Title: Measuring What Matters: Proceedings From the Policing Research
Institute Meetings (65-150).
Series: Research Report
Author: NIJ
Published: National Institute of Justice, July 1999
Subject(s): community policing, problem-oriented policing, and police 
planning and management
125 pages
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The Incivilities Thesis: Theory, Measurement, and Policy

Ralph B. Taylor

This paper traces the theoretical evolution over the last two decades of a
close-knit family of theories linking incivilities to reactions to crime,
crime changes, and neighborhood changes. Incivility indicators are social
and physical conditions in a neighborhood that are viewed as troublesome
and potentially threatening by its residents and users of its public spaces.
More recent as compared to earlier theorists in this area have shifted from
a psychological to an ecological perspective on responsible processes;
expanded the scope of relevant outcomes; separated the causes of crime
from the causes of incivilities, justifying a separate policy and theoretical
focus on the latter; and switched from a cross-sectional to a longitudinal
focus. Several measurement questions are raised by the thesis and its
variations:

o The thesis proposes that incivilities represent a construct separate from
other related features of the individual, street block, and neighborhood.
But researchers have not yet examined the discriminant validity of
incivilities indicators.

o Later versions of the thesis emphasize ecological processes. Indicators
at this level are available from different sources, and we do not know yet
whether those indicators display multimethod convergent validity.

o Later versions of the thesis focus on community change. We do not
know if incivility indicators capturing change display convergent validity.

This paper analyzes data from different sources (Atlanta, Baltimore,
Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Seattle) to address these issues. Early,
individual-centered versions of the thesis receive the strongest empirical
support and rely on indicators with satisfactory measurement processes.
Shifting to later versions of the thesis and focusing on community
dynamics and change, empirical support weakens and measurement issues
prove more troubling. These concerns deserve attention from practitioners
and policymakers charged with framing or evaluating order maintenance
policing initiatives.

Controversy calls for reexamination

We witnessed during the early months of 1997, in the wake of falling
violent crime rates in several large cities--with New York City's being the
most noted--articles in the popular media debating the contributions made
by police initiatives toward reducing grime and disorderly street activity.
Jerry Skolnick (Skolnick, 1997) and George Kelling (Kelling, 1997)
argued that these police efforts played a pivotal role; Richard Moran said
we just could not know (Moran, 1997). At about the same time, in
Baltimore, city council leaders harshly criticized Chief of Police Frazier
for failing to mount policies similar to New York's zero tolerance for
disorder.

At the center of these controversies are questions about the relative
contributions of order maintenance policing--one component of
community policing--versus traditional policing practices, to reductions in
serious crime. Community policing and problem-oriented policing include
order maintenance as well as numerous other strategies geared to address
problems in a community that may precede serious crime (Goldstein 1990,
1993; Greene and Mastrofski, 1988). Receiving increasing attention
during the past 20 years in such police strategies have been social and
physical incivilities, also called signs of disorder, or simply disorder.
These incivilities include public order problems such as groups of rowdy
teens, public drunkenness, public drug use or sales, people fighting, street
hassles, prostitution, aggressive panhandling, vacant or burned out
buildings, shuttered stores, unsavory businesses such as adult bookstores,
abandoned and trash-filled lots, graffiti, litter, and abandoned cars.
Community and problem-oriented policing initiatives focus on far more
than just these problems; nevertheless, these concerns have received
considerable community and problem-oriented policing attention
(Buerger, 1994; Greene and Taylor, 1988; Greene and McLaughlin, 1993;
Pate, 1986 and 1989).

Given current public controversies about whether incivility-reduction
community policing can help reduce serious crime, an examination of the
proposed theoretical rationales underlying these initiatives seems overdue.
What have theorists in this area told us about how these incivilities cause
crime, inspire fear in residents, and contribute to neighborhood decline?
This paper undertakes such a review, examining a family of theories
describing these processes. I will suggest that theorizing in the area has
evolved in a number of discernible directions.[1] The theorizing and its
evolution raise three distinct, but related, measurement questions, not as
yet satisfactorily answered by the empirical research. First, is the incivility
construct separable from related constructs? Do its indicators demonstrate
discriminant validity (Campbell and Fiske, 1959)? Second, later versions
of the thesis focus on community dynamics, giving researchers a choice of
how to capture disorder. They can rely on aggregated resident perceptions
or assessments of onsite conditions. Do indicators from different methods
display convergent validity (Campbell and Fiske, 1959)? Finally, when we
examine disorder change over time, to which the later versions of the
theory direct our attention, do the change indicators demonstrate
convergent validity?

Organization

Beginning in the mid-1970s, five distinct variants of the incivilities thesis
emerged: James Q. Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub; Hunter; Wilson and
Kelling; Lewis and Salem; and Skogan. I describe the central processes
highlighted by each theory. Placing these versions of the incivilities thesis
in a temporal ordering reveals several clear shifts in emphasis and scope
over the period, and I describe these changes. I then briefly summarize
empirical support to date for some of the key hypotheses in each version
of the theory. Following that, I turn to a detailed consideration of the three
measurement questions raised above, using data from five different cities.
I close with a discussion of the policy, practice, and theory implications of
these measurement results.

Variations on a theme

In this section I summarize five different versions of the incivilities thesis.
After reviewing the processes of central interest to each, I describe in more
detail how thinking has shifted on this topic from earlier to later versions
of the thesis.

Wilson, 1975, and Garofalo and Laub, 1978. In Thinking About Crime,
Wilson takes up the question of why urban residents are so fearful for their
safety (Wilson, 1975). He suggests it is not only crimes that they find
troubling. The daily hassles they are confronted with on the street--street
people, panhandlers, rowdy youths, or "hey honey" hassles--and the
deteriorated conditions that surround them--trash-strewn alleys and vacant
lots, graffiti, and deteriorated or abandoned housing--inspire concern.
Wilson does not provide extensive detail on the interpretations residents
made when confronting minor disorderly conditions, except to point out
the fear they inspired among residents and users of urban spaces. 

In a closely related vein, Garofalo and Laub suggest that fear of crime
reflects a more general "urban unease" rather than a specific concern about
crimes that have occurred or may occur (Garofalo and Laub, 1978). This
led to their dictum that fear of crime was more than "fear" of "crime."
Again, the key idea is that urban conditions, not just crime, are
troublesome and inspire residents' concern for safety.

These theories emerged in the wake of the first analyses of the National
Crime Victimization Survey showing that residents' fear was far more
widespread than their victimization (Cook and Skogan, 1984; DuBow et
al., 1979), and represented attempts to explain this discrepancy. For both
sets of authors, the outcome of interest is fear of crime, an affective state
reflecting safety-related concerns about possible street victimization
(Ferraro, 1994). It is distinct from perceptions of risk, a more cognitive
assessment of the likelihood of victimization (LaGrange and Ferraro,
1989). It is also separate from worry about property crimes while away
from home, or worry about the potential victimization of family members
(DuBow et al., 1979; Taylor and Hale, 1986).

In both of these theories focusing on fear, there is no explicit specification
of the relationship between the conditions inspiring concern and local
crime, except to note that the conditions are far more prevalent than crime
incidents. In short, they do not try to either connect or disconnect the
causes of incivilities from the causes of crime.

One further similarity is the focus on psychological rather than community
dynamics. Although community differences are implicitly acknowledged,
the key focus is on why so many more people are afraid than would be
expected given the prevalence of victimization.[2]

Hunter, 1978. Al Hunter presented a paper entitled "Symbols of Incivility"
at the 1978 American Society of Criminology (ASC) conference.[3] Like
the Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub version, the outcome in question is still
fear of crime, and it is assumed that incivilities are far more prevalent than
crime or victimization.[4] Exhibit 1 depicts Hunter's causal model of the
thesis.

Hunter's framework elaborates on earlier statements in four major ways.
Perhaps most importantly, he describes in some detail how residents may
interpret signs of incivility; he considers what residents read into these
conditions. He proposes that local residents attribute disorderly actions
and deteriorating physical conditions to two complementary sources.
Internally, the perceivers attribute conditions to local residents and
organizations unable to manage or preserve the neighborhood. Beyond the
neighborhood, perceivers conclude that the external agencies of control,
which bear some responsibility for preserving order, are unwilling or
incapable of doing so in that locale.

Therefore, because matters are out of hand in the neighborhood and local
actors and external agencies cannot or will not intercede, residents feel
personally at risk of victimization. This description is important because it
suggests that the causal attributions residents make--their conclusions on
why the incivilities occur and persist--shape their fear. It is not just the
presence of the signs of incivilities that is threatening to them, it is also the
meaning attached to them. Those origins, he suggests, are viewed as both
endogenous and exogenous to the community.

Hunter's second specification is to nonrecursively link crime and signs of
incivility. Each causes the other; one does not precede the other. This view
suggests that extensive incivilities will be found in high-crime
neighborhoods, and high crime will be found in neighborhoods with
extensive deterioration.

