Reflections on the Move to Community Policing

An eclectic approach to providing "reflections" is presented in this paper. The author presents a nontraditional discussion of critical junctures and initiatives in the history of policing. For example, the lessons of failure in police patrol research from Kansas City and the unfulfilled opportunities from Project STAR and the Integrated Criminal Apprehension Program. The paper also examines the distinct development of Problem Oriented Policing and Neighborhood Foot Patrol, arguing how they have cooperatively emerged as community policing. Other factors relating to the development of community policing are discussed ranging from the difficulty of changing patrol officer behavior to the effects of quality management on community policing to the role of patrol-related research in the community policing movement. The paper concludes with some observations on contemporary and future issues related to the role and effectiveness of community policing. This text has taken a broad view of community policing issues based on a comparatively short, yet intense, history of empirical research and the experiences of practitioners. Based on funding from the federal government, private foundations, and police organizations which simply want to know "what works", the body of data and qualitative findings are rich. Since many of these studies, as well as the data generated from the Michigan State University COPS project, have been thoroughly discussed, the current chapter is taking a generous interpretation of the title "reflections" by offering thoughts, ideas, and observations about the ideological formation and current status on community policing with the belief that these will provide a guidepost to the future. This chapter is intentionally eclectic. It takes bits and pieces of history, theory, and practice which are frequently superficially addressed or ignored in the community policing debate. Essentially, the discussion has two roots: First is a combination of collective observations of the author over the last twenty-plus years in policing and academe; ruminations on the transitions in policing. Second, the author revisits some milestones of policing practice which has somehow "fallen through the cracks" of the legacy which led to community policing. These two factors have been integrated to reflect on this movement.