work to understand the magnitude and nature of the problem. Successfully doing so requires information. The police should not simply rely on traditional information sources (e.g., crime records), but should take advantage of the information that is available from other agencies and community residents, among other sources. Next, the police need to search for possible solutions. Here, Goldstein ( 1979 , 250) advises the police to engage in an “uninhibited search for alternative responses that might be an improvement over what is currently being done.” The solution may involve traditional law enforcement tactics (e.g., arrests and citations), or it may call for mobilizing local residents to collaborate with police in the problem-solving process. Finally, the police need to assess whether their solution worked. Sherman ( 1991 ) urges police officials to employ basic principles of evaluation research when assessing the results of problem-solving interventions (e.g., history, testing, instability, and instrumentation). This four-step, problem-solving process is incorporated in the well-known SARA model (i.e., scanning, analysis, response, and assessment) (Eck and Spelman 1987 ).

As an analytic framework, problem-oriented policing is quite versatile. For example, the police may focus on problems that occur in contained spaces, such as a street corners and alleyways. Problems may also be identified that take place throughout large portions of a city, such as a rash of convenience store robberies. Not only can the scope of the problems vary but so too can the potential solutions. During the response stage, police may determine that traditional law enforcement tactics provide the greatest likelihood of success. In other instances, nontraditional approaches may seem more promising, such as mobilizing local residents. Community involvement in the problem-solving process is not a requisite. The police may identify problems on their own, or problems may be nominated by community members. Similarly, the process of solving problems may entail the police working with local residents, but it may also be that the responsibility of enacting problem-solving measures falls squarely on the shoulders of the police.

The history of American policing is littered with strategies and tactics that initially were received with great enthusiasm but eventually were discarded when believed to be ineffective. The cycle of adopting and replacing policing models has continued for more than a century. It was through this evolutionary development of American policing that community and problem-oriented policing emerged onto the scene.

II. Historical Development

The historical development of the American police can be grouped into three stages: early uniformed police, bureaucratic policing, and community and problem-oriented policing.

A. First Stage: Early Uniformed Police

Early policing in the United States was greatly influenced by the English experience. The first modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police, was established in 1829. The Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, and his commissioners sought to establish a police force that did not resemble a standing army, and where officers (or “bobbies”) maintained a healthy level of social distance from community members (Monkkonen 1981 ). The latter was thought to contribute to an impartial, impersonal police image rooted not in community norms and values but in the English Constitution (Miller 1977 ). To help achieve this objective, officials regularly recruited new officers from rural areas outside of London. Peel’s commissioners insisted that their officers exercise restraint and display a polite demeanor while on patrol (Lane 1980 ). Such interpersonal treatment, it was believed, helped “compensate for distance from local residents” and would even “win respect” among area residents (Miller 1977 , 38). The legitimacy of the London police was based on the rule of law, which was thought to translate into more consistent, less discretionary policing across locales. London officers were closely monitored, and those who abused their authority were reprimanded by supervisors (Lane 1980 ).

The establishment of formal, unified police departments in New York, Chicago, and other major American cities was motivated by two factors. First, there were growing concerns that informal neighborhood social controls were rapidly deteriorating as urban populations grew larger and as more affluent citizens self segregated into local communities away from the lower classes (Miller 1977 ). At the time, collective disorders (e.g., food riots and wage protests), crime, and disorder were increasingly disruptive (Uchida 2005 ). The introduction of more effective and efficient formal social controls, such as uniformed police forces, was viewed as one way to help alleviate the social problems in urban areas. Second, the spread of formal, semi-bureaucratic police organizations in the United States occurred during a time when a broader movement to establish rational municipal governmental services was taking place (e.g., fire, health, and sewage) (Monkkonen 1981 ).

Some early police reformers in the United States regarded the London model as exemplar. Individuals holding this view argued that adopting the London model would be a significant improvement over the traditional constable-watch system, which was increasingly viewed as ineffective at dealing with and preventing urban crime and disorder. Opponents argued, however, that the London model encroached on civil liberties, would prove too costly, and resembled a military presence (Monkkonen 1981 ). Throughout the mid-1800s many American cities established new police departments (Haller 1975 ). Like their English counterparts, the American police donned uniforms (albeit reluctantly in many cases). On the whole, however, reformers selectively adopted certain aspects of the London model. What emerged in practice was a style of policing that was uniquely American.

The primary objective of the new American police was the prevention of crime and disorder (Miller 1977 ). Lane ( 1980 ) notes, however, that American foot-patrol officers went about their jobs differently than their London counterparts. Because of public concerns of government tyranny, American police officers were granted less formal legal authority. Instead, police officers exercised broad discretionary powers. Officers were expected to use their discretion in a manner consistent with informal community expectations, local norms, and values, as opposed to bureaucratic ideals and the rule of law (Miller 1977 ). Extralegal methods, such as physical force and verbal intimidation, were commonly employed. Indeed, foot-patrol officers were expected to physically dominate their beats, and use violence as opposed to arrest to handle disorderly individuals and petty criminals (Haller 1975 ). Individualized street justice was largely condoned by police supervisors (unless directed at respectable citizens) and members of the community, especially among middle- and upper-class residents who expected the police to control members of the “dangerous class” (i.e., tramps, foreign-born, out-of-towners, unemployed young men) who were thought to be more prone to criminal and disorderly behavior (Haller 1975 ; Miller 1977 ; Lane 1980 ). But the police did not only rely on coercive tactics to achieve class control. A number of social service mechanisms were also used, such as providing indigents with night lodging (Monkkonen 1981 ).

Policing scholars sometimes refer to this period as the “political era” because of the intimate connection that existed between the police and political actors (Kelling and Moore 1988 ). Local political agents exerted tremendous power. They appointed police captains in their districts, and used the force to provide patronage jobs to party loyalists (Haller 1975 ; Lane 1980 ). The police were also used to influence the outcomes of local elections (e.g., ballot rigging and voter intimidation) and to regulate vice (e.g., gambling and liquor). For example, local political concerns influenced how existing liquor laws were enforced. In some police districts liquor laws were enforced strictly, in others loosely, in still others not at all (Lane 1980 ). The regulation of vice provided the police opportunities to receive bribes, collect protection money, and to engage in extortive practices. Along with a portion of their salaries, officers regularly “contributed” shares of their ill-gotten gains to dominate political parties (Monkkonen 1981 ).

B. Second Stage: Bureaucratic Policing

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, many municipal agencies, not just the police, were criticized by Progressive Era reformers as inefficient, corrupt, and discriminatory. Political influences were viewed as a primary culprit. Progressive Era reformers argued that politics should set the objectives for administration and administration should carry out the policies in the absence of political meandering (Wilson 1887 ; Goodnow 1900 ; White 1926 ). This view is often referred to as the “politics-administration dichotomy” model. Applied to municipal government, the model holds that local politicians should stay out of the administrative affairs of local agencies (e.g., hiring and firing decisions in local police departments); agency managers should not get involved in shaping government policies; and the role of agency managers is that of a politically neutral expert who strives to effectively and efficiently carrying out the policies developed through political processes (Svara 1998 ). One result of this reform movement was the enactment of civil service laws that helped insulate municipal agencies from local political influences, especially with regards to employee selection and promotion. But such changes did not occur overnight but rather took several decades. The extent to which such laws influenced police officer behavior on the beat was probably modest (Haller 1975 ).

Progressive reformers also called on public agencies to employ management practices consistent with classical organization theory, which at the time were quite popular in the private sector (see, e.g., Taylor 1911 ; Fayol 1949 [1916]). The basic themes included: organizations and members behave rationally, organization strive to be efficient, efficiency is achieved through specialization and the division of labor, and efficiency is maximized through scientific inquiry (Shafritz and Ott 1996 , 29–31). The ideas espoused by progressive activists were closely aligned with the objectives of several early police reformers (see, e.g., Smith 1940 ; Wilson 1950 ; Fosdick 1969 , [1915]; Vollmer 1971 [1936]). August Vollmer, for example, advocated for a professional police force that was “an efficient, nonpartisan agency committed to the highest standards of public service” (Walker 1980 , 134). This new approach to policing, which came to be known as the “professional model,” featured a narrowing of the police mandate—no longer did the police employ a variety of tactics to control the dangerous class but instead focused specifically on crime control. Applying the basic themes from classical organization theory, the professional police department was characterized by a centralization of command and standardization of procedure, division of labor and task specialization, improved standards of recruiting and training, and the use of scientific methods to investigate crimes (Goldstein 1990 , 6–8). Other reforms and innovations, including preventive motorized patrols, rapid response, systematic recording of crime data, and the use of two-way radios were geared toward accomplishing three objectives—enhancing organizational efficiency, reducing crime, and increasing control over patrol officers.

