Dr. Lee P. Brown, one of America?s most significant and respected law enforcement practitioners, has harnessed his thirty years of experiences in police work and authored Policing in the 21st Century: Community Policing. Written for students, members of the police community, academicians, elected officials and members of the public, this work comes from the perspective of an individual who devoted his life to law enforcement. Dr. Brown began his career as a beat patrolmen who through hard work, diligence and continued education became the senior law enforcement official in three of this nation?s largest cities. The book is about Community Policing, the policing style for America in the Twenty-First Century. It not only describes the concept in great detail, but it also illuminates how it evolved, and how it is being implemented in various communities throughout America. There is no other law enforcement official or academician who is as capable as Dr. Brown of masterfully presenting the concept of Community Policing, which he pioneered. As a philosophy, Community Policing encourages law enforcement officials, and the people they are sworn to serve, to cooperatively address issues such as crime, community growth, and societal development. It calls for mutual respect and understanding between the police and the community. The book is written from the perspective of someone whose peers identify as the ?father? of Community Policing, and who personally implemented it in Police Departments under his command. It is a thoroughly amazing book that has been heralded as a ?must read? for anyone who has an interest in law enforcement. Elected officials, academicians, leaders of the nation?s police agencies and members of the public will be captivated by Dr. Brown?s literary contribution.

POLICING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Community PolicingBy LEE P. BROWN

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Dr. Lee P. Brown
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4099-4

Contents

Preface.........................................................................xviiChapter 1 Introduction..........................................................1Chapter 2 A Brief History of American Policing..................................9Chapter 3 The Development of Police Professionalism.............................35Chapter 4 The Era of PolicE Research............................................64Chapter 5 Police and the Courts.................................................83Chapter 6 The Evolution of Community Policing...................................107Chapter 7 Community Policing: The Promise and the Challenge.....................149Chapter 8 Issues in Implementation..............................................176Chapter 9 Managing Change.......................................................263Chapter 10 Police Leadership....................................................281Chapter 11 Profiles in Leadership...............................................313Chapter 12 Police Accountability................................................329Chapter 13 Crime and Crime Control..............................................379Chapter 14 Race Relations and Racial Profiling..................................411Chapter 15 Terrorism and Homeland Security......................................450Chapter 16 The Future of the Enterprise.........................................496Appendix A......................................................................539Bibliography....................................................................545Index...........................................................................573

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Community Policing is not a concept that someone thought up overnight. It has evolved from many years of law enforcement research and numerous demonstration projects, many of which have been the subject of careful and, quite often, rigorous evaluation.

Thoughtful and responsible police leaders endeavor to use resources available to them in the most effective ways. In order to do so, police administrators must approach the job of policing with fresh and open minds, not wedded exclusively to outdated concepts that they have used for long periods of time. Failure to adapt to changing circumstances and not having the advantage of ever-increasing knowledge about the non-effectiveness of traditional approaches will leave American cities under-protected and American police agencies under-utilized.

This book is about Community Policing, the strategy for law enforcement in the 21st century and beyond. It not only describes Community Policing as the future of policing in America, but also explains how the concept evolved, and how it is being implemented in various cities and smaller towns throughout the nation.

The purpose of this book is not only to discuss the concept and philosophy of Community Policing, but also to demonstrate how it should be implemented in police agencies. It is not "police-community relations," a program that was popular during the 1960s and 1970s. It is not a public relations program, nor is it a program that focuses exclusively on minority or special interest groups within the community.

Repeated observations reveal that the recognition of Community Policing as a concept, as opposed to a specialized program, is widely misunderstood; and the distinction is critical. For years, many police departments have had specialized divisions assigned specifically to "community relations" or "police-community relations." That approach-which focuses cooperative community initiatives within a specialized division - is characteristic of the traditional policing model. Similarly, other agencies have implemented foot patrols, a tactic that harkens back to the old British "watch system," and have called the use of that tactic "Community Policing." While any division and many tactics may be used by departments which practice community oriented programs, use of any of those alone does not constitute much more than a specialized program, unless that agency bases its overall approach to policing on a philosophy that permeates all aspects of its operations.

This book discusses the successes that American communities have experienced in implementing Community Policing. Those successes have not come without some new understanding, often reinforcing the idea that Community Policing does not simply mean having just a specialized Community Policing unit, while the rest of the organization keeps doing business as usual. In fact, that approach led to the demise of many Police Community-Relations units in the 1970s. The same thing can happen to Community Policing if it is not institutionalized as the dominant style of policing for the entire organization.

Community Policing is not an idea that was imported from some other country, but it evolved from programs and experimental research conducted throughout the years. It is, however, in some respects similar to the Japanese Koban System in which officers are assigned to and work in specific geographical areas. In formulating ideas about how best to police a city, I had the opportunity to study the Japanese system. The idea of police "storefronts" or "boxes" was borrowed from the Koban system

CHANGING APPROACHES TO POLICING

Policing in America has undergone profound changes during the past two centuries. Prior to 1800, several American cities, including Boston and New York, adopted organized versions of the then extant British "watch system," which included paid "professionals" and volunteers. But during the first half of the nineteenth century, a major change in the way the police were organized and functioned brewed across the Atlantic.

