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Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center |
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John Riley
Like many other departments,
the Anchorage Police Department is moving from an emphasis on
traditional law enforcement practices toward community-oriented
policing, an approach that relies on officer-initiated efforts
to reduce crime and public disorder. Community policing is a
philosophy of policing that requires police officers to act with
increased levels of autonomy and professional discretion to solve
problems and to develop partnerships with the community.
While community policing promises
an expansion of the professional role which will be appealing
to many police officers, it also requires experimentation with
major changes in the way in which officers and their departments
think about and organize their work. A successful transition
to community policing requires fundamental changes both in the
way officers are encouraged to think about their work and in
the way that work is organized and facilitated by administrative
superiors. Because changes in philosophy and organization are
key elements in the transition to community policing, it is appropriate
to begin to evaluate these efforts by focusing on the subjective
orientation of participating officers. Officers who do not perceive
genuine opportunity for change within their departments are unlikely
to successfully implement the kind of changes posited by community
policing. Police departments must convince their patrol officers
that it makes sense for them to take community policing seriously,
if a successful transition is to take place. In this context,
administrative decisions about organization, resource allocation,
and the promotion of individual officers shape the understanding
of patrol officers in important ways.
Evaluation of small scale projects,
such as the one undertaken by Anchorage’s Community Action
Policing Team in Mountain View, plays an important role in the
development of community policing and can provide police administrators,
policy makers, and the public with important information as the
department moves toward citywide implementation of community
policing in the near future. This article focuses on the perceptions
of patrol officers involved in the initial implementation of
community policing in Mountain View. Because their perceptions
are critical to the successful implementation of the project,
it is important that they be taken into account in any effort
to improve and extend community policing in Anchorage.
Evaluation
Between May and July 1997, Justice Center researchers interviewed 28 of the 31 officers associated with the Anchorage Police Department’s community policing project. The Justice Center interviewed both current members of the team and former members now on other assignments. The interviews were intended to help identify problems and possible solutions associated with the transition to community policing. Structured interviews using open ended questions elicited individual information on the officers’ professional experience, their project participation, daily routine, perception of the community, and training. Officers were also asked to identify issues that seemed important to them in their work on the community policing team. The interviews ranged in length from 30 minutes to three hours, with an average length of one and one-half hours.
Planning and Coordination
Problems associated with planning
and coordination which characterize the beginning of any organizational
change were among the most frequently expressed concerns of the
officers interviewed by the Justice Center. The majority of
the officers indicated a need for greater and more detailed organizational
planning prior to the initiation of projects such as this. A
few were extremely critical when asked about the organization
of the project. Several officers indicated that they felt a
“lack of direction” and one veteran officer responded
to a question about the team’s structure by saying, “There
isn’t any.” While most of those interviewed were less
critical than this, many indicated concerns about planning that
caused them to question the strength of the department’s
commitment to the project.
Many of those involved would have
liked a clearer articulation of the project’s goals, greater
attention to issues of training and orientation for new team
members, and clearer standards of evaluation for team members.
The majority of the officers interviewed could not give a consistent
department definition of community-oriented policing. When asked
how their department defined community policing many officers
responded by saying “I don’t know” or “I
have no idea.” When asked about the department’s expectations
and performance evaluation standards, similar and sometimes identical
responses were common. Some officers suggested that without
a clear definition community residents might also find it difficult
to adjust to the changing orientation of their police force.
A need for improved coordination
between community police officers and representatives of other
local, state, and federal agencies was another recurrent theme
expressed by Anchorage’s community police officers. In
the first 18 months of the project, officers frequently found
themselves working with representatives of city government, federal
agencies like Immigration and Naturalization, and other public
and private organizations. Some of this work involved a level
of frustration and inefficiency which might have been avoided
through better formal coordination of efforts. Several officers
have been involved in working with the city in municipal building
code enforcement and traffic management, for example. Because
patrol officers themselves are not always in the best position
to enlist cooperation from organizations that may place law enforcement
interests as a low priority, commitment to collaboration from
administrative leaders in the private and public organizations
involved is necessary.