The professional model was the dominant organizational design in American policing for much of the mid-twentieth century. Police officers in large cities maintained a presence through motorized patrols, racing from one call to the next. The image they portrayed was that of a crime fighter. Over time, however, the professional model began to falter. In the 1960s, for example, crime was on the rise, and the inability of the police to reverse crime trends called into question their crime fighter image. Several televised civil rights marches showed African American demonstrators being beaten, water hosed by police, and attacked by dogs, leading many to view the police as the “symbol of a society that denied blacks equal justice under the law” (Uchida 2005 , 33). In some cities, such as Detroit and Newark, police actions (e.g., raids and shootings) were perceived as the cause of urban riots. An investigation by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders ( 1968 ) concluded the police represent “white power, white racism, and white repression” among black ghetto dwellers (5). Among other things, the commission recommended that the police “eliminate abrasive practices” in inner-city neighborhoods, and implement “innovate programs to insure widespread community support for law enforcement” (8).

A number of research studies conducted in the 1970s challenged key aspects of the professional model. For example, the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment showed that not only do routine motorized patrols not deter crime but also have little effect on citizens’ fear of crime (Kelling et al. 1974 ). Another influential study, conducted by researchers at the Rand Corporation, reported that variation in investigative training, staff, workload, and procedures had no meaningful effect on crime, arrest, and clearance rates. In addition, the Rand researchers found that over one-half of serious felonies (e.g., homicide and rape) reported to the police received only “superficial attention” by investigative staff (Greenwood and Petersilia 1975 , vii). A study conducted by researchers at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) found that efforts to reduce police response time had no effect on arrest rates. The PERF researchers discovered that other factors, such as citizen-reporting time, played a more important role (Spelman and Brown 1984 ). These studies provided evidence that caused many observers to question the merits of the professional model of policing.

C. Third Stage: Community and Problem-Oriented Policing

During the 1970s and 1980s, various attempts to improve policing practices were underway (see Moore 1992 , 131–38; Skogan 2008 b ). One example, community crime prevention, sought to build collaborative partnerships between criminal justice agencies and community organizations to address crime and related problems. This approach rested on the assumption that crime-ridden, disorderly neighborhoods lacked the informal social controls necessary to regulate the behavior of residents and visitors (Hope 1995 ). Many crime prevention programs attempted to address the problem by organizing community members. Not only were residents encouraged to harden their domiciles to prevent break-ins but also to work collectively by communicating suspicious activity to neighbors, form civilian patrols to roam the neighborhood, call on and assist the police when crime happened, and engage in other collective anti-crime activities. However, participation in such programs proved difficult to sustain (Rosenbaum 1988 ). Based on his comprehensive review of the research literature, Skogan ( 1988 ) noted that community organizations were much more likely to arise and flourish in more affluent areas, and that program awareness and participation tended to be dominated by residents from higher socio-economic backgrounds (also see Rosenbaum, Lurigio and Davis 1998 , 22–27).

Team policing was another attempt to move beyond the professional model. This police innovation called for establishing teams of officers in various beats throughout cities, and holding them accountable for local conditions (Bloch and Specht 1973 ). Traditional car patrols remained in use, but routine calls for service were first given to team officers in the area in which they originated. Evaluation research studies generally reported positive findings (see, e.g., Sherman, Milton, and Kelly 1973 ). However, the ability to strike a proper balance between a traditional crime fighting force and a second patrol force consisting of area teams that were more responsive to local community needs proved difficult. Team officers were expected to respond to calls for service and foster community involvement. The more citizen involvement officers were able to stimulate, the less time they were available to respond to calls. Given the traditional crime-fighter values that dominated police organizations, it was only a matter of time until team officers morphed back into traditional patrol officers (Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy 1990 ).

A third set of reforms involved the re-emergence of foot patrols in a number of American cities (e.g., Houston, Boston, and Baltimore). Initiated because of growing concerns over the effectiveness of car patrols, investigators sought to determine whether foot patrols could reduce levels of perceived disorder (e.g., loitering and drug use), reduce perceived crime, improve perceptions of safety and citizen evaluations of police service, and reduce actual crime and victimization (see Pate 1986 ). In Flint, Michigan, Trojanowicz ( 1986 ) found that citizens residing in foot patrol areas reported higher levels of satisfaction with police services and that they felt safer. Crime rates also went down in the study areas, except for robbery and burglary. Trojanowicz notes, however, that these serious crimes were considerably higher in other areas of the city that did not receive foot patrols (also see Trojanowicz 1982 ). A second study, conducted in Newark, New Jersey, reported positive findings of foot patrols in terms of influencing individual perceptions of safety, perceptions of crime problems, perceptions of disorder problems, and ratings of police service. The researchers in Newark did not find any effect of foot patrols on reported crime levels (Pate 1986 ). Many police reformers interpreted these findings as showing that foot patrols could have positive effects.

Police reform in the United States gained momentum after the publication of two influential articles authored by prominent policing scholars. The first, Wilson and Kelling’s ( 1982 ) “Broken Windows” article, used the Newark foot patrol experiments as a point of departure to support their reform agenda. The authors noted that Newark foot patrol officers became intimately familiar with their beats, and were quite effective at upholding local community standards, such as making sure “disreputable regulars” kept their alcoholic beverages in paper bags and did not lie down for sidewalk naps. Sometimes the police used their powers of arrest to remove disorderly people from the streets, at other times less formal (even extralegal) tactics were used. The authors likened this form of policing to the style observed in earlier periods of American history. Wilson and Kelling cautioned that some informal tactics employed by officers “probably would not withstand legal challenge” (31) and that they are not “easily reconciled with any conception of due process or fair treatment” (35). But, the authors argued, the rules were well understood by area residents who condoned informal and extralegal police tactics. According to Wilson and Kelling, citizens were pleased that the police were doing something about disorderly behavior.

Wilson and Kelling’s paper sparked considerable debate on the topic of police reform. Focusing specifically on Wilson and Kelling’s work, Walker ( 1984 ) rejected the notion that the police in the nineteenth century enjoyed high levels of legitimacy. As evidence, Walker pointed to the many political battles over the enforcement of drinking laws that undermined public support. Walker also claimed that Wilson and Kelling portrayed a highly romanticized view of early American policing. In actuality, Walker argued, early foot patrols were plagued by corruption and were terribly inefficient. Others focused their criticisms on the methodological limitations of the foot patrol experiments cited by Wilson and Kelling. For example, Greene and Taylor ( 1988 ) pointed out that none of the foot patrol experiments at the time, including the Newark study, actually used “ecologically valid neighborhood units” (217). Failing to do so meant that foot patrol officers toured several local communities, which made it incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to learn the specific local norms.

Other critics took aim at the order-maintenance function of policing more generally. Manning ( 1988 , 44) argued, for example, that the police cannot “coerce, enforce, punish, and maintain formal social control” and expect to maintain high levels of support in all segments of the general population. But not everyone objected to the notion of police officers sometimes resorting to aggressive forms of order maintenance. Sykes ( 1986 ) argued that maintaining order was not inherently repressive, but instead actually provided protection and regulation that are necessary for a free, well-functioning community. Mastrofski ( 1988 , 60) points out, however, that relaxing bureaucratic and legal constraints on police behavior can potentially increase “police misbehavior, abuse of authority, and bad judgment.”

The second important article, authored by Herman Goldstein ( 1979 ), also directed criticism toward the professional model of policing. Goldstein argued that police professionals in the United States suffered from the “means-over-ends syndrome” (238). Put simply, too much emphasis had been placed on formalizing police processes. Goldstein conceded that the establishment of businesslike procedures was appropriate when Progressive Era reformers began their work. After all, at that time the police were horribly inefficient, poorly trained, and supervision was lax. But improvements to police efficiency came at a significant cost—police officials no longer concerned themselves with the objectives of preventing and controlling crime and related problems. Goldstein advocated that the police focus their attention on the problems that result in calls for service as opposed to the calls themselves.