Based on theories he proposed as early as 1809, which were codified in the Metropolitan Police Bill of 1828, Sir Robert Peel developed a new style of policing. The so-called "Peelian Reforms" created a blueprint for addressing the approach to policing throughout England. Peel's principles of policing included control by the government; a stable and efficient military-style organization; standards for selection and training; presence and accessibility to the community; and a focus on crime prevention rather than just apprehension of law violators.

As America began to develop more organized police "departments" during the first half of the nineteenth century, Peel's blueprint became the most common basis of operating. By the 1850s, Peel's ideas had reformed policing in most of the major cities of England and the United States. Indeed, his reforms set the standards that dominated American policing for the next one hundred years.

THE PROFESSIONAL POLICING MODEL

Although many of the principles of the Peelian Reforms are still applicable to American policing, the American police system underwent another major reform during the middle of the Twentieth Century. Rooted heavily in the approaches to policing that had been developed earlier by August Vollmer, this broader reform came about, in large measure, because corruption and political interference in police department operations had become commonplace.

O.W. Wilson, in his book entitled Police Administration, laid out the principles that police agencies would rely on for many years that followed. His book was used as a basic text, not only for colleges and universities but also for organizing police agencies, and as study material for police promotional examinations. It represented what was believed to be, at the time, the best way to organize and manage modern police departments. Wilson's concepts were the embodiment of the professional police reform movement.

Like August Vollmer, O.W. Wilson believed that police departments should be organized using the military model, but also should be structured according to specific functions performed. As a result, police department organizational charts reflected the different functions performed by the agencies. Separate boxes on the organizational charts represented patrol, investigative, administrative and support service functions.

Reflecting, in some respects, the reforms occurring in other aspects of city governments across the United States during that period, O. W. Wilson's model became known as the "professional" style of policing. The professional model - often referred to today as "traditional policing" - became the new norm within the United States and has served America well for many decades.

THE COMMUNITY POLICING MODEL

During the 1970s and the 1980s, changing times and societal changes in general led many thoughtful police administrators to begin to question some of the tactics that had become commonplace and often taken at face value in their departments.

For many Americans, the image of the police as a protection force diminished significantly during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when nation-wide television broadcasts showed members of the Chicago Police force brutally clubbing and using tear gas on young white Americans. For many, the scene was reminiscent of the days when police indiscriminately beat African Americans during peaceful protest marches in segregated southern states.

In the aftermath of the Chicago Democratic Convention there were a multitude of demands for police department reform. The police response was the creation and implementation of "Police-Community Relations Programs." The concept, however, did not bring about institutional changes within the police establishment. Police departments around the country created special entities called Police Community Relations Units. It became their task to create harmonious working relationships between police departments and the communities that they served, particularly in Black neighborhoods.

During the decade of the 1970s, Police-Community Relations Units frequently were replaced with Crime Prevention Units. Their objective was to prevent crime by implementing various tools such as neighborhood watch programs, burglar bars, and burglar alarms among others. Yet, the confidence of the American public in the police continued to wane.

The decade of the 1980s brought about significant questioning of the ability of the police to protect the American public. There was a tremendous increase in drug abuse, particularly the rise of crack cocaine. As a result, turf wars erupted among drug "entrepreneurs" who sold their wares on the streets of American cities. Each day, the evening news displayed the police arresting young African Americans accused of trafficking in drugs. Guns, especially high-powered automatic weapons, began to proliferate on the streets of American cities, often resulting in innocent people being killed, including small children. The problem was poignantly captured in a full-page ad that appeared in the New York Post in 1990, referencing then Mayor David Dinkins and the public's concern about young children being killed in that city. The ad begged, "Dave Do Something."

Notwithstanding the growth in crime during the `80s and early `90s, American police had not, in fact, performed badly. They performed their responsibilities in a more productive way than ever before when arrests were used as a means of measuring police productivity. Prisons were overcrowded, court dockets were jammed, and most of the public feared walking the streets of cities.

Actually the police were doing their jobs. Yet, the irony was that there was no way they could control the problems of crime, violence and drugs. In fact, police departments had long understood that they, alone, could not control the complex problem of crime, and faced with growing complaints, they admitted they could not. As a potential deterrent to crime, they knew that they were only one of several institutions that had to function effectively in the criminal justice system; but even then they knew that they could never eliminate crime because they did not control the factors that created the conditions that gave rise to it and allowed it to flourish.