Support for Community Policing
In spite of concerns about planning
and coordination, members of the team were nearly unanimous in
crediting the program with improving the situation in Mountain
View. While the project was only a little more than half completed
when the interviews were begun, the majority of those interviewed
felt that the community had benefited from police efforts to
address the problems associated with gangs, drug dealing, prostitution,
and other issues of public order. Most of the participating
officers found something of value in their experience with community
oriented-policing, and many expressed strong support for its
underlying philosophy.
This support was, in general, linked
to three themes: a desire for professional development, a desire
for detailed knowledge of the assigned service area, and an interest
in problem solving. These themes had some appeal for all of the
officers interviewed and substantial appeal for those who expressed
the greatest interest in community policing. Those who expressed
the most favorable attitudes toward this project usually indicated
an interest in opportunities for acquiring professional experience
and skills. Because team officers provide a wide range of police
services in their assigned service areas, they were able to gain
experience in a variety of areas including investigations, interviewing,
community relations, warrants, search procedures, traffic control,
crime prevention, and intervention with juveniles. Mountain
View was an attractive assignment to some of the officers because
persistent and serious crime problems represented a challenge.
For one officer, Mountain View was “a target-rich environment,”
offering many opportunities to make arrests for serious offenses.
As another officer said, “If I can make it there, I can
make it anywhere.” Participation in the Mountain View project
permitted relatively new officers to do things and to master
skills that typically come more slowly in the careers of officers
with traditional assignments.
Those officers who expressed favorable
attitudes toward the project were also more likely to be interested
in getting to know the neighborhood where they work. This is
particularly important in neighborhoods like Mountain View, where
few of the assigned officers have lived, attended school or church,
or participated in activities which are not related to their
work as police officers. When asked to compare Mountain View
to the communities where they now reside, officers indicated
that there was “no comparison” or used phrases like
“night and day” to describe the difference between
Mountain View and the South Anchorage and Eagle River neighborhoods
where most of them live.
“Getting to know the neighborhood”
means different things to different officers, but most officers
who express support for community policing focus on geography,
personalities, and community resources. The project has placed
officers in relatively long term assignments in a small service
area, allowing them to learn the streets quickly and thoroughly,
to learn about the “problem people” who take up a large
portion of the workday, and to learn about the resources available
to people experiencing problems within the community. The officers
believe this knowledge translates into improved intelligence
capability, more effective law enforcement efforts, and better
community relations.
Those officers who indicated the
greatest support for community policing were also more likely
than other officers to express an interest in innovative problem
solving. This reflects a frustration with traditional patrol-based
assignments which many officers believe allow too little time
to address too many problems. Assigned to regular patrol duties,
officers may spend entire shifts going from call to call with
little time to do more than take a report or make an arrest that
they know will only temporarily alleviate the problem. The officers,
who refer to this problem as “chasing the radio” or
“the tyranny of 911,” indicated an appreciation of
the way in which scheduling flexibility and an emphasis on partnerships
allow more follow-up and more opportunity to “encourage
people to solve their own problems.”
Whether the policing project in
Mountain View is actually facilitating the development of lasting
solutions to problems and reducing unnecessary repetition in
calls for service is an open question. It is clear at this time
that a majority of the officers participating in the project
find it useful to have more time to follow-up on calls for service
in innovative ways. They are now trying to address cases that
have not proven amenable to traditional law enforcement solutions
through landlord education efforts, enforcement of city codes,
and programs in the schools. Officers have also extended their
efforts to off-duty projects such as those intended to improve
housing for the elderly or to provide recreational opportunities
for juveniles. Officers who have left the team to take on new
assignments feel that their work in Mountain View helped them
to develop new skills and innovative approaches to the problems
they face in their new assignments.
Officers expressed the belief that
widespread involvement in public affairs is a critical component
of an orderly community and that traditional policing strategies
have had little to offer in this area. They feel community-oriented
policing allows officers to work to build a sense of community
by modeling responsible public involvement. While it is too
early to be certain of the success of these efforts, it seems
clear that the experience gained in Mountain View has some benefit
for the entire city.
Have the officers found genuine
opportunity to improve service in the Mountain View project?
While concerns about the implementation of community policing
are widespread, a sense of enthusiasm for more involvement with
the community emerged from these interviews.
John Riley is an assistant professor with the Justice Center.