Much of the early research in support of problem-oriented policing relied on case study methodologies, which provided detailed contextual assessment of problem-oriented policing interventions in departments throughout the United States. In his highly acclaimed book, Problem-Oriented Policing ( 1990 ), Goldstein presents a case study that he says is a classic example of problem-oriented policing at work. The case involved an increase in convenience store robberies in Gainesville, Florida. After carefully studying the problem, which included an independent assessment conducted by a university-based researcher, the police concluded that the robbers were targeting stores staffed by a single clerk during the night shift. At the urging of the police, the city council passed an ordinance requiring convenience stores to have two clerks on duty at specific times. Shortly after the ordinance passed, convenience store robberies dropped by 65 percent.

Although the Gainesville case is straightforward and, at first glance, appears to demonstrate to merits of problem-oriented policing, some observers argue that the findings are largely anecdotal. For example, Sherman ( 1991 , 700–701) asks the following: Did the number of convenience stores decline after the new ordinance passed requiring more clerks be employed? Were known convenience store robbers apprehended about the same time the new law went into effect? In addition, Sherman notes that clerks who worked alone at night could simply have pocketed money from the cash register and reported that they were robbed to the police to cover up the embezzlement. Once a second clerk was placed in the store, the scheme would require a co-conspirator, potentially making reported robberies less common. The Gainesville case study did not address these questions, nor did it adequately rule out potential rival explanations. Much like the criticisms directed at the early foot patrol experiments, police scholars in the early years of problem-oriented policing called for more systematic and exhaustive assessments of policing interventions that employed more scientifically-rigorous methodologies, such as experimental and quasi-experimental designs, to evaluate the impact of police interventions.

As the 1980s drew to a close, few could have predicted the rate at which the police reform movement would sweep across the country in the coming decade. Interest in community and problem-oriented policing among law enforcement agencies in big cities, rural counties, affluent suburban communities, and college towns grew by leaps and bounds in 1990s. At about the same time, approximately two years after William Jefferson Clinton was elected president, the federal government enacted legislation providing unprecedented levels of financial support to assist police departments move to community policing.

III. The Cops Program

In the 1990s, the federal government became involved in the police reform movement with the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act). Between fiscal years 1995 and 2000, the Crime Act authorized the appropriation of $8.8 billion in grants to support local law enforcement agencies’ community policing efforts. The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program was established by the Department of Justice to award a variety of different grants to law enforcement agencies to accomplish four goals: increase the number of police officers, foster police-community interaction and problem solving, encourage police innovation, and develop new police technologies to reduce crime (Roth and Ryan 2000 ). In 2005 the COPS program was reauthorized by Congress.

By 2000, the COPS program reportedly funded more than 100,000 police officers. 1 This was accomplished through the use of three-year hiring grants that paid up to 75 percent of the cost of hiring new officers. Agencies receiving these awards were required to hire police officers who would engage in community policing activities (Roth and Ryan 2000 ). The COPS grants were also used to acquire crime-fighting technology, fund innovative police programs, and establish a nationwide network of Regional Community Policing Institutes (RCPI). The RCPI network was set up to provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement agencies (U.S. Department of Justice 2006 ). As of mid-year 2009, the RCPIs had trained more than 600,000 police officers, government officials, and community members (U.S. Department of Justice 2009 b ).

The amount of money appropriated to the COPS program from 1995 to 2008 was substantial (approximately 13.6 billion in nominal dollars). As figure 18.1 shows, a large percentage of the appropriations to the COPS program between 1995 and 1999 (approximately 86.7 percent) went to hiring programs. Federal appropriations for the COPS program remained fairly stable from 1995 to 1999 (average of about $1.4 billion per year), but declined thereafter. In 2000 appropriations were reduced by 57.5 percent (an $835 million reduction). Appropriations increased after that point for several years, even exceeding funding requests by the Bush administration. In 2008 the COPS program was appropriated $587 billion (James 2008 ).

Funding Requests and Appropriations for the COPS Program, 1995–2008 (in millions of nominal dollars)

A. COPS and Community Policing

The adoption of community and problem-oriented policing practices expanded following the passage of the Crime Act of 1994. Using multiple waves of survey data collected in 1996, 1998, and 2000 and site visits to police agencies, Roth, Roehl, and Johnson ( 2004 ) tracked the adoption of four police reforms—tactics for building partnerships, problem solving, crime prevention, and supportive organizational changes—from 1995 to 2000. Roth and his colleagues found that the implementation of partnership building tactics increased significantly between 1995 and 1998 among large agencies. No change was observed between 1998 and 2000. From their site visits, Roth et al. found that partnerships usually took two forms: problem solving partnerships formed with other service providers, and community partnerships with neighborhood residents, groups, and businesses.

The adoption of problem-solving and crime prevention tactics followed patterns similar to partnership building—significantly increasing from 1995 to 1998 and observing no change between 1998 and 2000. The authors’ fieldwork uncovered problems with police adoption of crime prevention. More specifically, Roth and his associates report that police officials usually pointed to existing programs (e.g., Drug Abuse Resistance Education [DARE] and Neighborhood Watch) rather than new initiatives, and seldom were able to “articulate any philosophy of prevention, logical productions of collaboration with communities and problem solving focused on underlying causes” (16). By comparison, the most modest community policing reforms adopted by large police departments were in the area of supportive organizational changes. When the specific elements were assessed separately, the findings showed that nearly 80 percent of large police departments reportedly established neighborhood patrol boundaries by 1998, and that beat integrity had exceeded 60 percent that same year (Roth, Roehl, and Johnson 2004 ).

More recent trends in the adoption of community policing practices can be traced using reports published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics ( 2000 , 2006 ). Figure 18.2 provides a look at community policing practices in local police departments of all sizes at 1997 and 2003. The data show that training citizens in community policing, conducting citizen surveys, geographic assignment of patrol officers, and training new recruits in community policing were more common in 1997. Little change was observed in developing a written community policing plan and encouraging officers to engage in problem-solving activities. The percentage of departments with full-time, sworn community policing officers grew rather rapidly between the two observation periods.

The data presented in figure 18.2 provide some indication as to the popularity of community policing practices in American police departments. However, some caution must be exercised when interpreting these data. Perhaps most importantly is the dosage issue. Maguire and Mastrofski ( 2000 ) have pointed out that these data simply reflect whether departments reportedly adopted various community policing elements. They tell us little (if anything) about the extent to which agencies actually engage in specific activities.

Community Policing in Local Police Departments (all sizes), 1997 & 2003.

B. COPS and Crime Research

Research investigating the effect of COPS grants on crime has been at the center of a fair amount of controversy. Some of it stems from the numerous methodological challenges confronting researchers who attempt to tackle the question (see Worrall 2010 , 42–44), and some is probably associated with deep-seated political views regarding the proper role of the federal government. Zhao, Scheider, and Thurman ( 2002 ) were the first to evaluate the impact of COPS funding on crime rates. Using panel data (1995–99) from 6,100 cities, Zhao and his associates showed that two COPS programs (i.e., hiring and innovative grants) significantly reduced violent and property crime rates in cities with populations exceeding 10,000. Although they did not find similar effects in smaller cities and towns, Zhao et al. concluded that COPS grants appeared to be an effective way to reduce crime in the United States (also see Zhao, Scheider, and Thurman 2003 ).

The Zhao et al. ( 2002 ) study was the focus of considerable criticism. For example, Muhlhausen ( 2002 , 8) argued that Zhao and associates’ study was “critically flawed” because it failed to account for a variety of factors known to influence crime rates and control for local law enforcement efforts, among other shortcomings. Muhlhausen ( 2001 ) attempted to replicate Zhao et al.’s findings using panel data (1995–98) from 752 counties. Muhlhausen found that hiring grants and grants for purchasing new technology had no appreciable impact on violent crime.