Third, Hunter connects incivilities and crime again through a common
underlying exogenous cause: neighborhood disorder. It is not clear,
however, if by disorder he specifically means social disorganization--the
inability of a community to regulate itself and work toward common goals
(Bursik, 1988)--or the community characteristics more generally
associated with high offense or high offender rates (Baldwin and Bottoms,
1976; Harries, 1980).

Finally, Hunter's model moves us from the individual-level processes
described by Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub to a contextual model (Boyd and
Iversen, 1979). The earlier focus was on psychological processes. Here,
these processes are elaborated, but with the inclusion of neighborhood
crime rates and mutual impacts of crime and incivilities, these
psychological processes are placed within varying community contexts.

Hunter's elaboration of the thesis leads to specific empirical predictions:
Communities with higher crime rates should have more extensive
incivilities; high community crime rates and extensive incivilities share
common structural origins, such as instability, low status, and more
extensive minority populations. But even after putting these common
origins aside, crime and incivilities will still feed one another. Controlling
for structural origins, crime should have an independent impact on
incivilities and incivilities should have an independent impact on crime.

Wilson and Kelling, 1982. In their first Atlantic Monthly piece, Wilson
and Kelling elaborate on the thesis in three important ways (Wilson and
Kelling, 1982). This piece has proved enormously influential on
researchers examining fear of crime (Ferraro, 1994) and on policy analysts
in community policing (Greene and Taylor, 1988).

First, Wilson and Kelling inject a temporal perspective, describing a
specific, multistep process whereby persistent physical or social
incivilities lead to higher neighborhood crime rates. Their causal model of
the thesis appears in exhibit 2.

The proposed sequence is as follows. A sign of incivility, such as a broken
window, is not important per se. Windows are always getting broken,
homes are always deteriorating, and some homes are always being
abandoned. More important is how long the broken window remains
unrepaired, the house remains in bad condition, or the building stays
unoccupied. If the condition is not repaired in a relatively short time, then
residents will infer that resident-based informal control on the street is
weak and other residents do not care about what is happening in their
neighborhood; they will surmise that the neighborhood is socially
disorganized.[5] Making such a judgment, residents become increasingly
reluctant to use public spaces or to intervene in disorderly situations. As
the withdrawal becomes more general and residents' informal control
weakens, they become increasingly concerned about their safety. In the
language of routine activity theory, natural guardians and place managers
grow more reluctant to act (Eck, 1995). In Jane Jacobs' terms, there are
fewer eyes on the street (Jacobs, 1961).

At the same time, local "lightweight" offenders, such as teens who spray
paint buildings or taunt passersby, will become emboldened, causing
further resident apprehension and withdrawal. For local delinquent youths
and at-risk children, the persistent physical incivilities symbolize
opportunities for delinquency (Cloward and Ohlin, 1960; Taylor and
Covington, 1993).

After the above conditions have been in place for some time and local
resident-based control has weakened markedly, motivated "heavy duty"
offenders from outside the neighborhood will become aware of the
conditions, the opportunities to victimize others, and the lower risks of
detection or apprehension associated with offending in that locale. If
offender motivation is high enough and enough targets are available, they
will move into the neighborhood to commit street crimes.

In short, the authors temporally sequence the connections between
physical deterioration, increased delinquency, decreased resident-based
control, and increased serious crime.[6] Time shapes not only the flow of
consequences, but also the meaning attributed to the signs of incivility by
residents and other users of local spaces.

Kelling and Coles (1996) update the thesis and provide a broader context.
They further develop the rationale for order maintenance policing
structured around social incivilities, but they also point out the challenges
when police and the community work closely together to try to reduce
disorder. In addition, they argue that disorder has increased in the past few
decades in part because police have retreated from order maintenance,
concentrating on serious crime. This retreat has coincided with shifts in
civil law, placing limits on police and other agents of public control,
further facilitating burgeoning disorder.

As is apparent from the above suggested dynamics, a second major
difference in Wilson and Kelling's thesis compared to prior incarnations,
is the expanded range of outcomes. Individual and group behaviors and
ecological features of the setting are now of interest. The authors move
beyond fear per se, to also include resident-based informal social control
on the street, the vitality of street life itself, and, perhaps most importantly,
increasing neighborhood crime rates. Their inclusion of neighborhood
crime rates as the ultimate outcome of interest justifies community
policing initiatives designed to reduce social incivilities or to facilitate
service delivery from other public agencies addressing physical
incivilities.

Given their concern for community policing, the authors also consider
where to deploy these officers. Their stronger attention to local context
represents an important third difference from prior treatments. They
roughly separate communities into three groups: those with assured
stability, those that are deteriorated and beyond hope, and those that have
been stable but are currently threatened with an uncertain future. They
suggest that this last group of teetering neighborhoods is where signs of
incivility will have the strongest impacts on behavioral, crime, and
emotional outcomes. Therefore, it is in these sites that remediation
efforts, including community policing, should be concentrated.

The above focus brings us to the final contribution of the current model.
Wilson and Kelling discuss the specific roles police officers can play in
helping communities address disorderly conditions. In essence, the job of
community police or problem-oriented police is to learn what conditions
are troubling residents and merchants in these teetering neighborhoods and
then help them address these concerns. (Kelling and Coles [1996] develop
in detail what actions are relevant and address some of the issues
surrounding officer-community cooperation.) The officers might be
moving rowdy groups out of an area, notifying agencies so that landlords
are cited for needed repairs, or arranging to get junked cars towed or
trash-filled lots cleaned. These problem-solving roles for community
police officers have received attention in different demonstrations and
evaluations (e.g., Greene and McLaughlin, 1993; Spelman and Eck, 1987).

Lewis and Salem, 1986. Dan Lewis and Greta Salem returned to a sole
focus on fear of crime and a cross-sectional, as opposed to longitudinal,
perspective in their 1986 volume Fear of Crime (Lewis and Maxfield,
1980; Lewis and Salem, 1986). They argue that both the extent of signs of
incivility and crime levels contribute synergistically to fear. More
specifically, they suggest that if crime and signs of incivility are both at
high levels, residents will exhibit the highest fear levels. If crime is high
but signs of incivility are not, or if signs of incivility are high but crime is
not, residents will be less fearful. In analysis of variance terminology, it is
the interaction effect of the two that influence fear, not the main effects of
either. The authors support their argument using data from a three-city,
multineighborhood survey conducted as part of the 1975-80 Northwestern
University Reactions to Crime project.

This model is of interest because it continues the trend of separating the
causes of crime and incivility. By implication, if one can be high and the
other low, each has causes that are somewhat unique from the causes of
the other. The origins of each are distinct, strengthening our rationale for
looking at incivilities as problems separate from serious crimes.

Skogan, 1990. Skogan provides an extended theoretical and empirical
investigation of how incivilities influence crime and fear at the
neighborhood level (Skogan, 1986, 1990).

Skogan's variant of the incivilities thesis (1986, 1990) focuses on
neighborhood change as the ultimate outcome of interest. Labeling signs
of incivility as disorder (1990: 2), he argues that "disorder plays an
important role in sparking urban decline." He defines disorder by saying:
"[It] reflects the inability of communities to mobilize resources to deal
with urban woes. The distribution of disorder thus mirrors the larger
pattern of structured inequality that makes inner-city neighborhoods
vulnerable to all manner of threats to the health and safety of their
residents" (p. 173). In short, as with Hunter's model, there are two causes
of disorder: social disorganization within the community itself and
inequality resulting from the sorting of neighborhoods in the urban fabric.
This interpretation of incivilities again ties us to the extensive social
disorganization literature and, simultaneously, to the extensive literature
on urban inequality (Wilson, 1996).

Incivilities spur neighborhood decline because they influence a range of
psychological, social psychological, and behavioral outcomes such as,
respectively, fear, informal social control, and offender in-migration and
resident out-migration. In short, according to Skogan, physical and social
incivilities engender a range of consequences that ultimately result in
neighborhood decline.

Skogan is clear about the processes mediating the connection between
incivilities and neighborhood decline. First, echoing Wilson and Kelling,
he suggests that incivilities undermine informal social control (Skogan,
1990). Second, echoing several of the prior theorists, he proposes that
disorder "sparks concern about neighborhood safety, and perhaps even
causes crime itself. This further undermines community morale" (Skogan,
1990: 65). Third, incivilities "undermine the stability of the housing
market" (Skogan, 1990: 65). This latter economic impact means that a
neighborhood's housing prices would decrease relative to other urban
neighborhoods. Impacts of neighborhood crime on housing values have
been well established in the academic literature (Little, 1976; Taylor,
1995a); separate impacts of incivilities on house prices, net of other
factors, have not.

Skogan states clearly that signs of incivility play an important part in this
process. "Disorder can play an important, independent role in stimulating
this kind of urban decline" (Skogan, 1990: 12, emphasis added). Current
theorists (Kelling and Coles, 1996: 25) agree that Skogan has proven that
"disorder, both directly and as a precursor to crime, played an important
role in neighborhood crime."