Indeed, from a sociological standpoint, during the 1980s and the first part of the 1990s, crime flourished because several American institutions had started to crumble. There was a crisis in the family, where much of America experienced a 30-year period of single-parent households, frequently headed by impoverished females. There was a crisis in the secondary and elementary school systems, where children were not being trained to be globally competitive. And there was an economic crisis, which included a loss of jobs due to the advancing "information age" with large numbers of inner city youths ill prepared to participate in it. The gap between the haves and the have-nots grew significantly wider.

All of these events converged around the same time that America witnessed the unsightly emergence of crack cocaine. Some young people, particularly those in core cities, did not see a lawful way to escape the vicious cycles of poverty that confronted them.

Faced with these growing problems, Police Chiefs and other interested parties began to ask themselves a very provocative question: "Is there a better way of delivering police services to the community?" That question has led to more than twenty years of research conducted in police departments throughout the world, particularly in the United States. It produced a second major reform movement in American policing.

The fact that police administrators sought a better way to deliver their crucial services was not an indictment of traditional policing. The professional, then labeled the "traditional" policing model, had served many cities well for decades. But the societal changes and more than two decades of research made it clear to most police professionals that new approaches were needed to meet the challenges facing contemporary America.

Clearly, Community Policing is not a concept that someone "thought up overnight." It has evolved from many years of law enforcement research and numerous demonstration projects, many of which have been the subject of careful and, quite often, rigorous evaluation.

Perhaps the confusion concerning whether Community Policing is a philosophy or model of policing, rather than a program, derives from the fact that much of the research on which it is founded has been conducted on a variety of rather specialized programs, including Police-Community Relations, Crime Prevention, Team Policing, Crime Analysis, and Problem-Oriented Policing. All have been implemented by police departments over the years. In large measure, that research has taught us what works well and what does not, and has helped to define the new model of policing, a model which is still evolving.

What does the new era of Community Policing look like? First of all, it is important to understand that the Community Policing model does not reject all aspects of traditional policing. Rather it builds upon the positive aspects of the professional model of policing - including various tactics that have proven successful - but rejects those aspects that have no reliability.

For example, the Community Policing model builds on the concept inherent in Police-Community Relations Programs. The concept assumed that if police were effective in dealing with crime they needed the support and involvement of the people they served. The concept of Community Policing embraces that same principle.

Community Policing also builds on lessons learned from crime prevention programs. It recognizes that two elements must be present before a crime can be committed, desire and opportunity. Similar to crime prevention programs, Community Policing uses many of the techniques of crime prevention in an attempt to remove criminal opportunity. It also works with other community institutions to remove criminal intent.

Community Policing builds on the results of the Team Policing experience. It recognizes that problems can best be addressed if they are broken down into manageable geographic areas and specific responsibilities for those areas are assigned to specific groups of police officers on a permanent basis.

Community Policing also builds on the lessons learned from Problem-Oriented-Policing. Problem solving is incorporated into the philosophy by recognizing that criminal incidents might very well be the result of broader problems in the community. By analyzing and solving the broader problems, the crime problems can be reduced, if not eliminated.

Community Policing takes advantage of two decades of research that questioned some of the traditional wisdom about policing. Research conducted or underwritten by the Police Foundation, The Police Executive Research Forum, the Rand Corporation and the National Institute of Justice in cities like Newport News, Kansas City, Houston, San Diego and others has provided new insight into the benefits of random patrol, rapid response to crimes and the effectiveness of detective work.

This research served to dispel several myths of police work under which police departments labored:

Myth Number One: Random patrol prevents crime. Research revealed that the time-honored concept of random preventive patrol did not prevent crime. To the contrary, random patrol only produced random results.

Myth Number Two: Rapid response to calls-for-service. Research showed that unless it was an emergency, the time that it took a patrol car to arrive at the scene of a call did not make any difference in apprehending the offender.

Myth Number Three: Effectiveness of detectives. Most crimes were solved by information given to the police by citizens and not by evidence collected at the scene by detectives.

So, at the same time police departments around the country were faced with the crack cocaine epidemic and a proliferation of guns on their streets, they also had a plethora of research that had dispelled several myths about the effectiveness of traditional approaches to policing that provided fresh hope. Most cities such as Houston were also confronting serious budget problems; and with no prospect for additional resources, police administrators searched for alternative ways of using their people resources. This gave added impetus to the move towards Community Policing.

The concept has drawn heavily on the experiences of the Houston Police Department. Houston was the first city in the nation, considering how it wanted to police its city in the future, to implement a concept called Neighborhood Oriented Policing, which was the fore-runner of the Community Policing model.

The academic world, particularly the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has also contributed significantly to the development of the concept of Community Policing, in particular by sponsoring a four-year Executive Session that resulted in a series of papers entitled, "Perspectives on Policing." Th e papers provided additional insight into the problems of policing in America.

—Dr. Lee P. Brown Houston, Texas 2012

(Continues...)

Excerpted from POLICING IN THE 21ST CENTURYby LEE P. BROWN Copyright © 2012 by Dr. Lee P. Brown. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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