Three additional studies followed soon thereafter. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) attempted to address criticisms of the Zhao et al. study, such as variable omission bias. For example, the GAO study included controls for other types of federal funding. Based of their analysis, the GAO concluded that “COPS grant expenditures did reduce crime during the 1990s” (GAO 2005 , 17). Evans and Owens ( 2007 ) used panel data (1990–2001) from 2074 cities and towns to assess the impact of COPS funding. They found that four types of crime (i.e., auto theft, burglary, robbery, and aggravated assault) dropped in the years following the receipt of COPS hiring grants. That same year, however, a second study was published that arrived at a different conclusion. Worrall and Kovandzic ( 2007 ) assessed panel data (1990–2000) from 189 large cities. The authors included non-COPS police expenditures in their analysis, thus addressing criticism directed at the Zhao et al. study. After evaluating the impact of COPS funding on seven types of serious crime, the authors concluded that “COPS grants had no discernible effect on serious crime during the period covered by our analysis” (170).

The research evidence addressing whether the COPS program has reduced crime is mixed. While some observers conclude that investments made in policing to expand the number of police officers contributed to the crime drop in the 1990s (see, e.g., Levitt 2004 ), others remain steadfast in their position that COPS hiring grants failed to reduce crime (Muhlhausen and Walsh 2008 ).

IV. Theory and Research

Academic discussions of community policing are generally rooted in two neighborhood theories of crime—broken windows and social disorganization theory. Given its flexibility, a variety of theoretical frameworks (e.g., routine activity theory) can be used to guide problem-oriented policing interventions.

A. Broken Windows Theory

Broken windows theory posits that neighborhood disorder indirectly causes crime through a cascading sequence of events (see figure 18.3 ). Disorder is typically conceptualized as a two-dimensional concept. One dimension, social disorder, is defined as “boorish and threatening behavior” that disrupts urban life (Kelling and Coles 1996 , 16). Examples include aggressive panhandling, street prostitution, public drinking and drug use, and urinating in public spaces. Albert J. Reiss Jr. ( 1985 ) referred to these behaviors as “soft crimes”—while technically crimes (usually misdemeanors or petty offenses), such behaviors are traditionally not a high police priority. The second dimension, physical disorder, refers to “visual signs of negligence and unchecked decay” in neighborhood settings (Skogan 1990 , 4). Broken streetlights and windows, vacant lots filled with garbage, abandoned or burned-out buildings and cars, and gang graffiti are common examples of physical disorder. Importantly, broken windows theory posits that observable signs of disorder (or “incivilities”), when left unchecked, elevate levels of fear among area residents (Wilson and Kelling 1982 ). Fearful citizens take steps to reduce their perceived victimization risk. For example, some residents move to less disorderly (and presumably safer) neighborhoods. Those who are unable to relocate minimize their potential exposure to victimization by altering their daily routines (e.g., avoiding local markets, finding alternatives to public transportation, and spending more time indoors).

The Broken Windows Theory of Neighborhood Crime

Fear-induced physical and social withdrawal has detrimental effects on the ability of local communities to regulate the behavior of residents and visitors. Citizens are more reluctant to intervene on behalf of the public (e.g., break up fights between children), less willing to participate in local civic organizations, and neglect their social ties with neighbors. In short, informal social controls break down as social isolation sets in (Kelling and Coles 1996 , 20). In the absence of effective social controls, neighborhood conditions become increasingly criminogenic, and disorder becomes more pervasive and intense (e.g., panhandlers are more menacing, rowdy teens are emboldened, and gang graffiti accumulates), all of which signals miscreants that “no one cares” and thus the neighborhood is ripe for “criminal invasion” (Wilson and Kelling 1982 , 31–32). In turn, open-air drug markets become larger and busier, street prostitutes increase in number, muggings become more frequent, and other forms of street violence happen with greater regularity. Over time, neighborhoods that reach the bottom of the spiraling cycle of decline “may no longer be recognized as neighborhoods” (Skogan 1990 , 14).

Broken windows theory has received a fair amount of empirical attention. Harcourt and Ludwig ( 2006 ) group broken windows research studies into two categories: those that assess the impact of broken windows policing, and those that test hypotheses derived from broken windows theory.

1. Research on the Effect of Broken Windows Policing

Broken windows theory is widely considered the guiding force behind order-maintenance policing (also termed “broken windows policing”). The idea is pretty straightforward: given the series of harmful effects that flow from neighborhood disorder, order-maintenance policing requires police officers to address disorder problems on a routine basis. Two important questions arise. First, when do disorder-related problems warrant police intervention? Kelling and Coles ( 1996 ) contend that police officers must determine the seriousness of the offense in context. For example, a group of intoxicated men consuming alcohol on a busy street corner during the day necessitates intervention more so than a single person drinking a beer in a paper sack in an alleyway at night. A teenager urinating on a car in a busy parking lot in broad daylight requires police intervention more so than a teen doing the same thing behind a dumpster after midnight. Police officers, according to Kelling and Coles, must also evaluate the harm done to the victim and impact on the community. Returning to the examples, the group of male drunkards will adversely impact the ability of nearby shop owners to conduct business. An elderly neighborhood resident walking by the parking lot will be disturbed by the sight of a teenager urinating in plain sight. In situations where the seriousness and harm of disorderly acts is not so clear cut, the police must rely on their training and departmental policy to determine whether intervention is warranted.

The second question concerns how police officers should handle encounters with disorderly individuals. In theory, order-maintenance policing calls on the police to exhaust non-arrest approaches, such as persuasion, counseling, and ordering, to resolve the disorder problems they encounter. If such attempts fail, then making an arrest for a misdemeanor offense is appropriate (Kelling and Coles 1996 , 23). Research addressing the impact of broken windows policing has adopted two different strategies: assessments of department-wide, order-maintenance strategies across police precincts and targeted interventions focusing on specific urban locations.

A growing body of research has attempted to determine the effect broken windows policing had (if any) on the declining crime rate in New York City (NYC). The NYC crime drop has attracted the attention of researchers for several reasons. For example, NYC experienced dramatic decreases in rates of violent and property crime during the 1990s (56 percent and 65 percent, respectively). What is more, during the 1990s NYC officials, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton, implemented their version of order-maintenance policing, which resulted in an explosion of misdemeanor arrests. Reflecting on the NYC crime drop, Kelling and Bratton ( 1998 , 1217) commented that the “police played an important, even central, role in getting people to stop committing crime in New York City.” Some observers, however, contend that the contributions of policing strategies on NYC’s declining crime rates are “exaggerated” (Levitt 2004 , 173).

Kelling and Sousa’s ( 2001 ) study was one of the first sophisticated attempts to investigate the impact of order-maintenance policing on NYC crime rates in the 1990s. Using police precincts as their unit of analysis, Kelling and Sousa operationalized order-maintenance policing as arrests for misdemeanor offenses. After regressing violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and felonious assault) onto misdemeanor arrests and statistical control variables, the authors observed that order-maintenance policing contributed to the NYC crime drop. Specifically, Kelling and Sousa reported that for every twenty-eight misdemeanor arrests, one violent crime was prevented. The authors estimated that from 1989 to 1998, more than 60,000 violent crimes were prevented, which corresponds to a 5 percent reduction in violent crime (Kelling and Sousa 2001 , 10). A second study, which used monthly time-series data over a twenty-five-year period (1974–99), arrived at a similar conclusion (Corman and Mocan 2005 ). Like Kelling and Sousa, the authors operationalized order-maintenance policing as misdemeanor arrests. However, Corman and Mocan assess the impact of misdemeanor arrests on specific types of crime (e.g., murder, robbery, motor vehicle theft, and grand larceny). Evidence in support of broken windows policing was observed: a 10 percent increase in misdemeanor arrests was associated with a 2.5–3.2 percent decline in robbery, a 1.6–2.1 percent decrease in motor vehicle theft, and a 0.5–0.6 percent decline in grand larceny (255). The authors report, however, that the effect of order-maintenance policing on the other types of crimes included in the study was null.

The Kelling and Sousa and Corman and Mocan studies were not met with universal praise. Harcourt and Ludwig ( 2006 ) took issue with several technical aspects of these two studies. For example, the Kelling and Sousa study, according to Harcourt and Ludwig, failed to account for a variety of important control variables and adjust their multivariate models to account for “mean reversion.” Regarding the latter, Harcourt and Ludwig argued that those NYC precincts that received the most intense order-maintenance policing also experienced the largest increases in crime during the 1980s. Harcourt and Ludwig contend that areas where crime rates go up the most are usually the places where they decline the most. Their reassessment of the impact of misdemeanor arrests on violent crime, which included measures of police manpower, age composition, and structural disadvantage, showed that misdemeanor arrests had no significant impact violent crime in NYC between 1989 and 1999 (also see Harcourt and Ludwig 2007 ).