Skogan's thesis represents an evolution beyond  Wilson and Kelling's
model in three respects. First, he has moved to an explicit focus on
neighborhood change, in the form of decline, as the ultimate outcome of
interest. This outcome was included but not emphasized in Wilson and
Kelling's treatment; now it has been promoted as the outcome of most
interest to residents and policymakers alike. High fear and weak informal
social control by residents are important not in their own right, but rather
because they result in later decline. With Skogan's model, we have
completed the evolution from a focus solely on psychological outcomes
represented by Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub, to a focus solely on ecological
outcomes, leading Skogan to test his thesis using only neighborhood-level
information.

Since the outcome in Skogan's model is explicitly neighborhood change,
this leads him to expand the scope of contributing and mediating
dynamics. The first versions of the incivilities thesis focused on fear;
subsequent versions expanded to include weak informal social control and
withdrawal from street life. Skogan further augments the relevant process
dynamics to consider intent to move, neighborhood satisfaction (Skogan,
1990: 88), community solidarity (Skogan, 1990: 70), and involvement in
privatistic crime prevention. Other authors (e.g., Kirschenbaum, 1983:
abstract) have argued that perceptions of neighborhood deterioration act
"as a major catalyst in provoking a move," or contribute independently to
neighborhood decline (Fisher, 1991). The literature, however, fails to
consistently link crime or crime-related neighborhood conditions with
mobility (Taylor, 1995a).

Third, Skogan explicitly acknowledges in several models that structural
conditions give rise to signs of incivility. He reports that poverty,
instability, and racial composition all contribute equally to signs of
incivility and crime in the form of robbery victimization rates (Skogan,
1990: 75). In an earlier statement of the thesis, he suggests that "random
shocks" arising from factors outside the neighborhood itself also can
influence the expansion of incivilities (Skogan, 1986). In his 1990
analysis, signs of incivility almost totally mediate the effects of
neighborhood structure on victimization.7 His is the first model to begin
examining links between incivilities and community structure. His
suggested causal dynamics appear in exhibit 3.

Evolution of the perspective

The main variants of the incivilities thesis reviewed above reveal
numerous differences. In four areas, these differences reflect a clear
evolution of the perspective applied.

Expansion of outcomes. The models progress from a sole focus on fear of
crime (Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub; Hunter; Lewis and Salem) to concern
about neighborhood street life and crime (Wilson and Kelling) to
neighborhood structural decline (Skogan). The enlargement of outcomes
increases the importance of the thesis; it is relevant not only to reactions to
crime but also to the stability and viability of urban communities. The
broadening scope also provides rationales for community policing
initiatives focusing on order maintenance. It highlights the short-term
(lower crime, residents taking back the streets) and long-term
(neighborhood stability) benefits of such initiatives.

Shifting levels of analysis. As theorists have augmented outcomes, they
also have shifted upward in their levels of analysis. Early statements of the
thesis clearly present a psychological perspective. Garofalo's and Laub's
notion that fear reflects "urban unease" expects that perceptions of local
order-related problems will inspire residents' fear. The dynamics in
question are internal to individuals. Hunter's and Lewis and Salem's
models are contextual, pointing out impacts of community as well as
psychological factors on psychological outcomes such as fear. Wilson and
Kelling's discussion includes both street block and neighborhood
outcomes, but the most central dynamics appear to be operating at the
street block level (Taylor, 1997b). Skogan moves us explicitly to the
neighborhood level, using neighborhood predictors and neighborhood
outcomes. Reactions to crime, such as fear, and other person-environment
transactions, such as neighborhood satisfaction or intention to move, are
modeled at the neighborhood level because they contribute to long-term
neighborhood decline. We are now interested solely in ecological
dynamics.

When examining measurement issues, two concerns surface related to this
shift in interest. The migration of interest upward presumes that the
reactions to crime and person-environment transactions seen as part of the
neighborhood dynamics have substantial ecological components; that is,
that sizable between-neighborhood variance exists in these variables
relative to the pooled within-neighborhood variance. In addition, the
migration suggests researchers might want to use ecologically based rather
than psychologically based incivilities indicators. These measurement
issues receive consideration below.

Shifting temporal perspective. Models clearly evolve in their temporal
perspective. Theorists start out discussing why some people are more
afraid than others at one point in time (Wilson; Garofalo and Laub;
Hunter) and end by focusing on changes in fear, informal social control,
street life, neighborhood crime rates, and neighborhood structure (Wilson
and Kelling; Skogan). Wilson and Kelling provide the most detailed
temporal sequencing here, describing specific series of events linking
incivilities, fear, resident withdrawal, petty crime, and, finally, increased
serious crime. Again, as with the change in levels of concern, there are
measurement implications. One would expect, given the shift from
cross-sectional to longitudinal processes, that indicators would change
correspondingly and that researchers would begin to look at changes in
fear, neighborhood structure, and incivilities, for example.

Progressive unlinking of crime and incivilities. The early models (Wilson;
Garofalo and Laub; Hunter) suggested a common origin for crime and
incivilities. Incivilities were presumed to vary from neighborhood to
neighborhood, roughly paralleling the crime differences from
neighborhood to neighborhood, but taking place at higher rates than crime
and thus influencing more residents. Hunter's model provides incivilities
and crime with a common exogenous variable. Skogan, by contrast,
explicitly anticipates that incivilities will make independent contributions
to neighborhood change, net of neighborhood structure and, presumably
neighborhood crime, although indicators for the latter were not available
in his data set.[8] Lewis and Salem anticipate that crime and incivilities
can vary independently, leading to situations where one is high and the
other not. The modeling implication is that neighborhood crime rates and
neighborhood incivilities can be separated in a cross-sectional model and
that changes in each can be separated in a longitudinal model.

Empirical support for hypotheses

Before turning to a detailed discussion of measurement issues, I provide a
brief summary of what we know about some of the key hypotheses
generated by each version of the incivilities thesis. I organize the evidence
by theory version. I do not consider the extensive evaluation research on
community policing programs based on some version of this thesis. (For
recent reviews of this work, see Kelling and Coles, 1996; Sherman, 1997;
Eck, 1997.) That evaluation work often fails to provide sufficient detail in
the timing of measurement and the scope of indicators to address specific
hypotheses mounted in these models.

Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub. The key idea that those perceiving more
neighborhood problems are more concerned for their safety has been
repeatedly supported. Initial analyses of individual-level outcomes
confounding between- and within-neighborhood predictor variance (e.g.,
Lewis and Maxfield, 1980) have been confirmed by later studies
partitioning predictor variance (Covington and Taylor, 1991), correctly
modeling within-neighborhood correlated errors and controlling for direct
and indirect victimization experiences (Taylor, 1997a). Rountree and Land
(1996a, 1996b) found effects of community-level perceived incivilities on
perceived risk and fear of crime in hierarchical linear models, but did not
include perceived incivilities as individual-level predictors, in accord with
the thesis discussed here.

In short, we have strong evidence that those who are more afraid than their
neighbors see more local problems than their neighbors. At this time, it is
not clear if social or physical disorders are more troubling to residents.

Hunter. Hunter's key idea is that both incivilities and local crime rates
may contribute independently to outcomes like fear. One study using
assessed indicators could not test this thesis because incivilities and 
crime were so closely linked (Taylor, 1996b). It is the case that,
controlling for neighborhood crime rates, individuals who perceive more
local problems than their neighbors are more fearful than their neighbors
(Taylor, 1997a). Rountree and Land find that average perceived incivilities
in a neighborhood and the neighborhood burglary rate contribute
independently to burglary-specific fear of crime (Rountree and Land,
1996a) and to perceived crime risk (Rountree and Land, 1996b). They do
not test the contributions of perceived incivilities at the individual level to
fear of crime or perceived risk, controlling for the local victimization rate.

The work so far suggests that, net of local crime rates, both individual and
community differences in perceived incivilities contribute to reactions to
crime such as fear and increased perceived risk. We do not yet have
studies simultaneously examining impacts of individual and community
perceived incivilities while controlling for local crime or victimization
rates and individual victimizations.

Wilson and Kelling. Numerous studies claim to find support for portions
of the Wilson and Kelling thesis, varying in the degree to which they
apply needed statistical controls.

Although we do not have longitudinal confirmation, we do have
cross-sectional confirmation that perceived incivilities predict perceived
crime at the street block level, controlling for block composition and
layout (Perkins et al., 1992).[9] Wilson and Kelling anticipate that over
time more incivilities on a block will lead to more crime problems. This
street block analysis does not confirm that tenet in the longitudinal manner
in which it was framed, but it does provide cross-sectional confirmation
using crime perceptions.

Returning in the 1990s to local leaders in neighborhoods where residents
had been interviewed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Skogan and
Lurigio (1992) find that average perceived social and physical disorder
reported 7-12 years previously strongly predicts severity of current drug
problems in the neighborhood. The authors conclude that these results
"point strongly in the direction of the Ôbroken windows' hypothesis: that
levels of noncriminal decay and social disruption can spawn more serious
problems in the future by undermining the capacity of communities to
respond to crime . . . " (p. 525). This conclusion, however, may be
premature. The authors did not control for the earlier level of perceived
drug problems in the community; thus, their outcome does not reflect
community change. In addition, their data source, with a small number of
communities, does not allow researchers to control for community
structure.

