Week 9- Paradigm and Practices I

- Concept has a wide range of meanings
- difficulty in defining “community”

a full partnership between the community and their police in identifying and improving local crime and disorder problems

- crime and disorder are the joint property of the community, (the “client”), and of police (the “service provider”)

Relates to Peelian principle #7: Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police- it's that symbiotic relationship that ultimately characterizes community policing initiatives

reform era- the era of professionalization
- however as we're going to see we really do witness some back and forth shifting between eras and that's because each paradigm has problems

what constitutes community is often in the eye of the beholder

- something physical like a neighbourhood?

- or something more delineated like the LGBTQI2SA community?

- the thing is, communities are not usually homogeneous social units with consensus of values and norms and agreements on crime problems;

crime and disorder are the joint property of the community which is the community (the client) and the police (local agency delivering a public Security Service)

therefore it's like a customer service model where police in the community are Co-producers of order and civility and Co-reproducers of order

police and community achieve this mutually beneficial symbiosis through an interactive cooperative and reciprocal relationship

in practical terms this means that community members as the clients of the police are actively participating in shaping policy and in decision making for the service
it is about helping police establish service priorities

the level of crime and disorder and fearfulness in community is inversely related to the level of public participation in policing

it is this public participation that breathes life into the partnership principle and not only acknowledges but sees is the notion that the police are nothing without the help of the public

if people didn't call the police if the public did not report the police would not be able to do their job properly

1.) political era
2.) reforrm era
3.) community era

highly fragmented
wide range of social services
class control model
foot orbike patrol
answered to the political bosses
corruption rampant
organized crime flourished

professionalization and centralization
crime control model
technological innovations (change drivers, telephone, patrol cars, two-way radio)
purely reactive approach
officers isolated from people, community distrusts people

Combining crime control + community partnership
emphasizes proactive approach (neighborhood consultations, foot patrol)
emphasis on quality of life
philosophy or strategy? Real or rhetoric? PR BS; Unpopular, Not rewarded

1.) vagueness of the term community

2.) whether community policing is policing ethos or philosophy or an actual concrete strategy with specific methods (real or rhetoric?)

3.) community policing in certain areas turns into concentrated police presence in communities and the increased local presence of police is sometimes viewed as too much leading to certain people and communities being over policed through harassment and bias

True.

for the most part, especially for officers who were already experienced, there was a great deal of resistance to community policing

police had come to value action and catching criminals and responding to crisis not social work which they deemed as not real police work or as PR bullshit

so in that sense it's not really popular, not really well rewarded in policing either- people are not promoted based on displays of community engagement right really people are promoted based on displays of law enforcement good arrests being part of really important cases

Sklansky suggests that whether community policing is enjoying popularity or not there remains a persistent pull toward professionalism (the previous era)
- he's arguing this persistent pull back to that but not in the way of the 1960s reform era
- addresses intelligence led policing perhaps making this the hallmark on the next paradigm
- makes crime control the dominant function of the police and it emphasizes the importance of centralized top down decision-making

all that would be kind of the same or pulled forward from reform era
but in the modern version it makes objective scientific analysis the touchstone for the selection and implementation of police tactics and procedures

- this emphasis on being data driven and neutrality
- data is now being used preemptively- so in other words this is all now more geared toward predicting crimes
- it's not reactive like the reform era of the 60s but proactive
- so the point is that we now have the tools to go back to that centralized top down command but do so while remaining on top of crime rather than simply responding and reacting to it when crisis occurs

now other reasons for this shift in ideology back to some of the tenants of the professional era are attributed to a general trend toward prioritizing domestic security and so certainly since 911 terrorism is a key concern and community policing is seen as incompatible with security based tactics

professional: enforce criminal law, solve crime, apprehend criminals; Police ''FORCE"

community: ensure peace, order, civility; provide services to comunity; foster sense of security; Police "SERVICE"

p: crime fighter, law enforcer, expert

c: peace officer


in traditional or perform era professional policing the rules were narrowly defined as crimefighter and so anything else falling into the purview of their role is viewed as mere social work or not real policing
- is also the case that police argued as the expert when it comes to crime and safety

p: by police chief

c: by police governing authorities with community through consultation

p: exclusive property of the police

c: shared partnership with the public

p: solving incidents (distinct)

c: solving problems (patterned)

p: reactive (uniforms, standard tactics) AND proactive (new); pre-empt resp to data

c: proactive: flexible/ tailored tactices for community needs

p: rapid response time; prob ident (new)

c: problem identification and solution

p: lower crime rate; higher clearance rate; QUANTITATIVE indicators

c: absence of crime, disorder, fear; reduced repeat calls; more community satisfaction; QUALITATIVE INDICATORS

p: random, motorized patrol (then); technological neutrality

c: tailored, moroized and foot patrol (dedicated officers), zones, mini-station, community liasons

p: distant, contacts limited to victims, witnesses and offenders

c: close; many contacts beyond context of the CJS

p: internal; surveillance; suspects, victims; analysis and objective data (new)

c: public; community

p: paramilitary; corporate (new)

c: participatory; democratic

p: centralized; hierarchical

c: decentralized; flatter

p: officers separate from the community; self-image as superior to common citizen

c: officers members of community; self image as partner with common citizen

- police will scan and forecast to identify problems based on demographic and other social data including information from other agencies as well this process also includes input from the local community 