Other recent studies throw additional light on the effect of broken windows policing in NYC. Rosenfeld, Fornango, and Rengifo ( 2007 ) assessed the impact of order maintenance policing (operationalized as misdemeanor and ordinance violation arrests) on two types of violent crime—robbery and homicide—at the precinct level from 1988 to 2001. After controlling for a variety of factors hypothesized to influence violent crime rates (e.g., felony arrests and drug markets), Rosenfeld et al. found that order-maintenance policing resulted in declines in both robbery (about a 1–5 percent decline) and homicide (about a 7–12 percent decline) during the 1990s (377). Adopting a slightly different focus, Messner et al. ( 2007 ) assessed the effect of misdemeanor arrests on three measures of homicide (gun-related, non-gun related, and total homicides) and robbery across NYC precincts from 1990 to 1999. Like Rosenfeld et al., Messner and colleagues’ analysis controlled for other factors hypothesized to influence aggregate crime rates, such as felony arrest rates, cocaine use, and neighborhood characteristics. Their findings revealed that misdemeanor arrests were associated with reductions in robbery, gun-related homicide, and total homicide. Messner and associates estimate that an increase of 833 misdemeanor arrests result in one less homicide for a precinct of 100,000 population (400) (also see Cerdá et al. 2009 ).

On balance, the research on the effect of policing strategies on the NYC crime drop indicates that order-maintenance policing had a modest impact on certain types of crime, especially robbery and gun-related homicide. Although informative, these studies employ a narrow operational definition of order-maintenance policing (e.g., misdemeanor arrests). As Thacher ( 2004 , 393) notes, “simply equating order maintenance policing with misdemeanor arrests is clearly too simple” (also see Braga and Bond 2008 , 581). Whether more nuanced order-maintenance measures that capture instances of police dealing with disorderly behavior by way of persuasion, warnings, and reminders in the absence of formal sanction also impacted crime rates across NYC precincts during the 1990s remains an open empirical question.

While a number of studies have sought to assess the impact of broken windows policing strategies and tactics on specific urban locations, three well-crafted studies are discussed here. Perhaps the most sustained, comprehensive, and methodologically rigorous evaluation of community policing is Wesley Skogan’s work on the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS). Chicago-style community policing is based on broken windows theory. However, unlike the approach adopted in NYC, CAPS does not address “community problems by making tens of thousands of arrests for minor offenses,” but in Chicago the “solution for broken windows is to fix them” (Skogan 2006 , 179). The CAPS program incorporated several community policing characteristics, including officers assigned to specific beats, training officers in problem-solving, emphasis placed on community involvement, and crime analysis. When comparing research beats (i.e., those targeted for CAPS interventions) to comparison beats, Skogan and Hartnett ( 1997 ) found that citizens residing in disadvantaged areas reported that neighborhood conditions, such as drug sales and abandoned buildings, improved significantly following police intervention. In more affluent areas, however, improvements were also observed but it was not clear as to whether they were attributable to police interventions (i.e., conditions in comparison beats also improved). In short, Chicago’s broken windows approach to community policing produced positive outcomes in distressed residential settings, but in areas where neighborhood problems were low to begin with, gains following police intervention were comparatively modest.

Operation Restoration, a policing program in Chandler, Arizona, emphasized order maintenance and zoning ordinance enforcement to address disorder problems (Katz, Webb, and Schaefer 2001 ). The police department targeted four intervention zones. At the beginning stages of the program, Chandler police actively sought community input by conducting community surveys and holding meetings with local residents and stakeholders. Citizen input showed that disorder-related problems were prevalent in a number of different residential communities. After selecting specific areas for intervention, the police held community meetings to educate residents about the operation and ask them to tell others about Operation Restoration. Katz and his colleagues tracked the number of calls for service over a 1,245-day period (from pre- to post-intervention). Their analyses revealed that the number of calls for service pertaining to public morals offenses, such as street prostitution and public drinking, decreased significantly. In sum, Operation Restoration proved successful in reducing community-nominated problems.

More recently, Braga and Bond ( 2008 ) evaluated the effect of broken windows policing on a variety of outcomes, such as citizen calls for service and pre- and post-intervention levels of physical and social disorder. The authors employed a randomized block field experimental design. The police intervention involved various broken windows policing tactics, including situational prevention, social service, and misdemeanor arrest. Braga and Bond found that the total number of calls, robbery and non-domestic assault calls, and disorder and burglary calls were all significantly reduced in the treatment areas. The authors were able to determine which police strategies had the largest effect on calls for service. The number of different situational prevention strategies proved most salient, followed by misdemeanor arrests. The effect of social service strategies on calls for service was null. Regarding pre- and post-intervention levels of disorder, Braga and Bond report that social (e.g., loiters, public drinkers, and the homeless) and physical disorder (trash, graffiti, and abandoned cars) were significantly reduced in the treatment areas. Summing up the implications of their study, the authors note that “a sole commitment to increasing misdemeanor arrests is not the most powerful approach” (600).

Broken windows policing is the subject of considerable debate. Critics argue that narrowly conceived order-maintenance strategies, which focus solely on making misdemeanor arrests, walk a fine line between keeping streets safer and harassing local citizens (see Kubrin 2008 ). A focus of attacking crime by aggressively cracking down on public order offenses via arrest is referred to as “zero-tolerance policing” (Greene 2000 ). Some claim that the broken windows policing strategy developed in NYC under William Bratton was more closely aligned with zero-tolerance policing than a community collaboration approach (Greene 1999 ; Skogan 2006 : 179; cf. Kelling and Coles 1996 , 160). Arguably, zero-tolerance policing can result in both positive and negative outcomes.

Conventional wisdom states that police-community collaboration is exceedingly difficult to nurture and sustain in high-crime, minority neighborhoods where informal social controls are deteriorating, trust among neighbors is lacking, the police are viewed negatively, and social institutions are weak. Therefore, some might conclude that adopting a community policing approach that relies on citizen input to identify neighborhood problems, and involvement in crime reduction and prevention strategies, will be doomed to failure. Under such conditions, the argument follows, that a zero-tolerance policing approach geared toward eradicating crime in the short run will give local communities an opportunity to organize and develop the social controls necessary to regulate the behavior of residents and visitors, thus preventing crime in the long run (see Meares 1998 ).

Opponents of zero-tolerance policing take issue with this position. Neighborhood policing research consistently shows that police officers exercise a higher level of coercive authority in poverty-stricken, socially distressed residential settings (Smith 1986 ; Fagan and Davies 2000 ; Mastrofski, Reisig, and McCluskey 2002 ; Terrill and Reisig 2003 ; Ingram 2007 ), that inhabitants of these neighborhoods perceive the police to be more abusive (Weitzer 1999 ), and that disadvantaged citizens are not terribly receptive to such police tactics (Skogan 1990 ; Piquero et al. 2000 ; Stoutland 2001 ). Implementing police crackdowns on public order offenses in these communities can further alienate residents who already distrust and question the legitimacy of the police (Meares 1998 ; Greene 2000 ; Thacher 2001 a ).

2. Research Testing Broken Windows Hypotheses

Several studies have tested hypotheses derived from broken windows theory. The preponderance of research in this particular area has focused on two specific relationships: the disorder and crime nexus, and the connection between disorder and fear of crime.

Establishing the empirical relationship between disorder and crime is a salient undertaking for order-maintenance policing advocates. If it exists, it provides support for policing disorder. Skogan’s ( 1990 ) early work appeared promising. After combing data from several research sites, Skogan assessed the impact of disorder on neighborhood robbery rates. He found that neighborhood characteristics (poverty and instability) and racial composition influenced crime rates, but Skogan argued that the empirical link between neighborhood features and robbery was largely mediated by disorder. Kelling and Coles ( 1996 , 25–26) interpreted Skogan’s finding as providing “empirical proof to confirm Wilson and Kelling’s hypothesis.”