Another longitudinal hypothesis receiving some cross-sectional support is
Wilson and Kelling's suggestion that incivilities have the strongest impact
on teetering neighborhoods. In 66 neighborhoods studied in Baltimore, we
found impacts of assessed social and physical incivilities on fear of crime
were most evident in moderate-stability neighborhoods (Taylor et al.,
1985). This analysis, however, failed to simultaneously control for
socioeconomic status and racial composition. In addition, it appears that
the impacts of incivilities on fear are extremely weak in the most
deteriorated neighborhoods (Taylor and Shumaker, 1990).

Empirical research on interactions between incivilities and other predictors
appears to have moved beyond the theoretical groundwork already laid
out. For example, Rountree and Land (1996b) found that average
neighborhood perceived incivilities shape the impact of race and
unoccupied homes on individual risk perception. The relevant conceptual
underpinnings for these moderating effects are not clear. More clear is the
theoretical basis for interactions between perceived disorder at the
individual level and social support on fear of crime. Ross and Jang (1996)
find that among those with more local ties, the impact of perceived
disorder on fear is weaker. This represents an example of the buffering
hypothesis developed in the social support literature (House et al., 1988).
The moderating effect, however, was extremely small in size compared to
the main effect.

A third feature of the model receiving empirical support is Wilson and
Kelling's suggestion that increasing incivilities may signal opportunities
for delinquency for local teens and other "lightweight" offenders.
Replicated contextual models link neighborhood-assessed deterioration
with residents' belief that groups of unsupervised teens are problems in
their neighborhoods (Taylor and Covington, 1993). Again, this
confirmation is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. This connection is
of further significance because it connects theories about incivilities with
social disorganization processes. Unsupervised teen peer groups have been
used as a key indicator of weak local informal social control (Sampson and
Grove, 1989).

Skogan. Skogan connects data from different studies spanning 40
neighborhoods in 6 cities, which was originally gathered between 1977
and 1983. Eighteen of the different study areas are Chicago communities,
some of which were surveyed three times (Skogan, 1990: 88). He
operationalizes incivilities using subjective, survey-based responses in
which respondents indicated how serious they perceived different
incivilities to be in their own neighborhoods. He analyzes
neighborhood-level outcomes using simple and multiple regressions and
path models. Treating the time of the surveys as roughly comparable, he
analyzes all the data in a cross-sectional design.

Skogan examines the causes of incivilities (Skogan, 1990: 60). He finds
that nonwhite neighborhood racial composition, poverty, and instability
are all linked to higher incivility levels. He also examines a range of the
consequences of incivilities. He finds that in neighborhoods where
incivilities are perceived to be more intense, neighbors are less willing to
help one another (p. 71), robbery victimization is more extensive (p. 75),
residential satisfaction is lower, and more people intend to move (p. 82).
He also finds some extremely strong correlations ( greater than .80)
between signs of incivility and indicators of neighborhood structure, such
as unemployment (p. 173). He models the perceived incivilities as
mediating the impacts of neighborhood structure on the outcomes, leaving
open the question of whether incivilities make independent contributions
to these outcomes.

Harrell and Gouvis (1994) propose to test Skogan's thesis using census
and crime data for Cleveland and Washington, D.C. Using the census tract
as the unit of analysis, they determine if leading indicators of decay help
predict later crime changes. Unfortunately, questions arise about their
decay indicators, which do not focus on deterioration but instead are rates
for crimes like arson. Their study appears to be showing that some crime
rates help predict shifts in other crime rates.

Summing up empirical support. To date, we have the strongest
confirmation for the Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub psychological model.
Studies routinely find extremely strong correlations between individual
differences in perceived incivilities and individual differences in fear of
crime; these remain after controlling for neighborhood crime rates and
neighborhood structure. Studies also find contextual impacts of
neighborhood-level perceived (or assessed) disorder, suggesting that
multilevel impacts may be operating. We do not yet have studies using the
same indicator that compare individual and contextual disorder impacts.

The main effects of incivilities observed at the individual and community
levels appear to be contingent on other factors. At the community level,
Wilson and Kelling's thesis predicts that disorder impacts are contingent
on community stability; Lewis and Salem's model predicts that impacts
are contingent on local crime rates. Some empirical support has been
obtained for the first model, although further testing with more adequate
statistical controls is needed. Lewis and Salem's hypothesized interaction
effect has not yet been tested. Part of the problem with doing so is that,
especially with assessed indicators, disorder usually correlates very
strongly with local crime rates. Researchers have begun suggesting that
individual-level impacts of perceived incivility may be conditioned by
other personal attributes, and work looking at these contingent impacts is
beginning.

Hunter's version of the thesis also has received substantial support. It
suggests that both crime and disorder contribute to the fear of crime. This
idea is supported by perceived disorder indicators at the individual and
community levels, controlling for other personal and neighborhood
features. Assessed disorder at the community level correlates too strongly
with crime to test for independent contributions without committing the
partialling fallacy. You commit the partialling fallacy when you have two
highly correlated variables, and you partial on the first variable and
attempt to interpret how the second variable links to other variables. After
partialling, there is too little of the second variable remaining for
meaningful interpretation.

The support picture appears far murkier when we turn to versions of the
incivilities thesis--Wilson and Kelling's, and Skogan's--that are explicitly
longitudinal. Researchers interpret results from several cross-sectional
studies as lending support to the thesis. But cross-sectional data do not
provide an adequate test of the thesis. To test Wilson and Kelling's thesis,
we need longitudinal studies of individuals within communities, using a
large number of communities. This would permit us to gauge the
independent impacts of incivilities to changes over time in fear of crime, 
perception of risk, and offender movement patterns. To test Skogan's
thesis, we need to assess impacts of incivilities, independent of community
structure and crime rates, to neighborhood structural changes and crime
changes. These studies have not yet been completed.

From theory to research: incivilities indicators

Three important measurement questions arise from the incivilities thesis.
First, all variants of the thesis presume that incivilities refer to a construct
independent of related constructs. At the individual level, this means that
incivilities indicators would be separate from indicators for perceived risk,
fear of crime, territorial cognitions, sense of community, attachment to
place, or neighborhood confidence and satisfaction. At the neighborhood
level, this means that incivilities indicators would be separate from
indicators for neighborhood structure (status, stability, racial composition)
and crime. In short, all versions of the thesis presume that discriminant
validity (Campbell and Fiske, 1959) has been established for incivilities
indicators. In this section, we will look at a small number of data sets to
determine whether this presumption is correct.

A second important measurement question raised by the evolution of the
incivilities thesis is multimethod convergent validity. As noted above,
incivilities theories began with a focus on psychological dynamics
(Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub), moved forward to an interest in social
psychological processes (Wilson and Kelling), and finally evolved into a
focus on community dynamics and outcomes (Skogan). Paralleling this
drift across analysis levels have been shifts in the incivilities indicators
used. For psychological processes, researchers used perceived incivilities.
To capture social psychological and ecological variations in incivilities,
most researchers have averaged survey-based perceptions across residents
in a neighborhood. A smaller number of researchers have responded to the
ecological drift by gathering onsite assessment data, including site and
street block features and aggregating those items to the street block level
for social psychological investigations, and to the neighborhood level for
ecological investigations.[10] Our confidence in the construct validity of
incivilities will be boosted if we find that incivilities indicators from
different methods converge. Researchers have not yet investigated this
question. Ideally, at each level of aggregation, different indicators of
incivilities based on different data collection procedures would correlate
closely with one another and would barely correlate with related constructs
(Campbell and Fiske, 1959).

Finally, the latest variant of the incivilities thesis focuses on changes over
time. Changes in disorder should, according to Skogan, lead to a host of
consequences for a neighborhood. However, researchers have not yet
extensively examined relationships among disorder change indicators.

Discriminant validity

What evidence do we have that incivilities indicators are distinct from
other features of a community, such as its structure, crime rates, and
land-use patterns?

Structural dimensions of community. Researchers using census data to
describe community structure generally refer to three independent
dimensions: socioeconomic status, stability, and racial and youth
composition (Berry and Kasarda, 1977; Hunter, 1974a, 1974b).[11] These
dimensions appear when researchers analyze census data from cities in the
United States and abroad. These three dimensions also can be used to
describe the structural pathways along which neighborhoods may change
over time (Hunter, 1974a; Taylor and Covington, 1988).

Socioeconomic status is captured by variables reflecting income levels,
housing values, occupational status, educational levels, and the extent of
poverty and unemployment. Stability is best captured by variables
reflecting the extent of home ownership and the proportion of residents
living at the same address during the 5 years prior to the census. Housing
type, such as the percentage of single-family structures, is also relevant.
Race and youth composition is reflected in percentages of Hispanic and
African-American persons and the proportions of the population under the
age of 5, or between 6 and 13 years of age.