- scanning process is accomplished in part by crime analysis for patterns among similar crimes and calls for service these are the little hotspots - identified the time and place and type of effect these hot spots are brought to the attention of three constables at the table and the police managers and community stakeholders who should be notified about these problems and told the police will be focusing on and then strategic plan will be put in place to tackle the issue 

- blending of two models on this item in more modern era of professional policing 

two modes:
- hot spots policing
- data analysis

broken windows theory was originally touted as a form of officer in the community style foot patrol policing

idea once disorder begins things can get out of control no matter the neighborhood - without small problems we stop having big problems ( a way to empower the community apparently)

- Broken Windows theory was originally touted as a form of “officer in the community” style, foot patrol policing, however, it morphed into something different when implemented in the street by William Bratton’s NYPD, and has propelled ever further into an invasive police strategy…

- Was released in 1982 right on the cusp of that pivot from the professionalization policing era to the reform era (community policing)- Thinking about returning to foot patrol policing and engaging in relationship with the community in order to enforce the rules that community sees as appropriate

two things that intensified with this model of policing:
- increase in complaints about police misconduct - increased by 60% - definition of orderliness is socially conducted - tremendous disorder if we look at the police
- intensified with stop and frisk - many stops turned up nothing - only 1/15th turned up a gun

- Says ILP is not a new policing model and is fully consistent with community policing
- Sklansky says it returns police to central elements of professional policing
It makes crime control the “dominant function” of the police
- emphasizes the importance of centralized, “top-down” decision-making, on the model of modern, large-scale businesses.

Like intelligence- led policing, though, predictive policing refocuses the police on “fighting crime,” emphasizes the objective, scientific selection of strategies and tac­tics, and puts a premium on centralized, rationalized, bureaucratic decision-making. It rep­licates, that is to say, all three core elements of police professionalism.

There are important differences, of course, between what the backers of intelligence-led policing and predictive policing are promoting and the kind of policing practiced and celebrated in the 1960s.

differences
- no one is calling for a return to random patrols; instead, patrols should be “directed, information-based,” and “pre-position[ed].”

- reflective empiricism was no part of police professionalism in the 1950s and 1960s.

similarities
- Mindest is similar

- Backers of intelligence-led policing and predictive policing are not the only ones drawn today by the pull of police professionalism.

- Far more complimentary of community policing than of "the so-called professionalism of the mid 20th-century policing

- Want to recover a truer more robust sense of professionalism

- sense of professionalism that they argue was better represented, ironically, by community policing than by the policing of the 1950s and 1960s

- Say it was to clumsy before to deserve the name "professionalism"and reinforced racism

- Stone and Travis also want mobility of officers and uniformity of standards across state and local boundaries; that is what they mean by “national coherence.” They think this is necessary if police officers are to be “true professionals,” like doctors, lawyers or engineers

1.) Part of the explanation is that community polic­ing has some shortcomings which have become particularly apparent to the officers, supervisors and chiefs who have tried to implement it.
- It is vague, naïve and simplistic picture of the community, what does engagement look like


2.) Not just a matter of the weakness of community policing
- Core ideal of the professional model is in some ways more appealing today
- claims of exper­tise by the police are more credible now, because police departments know more than they used to about how to fight serious crime.
- police can, in fact, improve their effectiveness by paying atten­tion to data, including data about where and when crimes tend to happen.4

3.) police departments themselves are different than they were 40 years ago.
- Much more diverse
- Culture different - better connecte to communities
- Better educated

4.) Police face different challenges today than they did before September 11, 2001
- Fight against terrorism = more technological intensive, expertise driven style of policing, community moment

5.) budget crises throughout the country have put pressure on police departments to cut costs, and community policing

Overreliance on technology, particularly computers, was part of what earned police professionalism its unpopularity the last time around.
- tendency for it to be overhyped

that there is money to be made from selling it.
gear and gadgets are sexy
the penetration of technology into the contours of the job is almost entirely dependent on its perceived utility on the ground.

The larger problem with advanced technology in law enforcement is not that it is overhyped, but that it can draw attention away from other concerns. It remains true in policing that “the primary technology is verbal — the words used to persuade and control others in interac­tion.

- Not to deny the explosive potential of the information technology in policing

- Stone and Travis are quite clear that their “New Professionalism” should be built around the core goals of accountability, legitimacy and innova­tion.

There are grounds for worrying that a revival of police professionalism — whether packaged as intelligence-led policing, predictive policing, the New Professionalism or something else — will operate in the same way, focusing the police and the public on the vision of an elite corps of expert crime-fighters, acting independently but objectively and scientifically, to keep com­munities safe. We know this is a false ideal


It ignores most of what we learned about policing in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s: that much of what the police do is not crime control; that effective policing requires building trust and legitimacy; that trust and legitimacy depend heavily on fair­ness and decency; that policing depends heavily and unavoidably on the judgment and discre­tion exercised by street-level officers; that rigid, top-down management can impede tailored innovative problem-solving

Perhaps just policing

- One Possibility is community policing or advanced community policing