Harcourt’s ( 1998 ) reassessment of Skogan’s data casts doubt on the disorder-crime link. Evaluating the scope of the connection between disorder and crime, Harcourt found that neighborhood disorder was not significantly related to two types of crime (i.e., purse snatching and sexual assault), and that the relationship between disorder and two other crime types (i.e., physical assault and burglary) was attenuated when poverty, stability, and racial composition were accounted for. Harcourt also found that the impact of disorder on robbery appeared to be highly situational. Specifically, he found that the relationship reported by Skogan was dependent on a select group of neighborhoods from a single research site (Newark). 2 Taylor’s ( 2001 ) study also called into question the disorder-crime connection. His evaluation focused the effects of three different neighborhood disorder measures on changes in homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault using longitudinal data. The results from his analyses failed to support the argument that disorder causes crime.

In 1999 an article published in the American Journal of Sociology challenged broken windows theory by proposing and testing an alternative explanation for the understanding of disorder and crime. The authors argued that disorder and crime reflect opposite ends of a seriousness continuum, and share the same structural and social origins (Sampson and Raudenbush 1999 ). At the bivariate level, Sampson and Raudenbush observed a significant correlation between disorder and three types of crime (i.e., homicide, robbery, and burglary). However, when more stringent tests were conducted, which controlled for concentrated disadvantage (a measure of racially segregated, economic deprivation), collective efficacy (a measure reflecting levels of trust among neighbors and informal social controls), and prior crime rates, the effect of disorder on crime was null. These results supported the authors’ theoretical argument. 3 As for police policy and practice, Sampson and Raudenbush ( 1999 , 638) concluded that attacking disorder via aggressive tactics represented a “weak strategy” because it fails to address the common origins of disorder and crime.

Some of the controversy surrounding research on the disorder-crime nexus focuses on the measurement of disorder. Systematic social observation (SSO) measures and neighborhood residents’ subjective assessments both have strengths and weaknesses. SSO measures are constructed using physical and social inventory data collected by trained researchers, which may be viewed as more objective relative to perceptual indicators. However, observations may be restricted to daytime hours, which some argue overlooks “bar closings, early-morning drug sales, prostitution, and other forms of disorder that take place between dusk and dawn” (Bratton and Kelling 2006 ). Subjective disorder measures reflect local residents’ perceptions. Comparing SSO to citizens’ assessments, Skogan ( 2008 a , 197) notes, “I am not sure why we should think that pairs of students who come in for an hour or so are more accurate raters of local conditions than many pairs of people who live there.” Not all subjective measures are created equal, however. Thacher ( 2004 , 396) argues that subjective measures that reflect context-specific forms of disorder, such as “lying down on public steps” and “flagrant public urination in a highly visible location” are preferred over broadly worded item (e.g., “panhandling” and “youth parties”). 4 It is doubtful that the debate over SSO versus perceptual disorder measures will be resolved any time soon. For now, it may be sufficient to note that the evidence shows that measures derived from both sources are strongly correlated with one another at the neighborhood level (Raudenbush and Sampson 1999 , 31; Sampson and Raudenbush 1999 , 625).

Research on the empirical connection between neighborhood disorder and fear of crime has been frustrated by a lack of theoretical clarity and measurement ambiguity. Regarding the latter, fear of crime is measured in a variety of ways. Some researchers use survey-based measures that reflect cognitive judgments of victimization risk and safety. Others prefer survey measures that reflect affective emotions tapping into the anxiety about crime and crime-related symbols (Ferraro 1995 ). At the individual level, these different fear variables are empirically distinct. When aggregated to the neighborhood level, however, these items are highly correlated and tend to behave similarly with regards to their relationship with other known correlates of fear (see Markowitz et al. 2001 ). Three rigorous neighborhood-level studies show consistent findings. Reisig and Parks ( 2004 ) found that their neighborhood incivilities measure was significantly correlated with cognitive judgments of safety across fifty-nine neighborhoods in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida. Rountree and Land ( 1996 ) observed that neighborhood incivilities was associated with perceptions of crime/victimization risk (or cognitive judgments of safety) and burglary-specific fear (a measure reflecting affective emotions). Both of these studies are limited by the fact that they rely on cross-sectional designs. Using information from three waves of the British Crime Survey, Markowitz and company ( 2001 ) found support for the causal connection between disorder and fear (a composite measure consisting of both cognitive judgments and affective emotions). Which type of fear is most consistent with broken windows theory? A clear explanation remains elusive. To some observers, this represents a theoretical shortcoming in that those evaluating whether community policing can decrease fear among citizens fail to articulate whether effects should vary from one dimension of fear to the next, or whether the effects should be uniform (Greene and Taylor 1988 , 205–6).

B. Social Disorganization Theory

Community policing can be conceptualized using variant forms of social disorganization theory. The use of social disorganization theory in the field of policing can be traced back to the community crime-prevention movement. During this time it was argued that the police should work with community organizations to alter neighborhood-level social conditions that give rise to crime (Hope 1995 ; Greene 2000 ). This view was influenced greatly by the pioneering work of the Chicago School of Sociology, especially the research of Shaw and McKay ( 1942 ). Early disorganization theorists posited that impoverished neighborhoods inhabited by racially and ethnically heterogeneous populations that experience high levels of residential instability were less likely to exhibit high levels of social organization. Socially disorganized local communities, according to Kornhauser ( 1978 ), share two common characteristics: a lack of value consensus among residents, and an inability to maintain effective social controls. According to this perspective, disorganized neighborhoods will experience higher rates of crime and delinquency. Although highly influential in the field of criminology, Shaw and McKay’s theory is relatively limited in providing insights into how the police can improve criminogenic neighborhood conditions.

A more meaningful approach to situating the police within a social disorganization framework is provided by the systemic model, which focuses on the effects of social controls exerted from relational and social networks said to mediate the adverse effects of structural constraints (e.g., concentrated poverty and residential instability). Such networks vary both qualitatively and in terms of their ability to regulate the behavior of local residents and visitors. Specifically, Hunter ( 1985 ) identified three social orders, listed here in descending order of affect: private (e.g., close friends and family), parochial (neighbors and civic organizations), and public (e.g., the police) (also see Bursik and Grasmick 1993 , 24–59). Since the informal social controls that flow from private and parochial networks have been shown to reduce neighborhood crime (see, e.g., Sampson and Groves 1989 ), scholars argue that the police should work with residents to develop stronger regulative mechanisms (Kubrin and Weitzer 2003 ). Hunter ( 1985 ), for example, notes that parochial networks are effective at surveillance, a facet of social control that the police are inadequately staffed to provide via patrol. By reaching out to neighborhood organizations and working with community residents, the argument follows, the police can help bolster informal social controls and, in turn, reduce neighborhood crime and improve residents’ quality of life (e.g., increase perceptions of safety, reduce visible signs of disorder, and develop trust among neighbors).

Neighborhood-level research on the effects of formal/informal social control linkages on crime and crime-related outcomes is scant. Reisig and Parks’ ( 2004 ) multilevel study of the impact of community policing on neighborhood quality of life sheds some light on the topic. Using data from the Project on Policing Neighborhoods, Reisig and Parks tested whether their measure of community policing—“police-community collaboration” (operationalized using information from citizen and police surveys aggregated to the neighborhood level)—mediated the effect of concentrated disadvantage on perceived incivility (visible signs of physical and social disorder) and perceived safety (cognitive judgments), net of violent crime rates and a host of individual-level statistical controls. Consistent with their expectations, Reisig and Parks found that police-community collaboration fully mediated the adverse effects of structural disadvantage, leading them to conclude that the “[p]olice should work to address crime and disorder by establishing mutual levels of trust, building working relationships with citizens, and strengthening both informal and formal social controls” (Reisig and Parks 2004 , 163–64).

Yet another branch of social disorganization theory, one that features the concept of collective efficacy, has also been used in discussions of community policing. Collective efficacy is conceptualized as consisting to two key elements—social cohesion and informal social control. According to this perspective, neighborhood social controls are most effective when trust among area residents is high (Sampson 2004 ). Extant research has shown that collective efficacy is a strong predictor of neighborhood crime (Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997 ), delinquency (Simons et al. 2005 ), and disorder (Sampson and Raudenbush 1999 ; Reisig and Cancino 2004 ). However, collective efficacy is not restricted to indigenous neighborhood resources, but also draws on services and assistance from public agencies, such as the police, to achieve and maintain social order. As Skogan ( 2008 b , 48) recently noted, however, the direct effects of community policing on collective efficacy are “undocumented.”