Assessed incivilities indicators appear to be linked to neighborhood
structure. Using 1981 data from onsite assessments of more than 800 street
blocks in Baltimore, aggregated to the neighborhood level (N=66), we
completed an exploratory principal-components analysis of
assessment-based incivilities and land-use indicators (Taylor et al., 1985).
We defined a general incivilities index based primarily on physical items,
but included some social factors as well.[12] We found moderate to strong
links between this index and both reported crime and community structure.
The simple correlations were: crime, 0.64; instability, 0.59; income, -0.53;
and proportion of African-Americans, 0.40 (Taylor et al., 1985).
Neighborhood structure explained 63 percent of the variation in assessed 
signs of incivility and 55.8 percent of the variation in residents' perceived
signs of incivility. Exploratory principal-components analyses closely
connect this same incivilities index with a structural component capturing
poverty, low education levels, and neighborhood instability. Even if we
rotate four separate principal components, incivilities continue to load
highly on a poverty component.

Reanalysis of data from 24 small commercial centers and their residential
surroundings in Minneapolis-St. Paul showed neighborhood instability
correlating 0.62 with vacancies in small commercial centers, and assessed
graffiti correlating 0.87 with the percentage of the neighborhood that was
African-American (Taylor, 1995c). Exploratory principal-components
analyses with the Minneapolis-St. Paul data, looking at specific assessed
incivilities rather than a broad index, linked graffiti with the racial
dimension of neighborhood structure and vacancies with instability in the
surrounding neighborhood.[13] (For a description of the original data
collection, see McPherson and Silloway, 1986.)

These two analyses suggest indicators of assessed incivilities are not
readily separable from neighborhood structure and crime. When we turn to
perceived disorder indicators, however, what do we find?

We constructed a 5-city data set spanning 216 communities. The data were
drawn from Atlanta (Greenberg et al., 1982), Baltimore (Taylor, 1996a),
Chicago (Lavrakas, 1982), Minneapolis-St. Paul (McPherson and
Silloway, 1986), and Seattle (Miethe and Meier, 1995). Only the six
neighborhood Atlanta data set overlaps with those examined by Skogan
(1990). All five data sets share several perceived incivilities. Aggregating
perceived incivilities to the community level and carrying out an
exploratory principal-components analysis of those items along with
neighborhood structure and crime indicators generates the results shown in
exhibit 4. Five components were rotated: incivilities (1), crime (1), and
neighborhood structure (3). The three incivilities emerge distinctly on their
own components. The only other variable loading above 0.40 on this
component is the average years of education of residents. In this set of
cities, although data suggest a modest connection between incivilities and
low socioeconomic status, perceived incivilities appear to be relatively
independent of crime and structure at the neighborhood level. This
analysis is limited, of course.[14] Reanalysis with more indicators and a
confirmatory, rather than exploratory, approach is desirable.

Using the same variables from the five cities, but not including the two
crime rate variables, we carried out a series of exploratory individual-level
principal-components analyses, using four components: socioeconomic
status, stability, race, and incivilities (N=8,195). Again, as with the
ecological-level principal-components analyses, the incivilities indicators
formed their own separate component. No other variables loaded above
0.40 on the incivilities component.[15] At the individual level, perceived
incivilities separate clearly from other social demographics. When we
added two indicators for person-environment bonds (neighborhood
satisfaction, and attachment to place) and completed an exploratory
principal-components analysis requesting five components, perceived
incivilities and person-environment bonds each associated with
different components.

Crime. Using the same five-city data set, we examined neighborhood-level
connections between neighborhood perceived incivilities and
neighborhood crime rates, before and after controlling for neighborhood
structure. The number of neighborhoods ranged from 6 in Atlanta to more
than 100 in Seattle. Results appear in exhibit 5. The first column shows
the city-by-city correlations of community-level perceived problems with
vandalism, teens, and abandoned buildings, and the community robbery
rate. The second column repeats these correlations after partialling for the
percentage of African-Americans, percentage of homeowners, and average
education level. The third and fourth columns repeat the same information
for the assault rate. Correlations are averaged across the five cities at the
bottom of the table. Given the small number of neighborhoods in Atlanta,
the numbers are reaveraged after excluding Atlanta.

The partialled correlations based on the four cities suggest that
community-level perceived incivilities correlate modestly with street
crime rates after removing community structure; the average partialled
correlations, excluding Atlanta, range from 0.20 to 0.43. Perceived
incivilities at the community level overlap enough with crime to lend
support for Hunter's proposal that the two may nonrecursively influence
each other, even after controlling for common structural origins.
Comparable analyses from multiple cities using assessed incivilities are
needed.

Land-use features. Using our 1981 general index of assessed incivilities,
which was based on information from 66 Baltimore neighborhoods
(Taylor et al., 1985), we were able to separate signs of social and physical
incivility from indicators of residential versus nonresidential land-use mix.
(The resulting component loadings appear in endnote 11.) These results
suggested that signs of incivility could be discriminated from land-use and
block layout patterns and that indicators of signs of incivility converged as
expected.

We were similarly successful in Baltimore and Philadelphia using street
block data and more rigorous analytic techniques. In the early 1990s,
Barbara Koons, Ellen Kurtz, and Jack Greene collected onsite information
from a large number of blocks in Logan, a North Philadelphia
neighborhood. Using this information, along with onsite assessments from
50 Baltimore blocks collected in the late 1980s, we successfully separated
land-use mix from signs of incivility using confirmatory factor analyses
(Taylor et al., 1995). I am not aware of any other data sources available
that would permit examining connections between land-use and assessed
incivilities.[16]

Defensible space features and territorial signage. If we turn to other
microlevel features in the urban residential environment, such as
defensible space features and territorial signage (Taylor, 1988), we do not
yet know if they can be separated from signs of incivility. Multitrait,
multimethod investigations at the block and neighborhood level are
needed. Territorial signage refers to things people do to sites to show that
they own or care about them. Features may include high levels of upkeep,
intensive gardening, and signs of personal identification.

Summing discriminant validity. Is it possible to separate disorder at the
community level from community structure and crime? The answer is yes,
if we use indicators based on aggregated resident perceptions. It is not as
easy to clearly separate them if we rely on indicators from onsite
assessments. Analyses at the street block level in two different cities and at
the neighborhood level in one city show that assessed incivilities are
clearly separable from land-use features. At the community level,
discriminant validity with respect to some community features depends in
part on the type of indicator used.

At the individual level, disorder appears to be easily separable from other
constructs, such as person-environment bonds, when both constructs rely
on the same data collection instrument. Researchers have not yet
investigated connections between disorder and related constructs like
territorial signage, where the two constructs rely on different data
collection methods.

Convergent validity and multiple assessment modes

A key idea behind the multitrait, multimethod approach to validity is that
expected convergences and divergences within and between constructs,
respectively, should appear even when multiple methods provide
indicators of the same construct (Campbell and Fiske, 1959). When we
turn to multiple methods, focusing on cross-sectional or longitudinal
perspectives, we see incivilities indicators from different data sources
failing to converge as expected.

Using cross-sectional data described in detail in Perkins and Taylor
(1996), I completed an exploratory principal-components analysis of
indicators of signs of incivility and crime. The analysis suggested two
independent dimensions.[17] The results appear in exhibit 6.

These mid-1980s data come from analyses of 50 different blocks, each in a
different neighborhood in Baltimore. Three types of assessment are
included: onsite assessments by trained raters, perceptions as reported by
residents and aggregated to the block level, and coverage of crime and
incivility issues in the neighborhood as reported by local newspapers.

Unfortunately, the multitrait, multimethod matrix does not generate strong
evidence of convergent and discriminant validity independent of
assessment method. Three variables with high loadings on the first
component refer to signs of incivility: perceived social disorder, perceived
physical disorder, and assessed incivilities of on-block households. These
three high loadings suggest the first component refers to signs of incivility.
Two survey items "go together" with one of our onsite assessment
indicators. 

Regrettably, this interpretation runs into two problems. First, onsite
assessments of social incivilities--counts of people outside--do not load
strongly on the component (0.168). In addition, serious crime news,
measured from newspaper stories, does load on the component (0.639).

On the second component, the item with the highest loading is disorder
news from newspaper stories. Nonresidential assessed incivilities, groups
of young males loitering, and other crime news also load highly on the
component, as does serious crime news. In short, the second component
contains indicators of both signs of incivility and crime from two different
methods. The second component appears to favor items based on
newspaper sources.

The results from these 50 blocks in Baltimore are somewhat encouraging,
in that two survey-based disorder items and one assessment-based disorder
item appear together. However, they are discouraging because one
component seems to favor the survey items, while the second component
favors newspaper- or assessment-based items. Such results need to be
considered with great caution given the small number of cases.

