If Your Agency's Goal Is Community Policing: You Need A Compliance Officer

By Author: endeavor su
Total Articles: 235
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While police are prone to say they are practicing community oriented policing or community problem oriented policing (COP/CPOP) , the reality is, less than expected progress has occurred.

How can this be? It has been 10 years since Herman Goldstein (1990) published his book "Problem Oriented Policing" , which precipitated serious debate on the role of police and has influenced organizational restructuring and examination of the role of police.

Since then, departmental variation of adopting COP/CPOP covers a broad spectrum of implementation styles and models. Close examination reveals that agency claims of practicing COP/CPOP are more rhetoric than reality.

Anticipating that orders from the Chief or Sheriff will result in the practice of community policing is a flawed expectation, as demonstrated by many departments throughout the United States. Resistance to change runs deep as numerous key elements or indicators of COP/CPOP are prominently lacking in the organization's mission, operations or policies.

Shedding the incident driven mentality and the belief that arrest is the ...
... only answer to less crime is a formidable challenge. Officers are trained, acculturated and evaluated on their arrests and other number generating achievements, and it becomes nearly impossible to supplant this habit by implementing a new philosophy of business. The struggle for supremacy is fraught with conjecture, misrepresentation, and fabrication.

1. Barriers to change

Obstacles that dampen and inhibit the adoption and utilization of community policing and the extent to which it changes how police provide service include:

Unwillingness by officers and staff to adopt and fully participate in the proposed program.

The organization's structure is not conducive to the recommended changes.

Lack of accountability exists at all levels of the organization to implement and follow the new program.

Role expectations are unclear and staff does not fully understand the implications of what they do in the organization.

Training is inadequate and jeopardizes the program from its inception.

Change implications are not clearly stated and employees do not have complete information.

Personnel evaluations do not reflect the new philosophy or department mission making it easy to avoid responsibility and difficult to measure compliance.

Commanders do not have a clear picture of required action and consequently do nothing of substance to bring about change.

A lack of community education and acceptance, including the media and elected officials, inhibits progress.

The concept of partnerships and sharing responsibility with the community is not fully understood nor well developed.

Officers feel that they must substitute problem solving for making arrests under the philosophy of community policing.

Co maintains control, and a host of other skills that allow the officer to manage social and feta issues. Semi-military-in structure, the organization places greater reliance on rank, policy, and procedures than on the norm expectations of the officer's behavior and attitude.

This, a-long with constant scrutiny by all segments of society, places a heavy burden on the officer. Job demands that require response to community service requests often result in a narrow perspective concerning the execution of work related tasks and expectations. With emphasis on offenders and making arrests, officers are soon "acclimatized" into a job routine that is narrow in scope but comfortable because of its known expectations.

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