How can community policing promote neighborhood collective efficacy? Broadly speaking, the police need to employ innovative strategies that enhance their legitimacy and promote procedurally just partnerships, which in turn encourage residents to take responsibility for public spaces and activate local social controls (Sampson 2004 ). Perhaps the most useful community policing tactic to achieving this objective is the “beat meeting.” Bringing residents together in a forum that encourages interaction and dialogue, and the facilitation of collaborative efforts to improve neighborhood conditions (e.g., reduce disorder) may enhance levels of collective efficacy, and reduce crime in long run (Sampson and Raudenbush 2001 ; Sampson 2004 ).

Stimulating healthy levels of beat meeting participation can be a daunting task for the police. Whether residents decide to get involved is influenced by a number of factors. Local citizens may get involved because they are concerned about neighborhood conditions and want to do their part to improve things. However, participants may distrust their neighbors and get involved only to maintain a watchful eye on the interests that are being advanced (St. Jean 2007 ). Known justifications for nonparticipation are numerous, including fear of retaliation from individuals who become police targets, concern that friends and family will become targets of the police, a high level of distrust in the police, and a lack of free time. All of these factors shape beat meeting attendance, which is rarely representative of the community. In Chicago beat meetings, Skogan ( 2004 ) found evidence of a middle-class participation bias. More specifically, homeowners and individuals with higher levels of education were significantly more likely to turn out. Minority citizens, especially Latinos, were much less likely to get involved. Skogan found that participants’ concerns with disorder-related problems (drugs, gangs, and physical decay) were generally reflective of the concerns expressed by the broader community; however, their views on crime problems, such as burglary, were less representative. The potential problem that emerges is that police responsiveness to the concerns expressed during beat meetings may conflict with the equally important value of equity, which necessitates that police services be provided fairly across all segments of the community (Thacher 2001 b ). For beat meetings to be successful, the police must not simply be reactive to concerns expressed by involved citizens, but rather engage participants in problem-solving activities that are consistent with the well-being of the community as a whole. Doing so may require that the police provide evidence (e.g., crime statistics, calls for service data, and results from officer investigations) to dispel local myths and correct misperceptions, and educate participants about legal constraints.

Based on his fieldwork, Thacher ( 2001 a ) cautions that value conflicts often surface when the police work to develop community partnerships. One area of contention concerns the goal of public safety. Thacher observed that residents who attended beat meetings were primarily concerned with disorder problems, whereas the police tended to focus on more serious crimes. Interestingly, broken windows theory helped provide common ground. Citizens’ disorder concerns were addressed by the police who believed that doing so would reduce more serious crime. The second type of conflict, according to Thacher, concerns the proper use of legal authority. Thacher ( 2001 a , 788) argues that sustaining community partnerships requires “greater attention to parsimonious and fair use of authority.” Research supports Thacher’s observations. Residents who perceive that police exercise their authority in a procedurally-just manner are more likely to view the police as legitimate, cooperate with the police, and express a willingness to participate in police programs (Sunshine and Tyler 2003 ; Tyler 2003 ; Reisig 2007 ; Reisig, Bratton, and Gertz 2007 ).

C. Problem-Oriented Policing: Theory and Research

The problem-oriented policing process can be demanding. It entails intensive scanning of the environment for recurring problems, the analysis of data from a variety of sources to better understand the underlying causes of problems, the development of creative responses to solve problems, and the rigorous assessment of the impact of interventions (Eck and Spelman 1987 ; Goldstein 1987 ). The actual framework of problem-oriented policing is quite flexible, however. The SARA model can be applied to a variety of crime and non-crime–related problems. The manner in which the police go about addressing any particular problem can take a variety of forms, including the use of traditional law enforcement tactics (e.g., directed patrol and crackdowns) and community policing tactics (e.g., neighborhood clean-up programs). Given this flexibility, a variety of theoretical perspectives can be used to guide problem-oriented policing interventions (see Braga 2008 , 46–55).

One approach to problem-oriented policing involves reducing opportunities for crime by manipulating local environments. The opportunity-reduction approach to problem-oriented policing is similar to the concept of situational crime prevention (Clarke 1992 ). Braga ( 2008 , 4) notes, the police “are best positioned to prevent crimes by focusing on the situational opportunities for offenders rather than to manipulate socio-economic conditions that are the subjects of much criminological theory.” Two theories offer guidance with regard to limiting criminal opportunity. Rational choice theory, for example, posits that offenders weigh the potential risks, rewards, and effort involved prior to committing a crime. This perspective suggests that the police should work to change conditions in a way that causes potential criminals to re-evaluate their decisions. A host of tactics can be used to accomplish this goal. Police officials may opt for traditional law enforcement tactics, such as directed patrols, crackdowns, and stop-and-frisk interrogations, to elevate the risk of apprehension that potential offenders face when contemplating the commission of a crime.

A second approach, routine activity theory, posits that criminal incidents occur when three elements are present: suitable targets, absence of capable guardians, and motivated offenders (Cohen and Felson 1979 ). Police officials who adopt this perspective are aided by an important tool, the “crime triangle” (Hough and Tilley 1998 ; Clarke and Eck 2005 ; see Braga 2008 , 28). The crime triangle was designed to help the police identify the elements of crime problems (i.e., victim, offender, and location) and develop effective interventions. According to routine activity theory, all three elements are necessary for crime to occur. The job of the police is to determine which of the three is most salient in a particular situation, and develop a strategy for reducing its influence. For example, the police may determine that criminal opportunities need to be reduced at a particular location, and work to change site features by asking other government agencies to add street lights and board up abandoned buildings (Braga 2008 , 63).

Few police innovations have enjoyed as much empirical attention as problem-oriented policing (see Scott 2000 , for a review). One line of research has focused on the effectiveness of problem-oriented policing in combating crime and disorder. The scientific rigor of research in this area varies widely, however. A recent meta-analysis, conducted by David Weisburd and his colleagues ( 2008 ), identified only ten studies (both published and unpublished) that evaluated the impact of problem-oriented policing on crime and disorder using either experimental or quasi-experimental designs (with comparison groups). Of the ten studies, eight reported favorable results. When grouped together, however, the magnitude of the treatment effect (i.e., problem-oriented policing interventions) was fairly modest (Cohen’s d =.125; Weisburd et al. 2008 , 25). The authors also looked at less methodologically rigorous studies (i.e., pre/post tests). Among this grouping, the impact of problem-solving policing was overwhelmingly positive (forty-three of the forty-five studies reported a decline in disorder or crime). Overall, the research literature is generally supportive of problem-oriented policing interventions, though the level of support appears to vary inversely with the level of scientific rigor characterizing the research designs employed.

A second empirical question has to do with how problem-oriented policing is actually practiced on the streets. Cordner and Biebel’s ( 2005 ) study of the San Diego Police Department addressed this question. Using the SARA model to guide their assessment, the authors found that officers were fairly passive in the scanning stage. Personal observations and complaints were most frequently used to initiate the process. The analysis stage was largely informal. Officers generally depended on their own observations to frame problems. Cordner and Biebel found that traditional police tactics, such as targeted enforcement, directed patrol, and the like, were among the most common responses. Finally, the assessment stage was usually limited in scope, restricted largely to officers’ personal observations. To some observers, these findings may simply reflect the use of problem-oriented policing jargon to legitimize traditional policing tactics. But Cordner and Biebel point out that the officers included in their study were regularly involved in problem-solving activities, even though the problems were of relatively small in scale and the process that was followed much less formal than prescribed by the SARA model.

V. Discussion

Community and problem-oriented policing have probably done more to shape the debate over the role of the American police than anything since the introduction of the patrol car and two-way radio. Indeed, many police departments nationwide have abandoned their strict reliance on reactive police patrols and have implemented community and problem-oriented policing tactics to reduce crime and disorder and improve citizens’ quality of life. However, the extent to which such reforms have been adopted is uneven. Only time will tell whether community and problem-oriented policing will continue to influence debate over the proper role of the police. To do so, questions regarding the fair application of legal authority, and the development of meaningful training curricula will have to be addressed.