The incivilities thesis, especially as stated by Wilson and Kelling and
Skogan, emphasizes the importance of changes in disorder. In 1981 and
1982, we collected survey data from residents in a random sample of
Baltimore neighborhoods and completed onsite assessments in those
neighborhoods (Taylor, 1996; Taylor and Covington, 1993). Returning to
a stratified sample of 30 of those neighborhood blocks in 1994, we
interviewed residents again and completed onsite assessments. These data
permit us to see how unexpected changes in perceived incivilities and
assessed incivilities relate. Each variable in the analysis reflects
unexpected change--1994 scores after partialling for respective 1981-82
scores. We used two survey-based measures of perceived changes in
disorder: changes in physical incivilities and changes in social incivilities.
We used two measures in assessed disorder: changes in vacant, boarded up
houses and changes in the amount of graffiti.

Exploratory principal-components analysis suggests changes in disorder
based on survey questions are relatively separate from changes based on
onsite assessments. The results appear in exhibit 7.

Two measures of changing perceptions of disorder relate closely to one
another, appearing with large loadings on the first component. Two
measures of changing physical conditions based on assessments relate
closely to one another and have high loadings on the second component.
Stated differently, the changes cluster according to the assessment method
used.

We repeated the analysis adding reactions to crime, such as changes in
avoidance. Again, the survey items related closely to one another, loading
better than 0.80 on their dimension. The two assessment items loaded
better than 0.80 on a separate dimension.

Repeating the analysis again adding unexpected changes in three
crimes--robbery, assault, and larceny--provided a diffuse pattern as well.
The crime variables went together on one dimension, the survey items
went on a different dimension, and the assessment variables clustered by
themselves. If we asked for a two- rather than three-component solution,
results became rather unclear, but we still saw the assessment-based
variables separating from the survey-based variables.[18]

These analyses using different data sources raise questions. The latter
finding regarding changes in disorder, although deserving an extremely
cautious interpretation, suggests that changes in disorder may be far less
unitary than previously thought. Neighborhoods where perceptions of
disorder were increasing were not necessarily the same neighborhoods
where on-street conditions were worsening, nor were they the same
neighborhoods where crime rates were rising.

The divergent patterns apparent in the latter analysis suggest two possible
interpretations. One is that changes in different incivilities indicators may
be driven by different processes. For example, the processes driving shifts
in residents' perceptions may be heavily influenced by media reports and
certain high-profile events in the neighborhood, whereas changes in
vacancies may be driven by longer term trends in local housing and job
markets.

Another possible interpretation is that perceptions do not immediately
respond to ongoing changes in the locale. The perceptions may be "sticky"
and slow to incorporate more recent events.[19]

Conclusions on measurement questions

This portion of the paper addresses three measurement questions raised by
the incivilities thesis.

The first and second questions are: Can we separate incivilities indicators
from related constructs? Are incivilities at the neighborhood level distinct
from community structure and community crime rates? The answer to
both questions is yes if we use aggregated indicators based on residents'
perceptions. If we use assessed indicators, we have more trouble
separating them from community structure and crime, but we can separate
them from land-use features. At the individual level, perceived incivilities
appear to be easily separable from related constructs, such as attachment to
place. In short, discriminant validity for survey-based items appears
acceptable, but not so for assessment-based items.

The third question asked about cross-sectional and longitudinal convergent
validity is: Do incivilities indicators based on different data collection
methods converge as expected? The data examined suggest they do not.
Cross-sectionally, at the street block and neighborhood levels, indicators
tend to converge as much by method as by construct. When we examine
longitudinal data focusing on unexpected changes in neighborhoods over
an extended period, such as a decade, indicators also cluster by method.
Other researchers using shorter time frames have observed comparable
patterns.

Implications for policy practice and theory

There are four approaches to gauging the amount of disorder in a locale:
surveys, onsite assessments of conditions by trained raters, census data,
and archival data. Most of the work on the incivilities thesis has used
indicators based on the first two methods.

Incivilities theorizing, as described above, has moved through several
levels over time, with a current focus on neighborhood dynamics. At the
neighborhood level, we have a choice of how to measure incivilities,
relying either on aggregated survey responses or assessments of local
conditions. Theoretically, which is more appropriate?

One can argue for aggregated survey responses because those capture
residents' current views, subject only to the limitations of the sampling
and surveying processes. They provide a snapshot of how residents gauge
the problems in the community, and reveal the collective view.

Alternatively, one can argue for reliance on assessments. For example, by
counting boarded-up houses, abandoned stores, and graffiti, raters can
present conditions on neighborhood streets subject only to the limitations
linked to the raters' schedule of observations and inter-rater agreement.

Practitioners and policymakers evaluating initiatives geared to reducing
incivilities need to choose the type of data on which they will rely for
evaluating program impact. The foregoing analyses suggest which type
they choose will have important implications for their evaluations.

If they choose survey-based assessments, they are focusing on an outcome
more readily separable from fundamental community fabric. It should be
easier to achieve changes on survey-based outcomes than on
assessment-based outcomes because the former are somewhat more
independent. If they choose survey-based measures, they can more easily
argue that incivilities are a problem separate from neighborhood fabric and
neighborhood crime and can more easily produce results.

The analyses presented, however, in particular the investigation into
changes in incivilities, warn against assuming that conditions have
improved just because residents think they have. Over a long period, such
as a decade, it appears that different incivility indicators tap into different
pathways of neighborhood change. Resident perceptions might worsen
while neighborhood conditions improve, or the reverse could occur. Other
researchers, using much shorter timeframes of 1 to 2 years, also find
divergence between perceived incivility changes and assessed incivility
changes (Giacomazzi et al., 1996; Popkin et al., 1996). If evaluators rely
on survey-based incivility indicators, they may more readily find resident
views improved but will not necessarily know how conditions have
actually changed.

In sum, what we know about disorder and how to remedy these conditions
depends on the theory used to frame the issue and the type of indicators
chosen. The version of the theory receiving strongest empirical support to
date is the Wilson, Garofalo, and Laub, individual-level theory. In
addition, the disorder indicators it views as appropriate--survey-based
reports of neighborhood problems--have demonstrated the expected
convergent and discriminant validity patterns. These indicators point most
clearly to a separate problem deserving separate policy attention. The
intervention focus suggested by the thesis calls for identifying individuals
who are more troubled by local conditions than their neighbors and
intervening with those individuals.

By contrast, when we move to the later versions of the incivilities thesis,
shifting from an individual to a community focus, and from a
cross-sectional to a longitudinal perspective, empirical support is much
weaker and measurement questions persist. To date, we have no
longitudinal tests of the independent contributions of incivilities to
neighborhood changes in fear, crime, or structure. In addition, it is not
clear if we should rely on onsite assessments or aggregated resident
perceptions to gauge incivilities. The two types of indicators appear to
reflect different, relatively independent dynamics and fail to demonstrate
convergent validity when indicators from more than one method are used.

Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers also may want to widen the
scope of inquiry into incivilities to consider two additional issues: a group
that has been excluded in previous studies and a concept that has been
ignored.

Researchers have overlooked many others who use neighborhoods besides
residents: business personnel working at local establishments; or service
providers passing through, such as delivery drivers, cable technicians, or
phone company personnel. Researchers have not considered their
perspectives: What types of local conditions draw their attention? Do they
make inferences comparable to those made by residents? Are their
conclusions markedly different? In short, are the attributions made
dependent on the type of interpreter? We have one study from
Minneapolis-St. Paul where impacts of assessed incivilities on business
personnel were the opposite of what was expected based on research with
residents (Taylor, 1997a).

Turning back to theory, researchers also have not explored the connection
between incivilities and social disorganization. An extraordinarily rich
conceptual and empirical literature exists on the latter topic (Kornhauser,
1978; Sampson 1988, 1991; Sampson and Grove, 1989). One of the
premier items used to gauge social disorganization is the presence of
unsupervised teen groups. This concern also has been labeled as a key
social incivility. Are social incivilities little more than indicators of social
disorganization, or do they refer to a related but distinct set of local
processes? How should we establish the latter processes? If we are
concerned that incivilities are little more than perceived social
disorganizing action, how do we resolve those concerns? Is the Wilson,
Garofalo, and Laub incivilities thesis no more than the psychological
counterpart of community social disorganization dynamics?

The discussion here faintly echoes the debate in the 1960s in the literature
regarding anomie, social status, and delinquency (Chilton, 1964; Gordon,
1967; Lander, 1954). Given our current concerns, if we consider the
relationship between incivilities and social disorganization, research in this
area will at least become less theoretically insular.

Portions of earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual
meetings of the American Psychological Association, New York City,
August 1995; and at the first National Institute of Justice- and Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services-sponsored conference on
"Measuring What Matters," Washington, D.C., November 1995. The
author is indebted to Bob Langworthy, who played a key role in the
genesis of this paper; Steve Edwards, whose many thoughtful comments
on these topics helped sharpen my own thinking; and Phyllis McDonald
and Ron Davis, who provided helpful comments on previous drafts. The
author received support from grants 96-IJ-CX-0067, 94-IJ-CX-0018, and
93-IJ-CX-0022 from the National Institute of Justice during the
preparation of this manuscript. Opinions expressed herein are solely the
author's and reflect neither the official policies nor the opinions of the
National Institute of Justice or the U.S. Department of Justice. Address
correspondence to RBT, Criminal Justice, Temple University, Gladfelter
Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122; V1008E@VM.TEMPLE.EDU.

Notes

1. It is not possible within the confines of this article to also review
empirical work on the impacts of physical and social incivilities or
empirical work on community policing impacts on incivilities.

2. Skogan and Maxfield's (1981) indirect victimization model also
attempts to address this question. Instead of moving beyond crime per se,
the authors discuss how crime impacts can be amplified through local
social networks.

3. Although, to my knowledge, this presentation was never published, it
significantly influenced workers in the field at that time and merits
attention here. Hunter's influence can be seen in publications like Lewis
and Maxfield (1980) and Skogan and Maxfield (1981).

4. Hunter appears to be the first to coin the term "symbols of incivility."

5. Whereas Hunter allows that residents would make inferences about
residents within the neighborhood, public agencies outside the
neighborhood, or both, Wilson and Kelling suggest that the inference
made refers to internal actors, such as other residents.

6. Unrepaired signs of incivility inspire nonserious crime initially, but
contribute to later increases in serious crime arising from offender
in-migration. Unfortunately, Wilson and Kelling fail to explain how prior
crime levels might contribute to unrepaired signs of incivility in the first
place. Their view appears to be different from Hunter's. He suggests that
crime and incivilities have the same structural origin and are
nonrecursively locked in an escalating loop.

7. Skogan's modeling of incivilities as mediating variables seems counter
to his statement that incivilities make an independent contribution to the
outcomes examined.

8. Skogan uses robbery victimization as an outcome variable, but does not
carry out analyses that use victimization as a predictor, so that its impact
can be separated from the impact of perceived incivilities.

9. The partial impact, however, exceeded the coefficient linking perceived
vandalism with assessed vandalism on the block, suggesting that onsite
incivilities may influence local crime in ways that do not involve
residents' perceptions.

10. The only previously archived data set containing extensive assessed
and perceived incivilities at the Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research is from Minneapolis-St. Paul (McPherson and
Silloway, 1986).

11. Prior to 1970, variables describing youth population related to the
stability dimension, which was sometimes referred to as the familism
dimension. From 1970 to the present, youth population relates more
closely to the race dimension. Thus, we refer to the latter as a race and
youth dimension.

12. The individual items and the principal component loadings are shown
below. The loadings show the "correlation" between the item and the
underlying, broader component. The larger the lambda, the more sizeable
the component.

13. The exploratory principal-components analyses reported here for
Baltimore and Minneapolis-St. Paul need to be interpreted with extreme
caution, given the extremely low ratios of cases to variables.

14. Although this exploratory principal-components analysis has an
acceptable ratio of cases to variables (216:9), it is problematic in that
socioeconomic status and racial composition have only one indicator
variable each. Thus, these components cannot be clearly defined.
Nonetheless, we have three perceived indicators of incivilities which
provide a relatively clear definition. 

15. Removing Seattle from the analysis, because its more than 5,000 cases
drove the analysis, and reanalyzing the remaining 2,893 cases, produced
slightly different results. Most notably, education almost reached a sizable
negative loading (-0.39) on the incivilities component, suggesting that low
socioeconomic status and perceived neighborhood problems are weakly
related. However, the incivilities indicators continued to load tightly
together.

16. The Greenberg et al. (1982) data set from Atlanta contains perceived
incivilities along with land-use information. But, it does not contain
information on assessed incivilities.

17. Strictly speaking, principal-components analysis extracts linear
composites, not underlying dimensions. These results should be viewed
cautiously because the ratio of variables to cases does not reach the
recommended ratio of 1:10.

18. Some researchers might argue that we should have tried a solution
rotating to correlated components rather than orthogonal components and
simple structure. 

Oblique rotations raise extremely serious concerns about construct clarity
(Gordon, 1968). Furthermore, looking at the factor loadings suggested
clear orthogonality between the two components noted in exhibit 7.

19. I am indebted to Pam Lattimore and Jack Riley from the National
Institute of Justice for this suggestion.

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-------------------------------

Meeting Two: May 13, 1996

Constituency Building and Urban Community Policing

David E. Duffee, Reginald Fluellen, and Thomas Roscoe

Policing, constituencies, and social capital

The institution of policing is undergoing a shift toward greater
responsiveness to the variable demands for service enunciated by
subdivisions within jurisdictions and toward greater concern for strategies
to prevent or reduce crime. Increasing attention is being paid to whether
and how the police can contribute to the quality of life in neighborhoods
through the adoption of these strategies (Bayley, 1994).

This change in policing has been gradual and fitful. Harbingers of the
current ideas for community policing and problem solving first emerged in
the late 1960s (Sherman et al., 1973; Toch, 1969), and current strategies
are in part incremental adjustments to two decades of evaluation research
that challenged the core strategies of professional law enforcement: street
patrol, rapid response to calls, and expert investigation (Bayley, 1994: 3).

The current policing adjustments in organization and service strategy are
not isolated innovations by one slice of government. Other public-sector
institutions have also responded to criticism about insensitivity to
differential demands by various segments of their service domains and to
the ineffectiveness of large, centralized service bureaucracies (Osborne
and Gaebler, 1992). Partnerships between neighborhoods and government
have been attempted in a number of policy sectors (Hallman, 1984). The
police share in the concern for greater governmental responsiveness, but
they did not invent it.

Among the more common elements in new policing strategies are those
that Bayley (1994: 105) summarizes with the acronym CAMPS:
consultation (with citizens about needs); adaptation (through more flexible
resource allocation); mobilization of citizens (to share the tasks of
producing public safety); and problem solving (to address the proximate
causes of repeat disturbances).

These elements of community and problem-solving policing vary
considerably across implementations. Two of these elements, consultation
and mobilization, are not entirely within the control of the police. These
will not be successful simply on the basis of what the police do. They will
also be affected by historical patterns of citizen consultation with the
police or other centralized authorities and by residents' prior experiences
with mobilizing to achieve collective ends, with or against the police, and
with other partners or against other targets.

Some areas in a city and some citizens are more skilled than others in the
tasks of consulting and therefore can marshal more of the resources
necessary for mobilization than others. Current research on new policing
strategies indicates that the police are least effective in working with the
neighborhoods that are most in need of greater and more effective police
service, partly because typical consultation and mobilization strategies are
least effective in these areas (Skogan, 1990).

Consultation with residents about neighborhood problems and preferences
and mobilization of residents to implement programs are critical, civic
activities (Cortes, 1993; McKnight, 1995; Stoecker, 1994), but
government has had a poor track record in prior attempts (Warren et al.,
1974). Government agencies, including the police, are concerned about
losing control (Lipsky, 1980). They usually channel citizen consultation in
ways that will be most convenient for the agency and seek to direct rather
than facilitate mobilization (Weingart et al., 1994; Warren, 1976).

Whether and how the police now engage in consultation and mobilization
should not be taken lightly. In any public endeavor, one must begin with
the assumption that harm as well as good can be done and that beneficent
intent may often have harmful consequences. If consultation and
mobilization are critical elements in the development of an active
citizenry, the police may promote more than police aims by supporting
such activities. But, at the same time, they can undermine more than police
goals by doing it poorly.

The police can build community, but they can also destroy it. They can
destroy it directly by actions that fail to engage residents in the
coproduction of public order. They can destroy it indirectly and
inadvertently by providing disappointing experiences in civic partnership,
thereby reducing the future supply of energy for collective problem
solving, or contributing to narrow and incomplete definitions of
neighborhood problems. Some of the strongest enemies of community
would benefit greatly if the "community problem" were seen only as the
result of residents' characteristics and behaviors--such as criminality and
crime--rather than also the result of policies that draw resources away from
the communities.

This paper takes a deeper look at the community side of community
policing strategies by examining whether CAMPS can contribute to
community building. It examines the extent to which police encourage
constituency building and constituency behavior in neighborhoods. It
frames that examination by analyzing the especially difficult task of
constituency building in the poorest, highest crime, urban areas.

The main argument is that the police face an uphill, but not impossible,
battle in fostering constituency behavior. Arrayed against their efforts are
the political economies of urban areas, which traditionally favor some city
interests and neighborhoods over others. This traditional tilt in city
governance is described as the "urban struggle." Within this struggle,
certain beliefs about what is normal and appropriate have been
institutionalized, providing some urban actors advantage over others.

The argument is presented in five sections. This section, "Policing,
Constituencies, and Social Capital," reviews the historical context in
which the police work for community order and introduces the concepts of
constituency and social capital. "The Urban Struggle" outlines this issue,
its key participants, and recent shifts in the urban struggle that provide
potential for city government partnerships with neighborhoods.
"Constituency Building in Controlled Communities" examines seven
critical variables in constituency building in poor neighborhoods. "The
Police and Sustained Community" illustrates how community policing
may influence those variables for better or worse. "Prospects and
Strategies for Sustaining Constituency" concludes by reviewing the
preferences of different parties in the urban struggle for police impact on
community variables and sketches some strategies for the police that
would make constituency building more likely.