The research on community and problem-oriented policing is encouraging. Not only are such studies becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of theoretical application and methodological rigor, but many of the questions regarding the utility of community and problem-oriented policing appear to have been answered. For example, the weight of the evidence suggests that community and problem-solving policing tactics can reduce crime, albeit modestly, and improve citizens’ perceptions of neighborhood conditions. Echoing this conclusion, Harcourt and Ludwig ( 2006 , 314–15) recently noted that “[o]utside of perhaps a few remaining university sociology departments and some Berkeley coffee shops, the notion that ‘police matter’ is (or at least should be) widely accepted.” Yet, many gaps in the understanding of police strategies and tactics remain unanswered. Accordingly, three areas are ripe for empirical investigation.

Much of the broken windows policing research has assessed the impact of misdemeanor arrests on precinct-level crime rates. While informative, some observers have noted that focusing solely on misdemeanor arrests is only part of the picture. Future research that employs more complete order-maintenance variables, including a variety of tactics, would certainly be viewed as an important contribution. However, achieving such a feat could prove difficult. As Thacher ( 2004 , 391) has noted, “one of the most serious gaps” in the policing literature are studies detailing “what exactly order maintenance policing activities involve—what behaviors they target in which contexts, and what actions police take to control them.” Book-length ethnographic studies of policing were once quite common but are now rarely published. Qualitative accounts that discuss the ways in which police officers familiarize themselves with local norms and customs, the tactics they use to resolve encounters with disorderly individuals on the streets, and the ways in which the use of order-maintenance tactics varies across urban neighborhoods would assist macro-level researchers in their pursuit to operationalize more exhaustive order-maintenance policing measures.

To date, studies on the effect of policing strategies on aggregated crime rates have neglected the potential influence of social processes, such as collective efficacy. Accordingly, the possibility of variable omission bias cannot yet be ruled out. Cerdá et al. ( 2009 , 540) identify two potential effects of collective efficacy. First, collective efficacy may mediate the effect of misdemeanor arrests on homicide because residents in more cohesive neighborhoods are more successful at securing vigorous police services. Second, it may be that the effect of misdemeanor policing on crime operates through collective efficacy. In other words, misdemeanor arrests increase the collective capacity of neighborhood residents to work together toward the common good. At this point in time, however, neither hypothesized effect has been subjected to empirical scrutiny.

Another issue in need of investigation is what effect (if any) do community policing practices, such as beat meetings and other social organizing activities, have on collective efficacy, and whether observed change in levels of neighborhood collective efficacy influence crime and disorder. Sampson ( 2004 ) has posited that beat meetings may promote collective efficacy. Unfortunately, very little is known about this causal connection at the present time (Skogan 2008 b ). A variety of research designs could be employed to address this issue. For example, evaluation research, employing pre- and post-tests (with matched comparison groups) could help determine whether community policing interventions facilitate collective engagement among residents and, in turn, improve neighborhood conditions.

Not only has community and problem-oriented policing transformed the ongoing debate on police policy and practice, but the two models have also been the impetus for a series of important research projects that have produced some of the most scientifically-rigorous studies published in the social sciences (see, e.g., Skogan 2006 ; Braga and Bond 2008 ). Contemporary policing scholars have raised the bar. To advance the field, future researchers must rise to the challenge and construct informative theoretical frameworks to guide their work, design thoughtful experiments and longitudinal studies, and develop reliable measures.

An expanded version of this essay appeared in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research , vol. 39, edited by Michael Tonry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The actual number of new police officers hired using COPS grants is disputed (see, e.g., Davis et al. 2000 ). A study published by the Urban Institute estimates that COPS funding resulted in the hiring of between 69,100 and 92,200 police officers (Koper, Moore, and Roth 2002 ).

Various technical aspects of Harcourt’s replication study have been criticized (see Xu, Fiedler, and Flaming 2005 ).

Research conducted in nonmetropolitan communities has also shown that the relationship between disorder and crime is mediated by aggregate-level social processes (Reisig and Cancino 2004 ).

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• What Is Problem-Oriented Policing?

Professor Herman Goldstein

Original proponent of POP

Problem-oriented policing is an approach to policing in which discrete pieces of police business (each consisting of a cluster of similar incidents, whether crime or acts of disorder, that the police are expected to handle) are subject to microscopic examination (drawing on the especially honed skills of crime analysts and the accumulated experience of operating field personnel) in hopes that what is freshly learned about each problem will lead to discovering a new and more effective strategy for dealing with it. Problem-oriented policing places a high value on new responses that are preventive in nature, that are not dependent on the use of the criminal justice system, and that engage other public agencies, the community and the private sector when their involvement has the potential for significantly contributing to the reduction of the problem. Problem-oriented policing carries a commitment to implementing the new strategy, rigorously evaluating its effectiveness, and, subsequently, reporting the results in ways that will benefit other police agencies and that will ultimately contribute to building a body of knowledge that supports the further professionalization of the police. Herman Goldstein (2001)

Selected Publications by Herman Goldstein

• History of Problem-Oriented Policing
• Key Elements of POP
• The SARA Model
• The Problem Analysis Triangle
• Situational Crime Prevention
• 25 Techniques
• Links to Other POP Friendly Sites
• About POP en Español

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Approved by Eric H. Holder Jr., July 22, 2010

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) was created through the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to advance the practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement agencies through information, technical assistance, training and grant resources. The COPS Office is headed by a Director appointed by the Attorney General, and is organized into directorates, comprising key operational divisions and several functional areas.

The major functions of each division are to:

• Advance effective policing practices through the direct award of competitive, discretionary grants to law enforcement agencies across the United States and its territories.  
• Develop innovative programs that respond directly to the emerging needs of state, local, and tribal law enforcement, to support law enforcement’s prevention and reaction to crime and disorder.  
• Ensure grantees meet the programmatic conditions, terms, and requirements of their awards by conducting strategic on-site visits and enhanced office-based grant reviews for at-risk agencies.  
• Engage and support law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve to advance public safety.  
• Assist law enforcement agencies in implementing Presidential Executive Orders, guidance emanating from the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, and other Administration priorities to support law enforcement and effective policing.  
• Implement the School Violence Prevention Program to provide grant awards to states, units of local government, Indian tribes, school districts, and law enforcement agencies to improve security at schools to include law enforcement training and measures to improve security (e.g., metal detectors, locks, lighting, and technology for expedited notification of an emergency).  
• Implement the National Blue Alert Network, which promotes rapid dissemination of information to law enforcement, the media and the public about violent offenders who have killed, seriously injured, or pose an imminent threat to law enforcement, or when an officer is missing in connection with official duties. Implementation includes working with law enforcement agencies to develop Blue Alert plans, issuing voluntary guidelines and recommendations, maintaining a national Blue Alert information repository, providing education and technical assistance, and managing the National Advisory Group comprised of Blue Alert stakeholders.  
• Develop and oversee the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act Program to improve the delivery of, and access to, mental health and wellness services for law enforcement officers through training and technical assistance, demonstration projects, peer mentoring mental health and wellness, and suicide prevention programs.  
• Convene stakeholders around the most critical issues in public safety facing our nation, resulting in reports that inform the law enforcement field and move issues forward in policy discussions nationwide.  
• Provide subject matter expertise on emerging issues in law enforcement, engaging with leading voices in the field on the critical issues in policing through the management of forums, videos, and audio podcasts.  
• Promote collaboration between law enforcement and community members to develop innovative initiatives to prevent crime.  
• Partner with law enforcement experts, the academic community, and other stakeholder organizations to develop and produce guidebooks and resources, reports, best practices and other information products for the field that highlight ongoing and new law enforcement issues and/or successful community policing strategies.  
• Provide lessons learned from grant funded projects to the law enforcement field across the country.  
• Provide, via subject matter policing experts, tailored technical assistance to law enforcement agencies upon request, through its Collaborative Reform Initiative – Technical Assistance Center.  
• Develop state-of-the-art training to enhance law enforcement officers’ problem-solving and community interaction skills.  
• Manage innovative community policing pilot programs and applied research projects.  
• Provide current information about community policing and COPS Office programs to grantees, the public, and the media, as well as representatives of interested local, state, and national organizations and local and state law enforcement and elected officials.  
• Ensure timely and accurate responses to and participation in media inquiries, interviews, and public events.