Although the police are often genuinely unaware of the nature of the urban
struggle, they have played a part in it. Indeed, the traditional policing
strategies of patrol, rapid response, and investigation (along with
centralization) were devised by police executives as their response to the
demands of the more powerful, politically connected parties to the urban
struggle.

The police and the rest of local government may, in fact, change their
strategic plan and change sides in the struggle to define the quality of
urban living. But they will not do so successfully without understanding
the role urban politics has played in the last 50 years and the great forces
arrayed against significant change that have been produced by that
tradition (Byrum, 1992; Logan and Molotch, 1987; Skogan, 1990:
172- 173).

The reconfiguration of police strategies and missions should be seen as a
small but significant part of the broader struggle to reshape public and
private administration. On the one side are significant attempts to be more
responsive and more humane to employees and to citizens or customers
(e.g., French and Bell, 1995: 236- 253; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). On
the other side are major pressures for the privatization of wealth, the
reduction of public services, and the minimization of the public's bottom
line (Bayley, 1994: 144; Dyckman, 1996; French and Bell, 1995:
250- 251).

The outcome of these counterpressures will be the result of a long-term,
not a short-term, struggle. It is doubtful that many police leaders, or city
leaders in general, have sufficient staying power to adopt a long-term
perspective (Wycoff and Skogan, 1993: 87- 88). But without greater
appreciation of the meaning of consultation and mobilization in urban
communities, the police can engage in a number of short-term
programmatic efforts and achieve short-term successes on measures of
public order while contributing nothing positive in the long term to the
quality of urban life.

The frequent lack of connection between short-term innovation and
long-term change is mainly explained by the ability of the forces that are
against neighborhood livability to coopt citizen programs and steer them
toward the achievement of greater private gain (Logan and Molotch, 1987;
Stoecker, 1994). The sustainability of neighborhood improvements is in
large measure explained by the creation, nurture, and institutionalization
of constituencies that build neighborhood life (Castells, 1983).

Police constituencies

Police constituencies in urban settings can be conceived with varying
levels of complexity. Some early conceptions, for example, simply
designated four primary interest groups: the general public, the court work
group, local government officials, and levels within the police department
(Whitaker et al., 1982). The approach taken here will be broader in some 
respects and narrower in others.

Constituents are recognized as part of a polity and therefore have a hand in
shaping policy by selecting representatives to formulate or implement
policy. Constituents express concerns about the public agenda that must be
taken into account. They can exercise that influence directly or indirectly,
periodically or continuously, formally or informally. The constituents
whose expectations are most accounted for often may not be the most
visible in their exertion of influence.

Police constituencies can be identified narrowly by observing only those
persons who or groups that take a direct and visible interest in police
behavior or more broadly by designating those who have an interest in
shaping the quality of life in urban systems, for which the police provide a
primary function. This paper will take the broader approach, under the
assumption that those actors who shape the city shape the police.

This discussion of police constituency will be narrower than others
because it will focus on community constituencies in urban settings--the
groups that shape the meaning of living in cities. Although definitions of
community vary, they tend to focus on residential areas or neighborhoods
in which people unrelated by family or organizational membership carry
out the tasks of daily living (Hallman, 1984; Lyon, 1987; Warren, 1978).
The focus will be on the actors whose expectations shape the quality of
urban living space and the role that the police are to play in contributing to
that quality.

Expectations of police officers and citizens can be analyzed in terms of
immediate situational cues that predict decisions in that specific encounter
(Worden et al., 1995), but these are not directly relevant to community
constituencies. The expectations of interest here are those that contribute
to how the police participate in the definition of community. Most of these
are not expectations of individuals interacting on the street but the
expectations institutionalized in structural relations and cultural
understandings. These expectations include those built into police roles by
recruitment, training, and evaluation criteria; the expectations of mothers
that their children will be safe in the neighborhood; and the expectations
of real estate developers that a proposal for a new office complex will be
accepted as a benefit to everyone in the city. In other words, the
expectations most relevant are those built into the structure and traditions
of city life.

Although expectations at this level are not as variable and fluid as those
related to individual encounters, they are not set in stone. The primary
actors in structuring urban communities are not simply playing out a script
of preordained expectations; they act on the basis of them, but they also
struggle to maintain them and interpret particular proposals or actions as
consistent with their general expectations. Which expectations apply may
not always be clear since cultures and traditions, particularly in diverse
and open societies, may contain contradictory elements competing for
enactment. Even specific actors may have difficulty articulating which
expectations apply in determining what to do about particular urban issues.

It is in this context that Hope (1995: 22) and Goldstein (1987) interpret
changes in crime prevention and policing strategies not as changes in
scientific theories about crime control but as the outcomes of political
struggles for the definition of community. For example, crime prevention
strategies have varied over time in their conceptualization of offenders and
victims as community members. In the 1960s, crime prevention strategies
considered offenders as community members with some claims on those
responsible for shaping crime control, while more recent views are less
likely to see offenders as constituents--as part of the community--with
legitimate expectations of influence. Similarly, victims traditionally have
been ignored in shaping crime prevention policy but have recently gained
legitimacy as constituents (Hope, 1995: 66- 67).

Constituency and social capital

Constituencies are not clients receiving services (McKnight, 1995), but are
people actively engaged in defining the processes of their governance.
Constituents have an active role in the inputs to policy. They are heard
when goals are set and alternatives are weighed. People assume the
obligations of constituency when they feel they are a part of local life and
are connected to the rest of society (Alinsky, 1969: 40; Cortes, 1993).
Putnam has argued that the quality of public life and the performance of
public institutions are linked to structures for and traditions of civic 
engagement (1995: 3).

This general observation has appeared relevant to the control of crime
since the most frequent conclusions about crime prevention activity are
that they are best implemented when integrated with existing community
associations and they are least successful in areas with little associational
life (Bursik and Grasmick, 1993: 154). Whether individuals do something
about crime is not related to the personal relevance of crime to them;
instead it is related to their personal involvement in communal activities
(Skogan and Maxfield, 1981: 226- 227).

Putnam's term for the "features of social organization, such as networks,
norms, and social trust, that facilitate coordination and cooperation for
mutual benefit" is social capital (1995: 4). A community organizer in
Texas has defined the same concept as "a measure of how much
collaborative time and energy people have for each other" (Cortes, 1993:
17).

Putnam's analysis of a wide variety of joining behavior indicates that the
United States has suffered a steady and serious erosion of social capital
since World War II (1995: 4). This drop can be seen in all classes of
people and all regions of the country. He interprets this drop as a
generational effect; people born prior to 1940 are aging out of the
population, and no group since has exhibited a similar level of 
associational behavior (1996). Life in many neighborhoods has become a
private rather than a communal affair.

While not all social capital is invested in civic engagement, civic
engagement is dependent on the stock of social capital available. A wide
range of commentators have argued that the nature of public institutions,
such as the police, is fundamentally changed when those receiving
services are not engaged in the process of defining the nature of services to
be delivered or problems to be solved (Alinsky, 1969: 55; Lipsky, 1980;
Posner, 1990: 17; Putnam, 1995; Spergel, 1976: 90). One community
organizer hypothesizes that any progress with poverty or other urban ills is
dependent on the creation and nurturing of neighborhood-level institutions
that can mediate between the private lives of neighbors and the public
institutions of the state (Cortes, 1993: 23). Another experienced organizer
asserts that some areas are too bereft of associations to constitute a
community and that constituencies with the capacity to define or take
action on community issues such as crime cannot exist in these areas
(Delgado, 1986: 83).

While social capital is declining throughout the United States, it is at its
lowest in poor, diverse, urban neighborhoods (Wilson, 1987). These
neighborhoods contribute disproportionately to crime and victimization
and are the areas most in need of new policing initiatives such as
community policing (Buerger, 1994; Grinc, 1994). However, these
neighborhoods are also those least able (and at times least willing) to
participate with the police in the coproduction of public safety (Skogan,
1990). Without sufficient social capital, they often lack the processes and
structures that support constituency behaviors (Cortes, 1993; McKnight,
1995). Policing initiatives to prevent crime in such areas are particularly
problematic--often engendering no citizen involvement at all or increasing,
rather than reducing, dissension within the neighborhood (Skogan, 1990).
Before the police begin to engage such neighborhoods, the special
difficulties of these localities must be understood. The police have
traditionally played a role, albeit a minor one, in the reduction of
constituency building in such neighborhoods. The difficulties of
constituency building in these "controlled neighborhoods" (Alinsky, 1969;
Reitzes and Reitzes, 1982) can only be appreciated in relation to the
broader urban struggle in which these neighborhoods have generally been
the losers.

The urban struggle

Skogan and Maxfield (1981: 238) assert that most programs, research, and
theory about fear of crime and victimization have focused on the
residential neighborhood as the arena for action. A more recent review
suggests that policy and research attention has not changed in the
intervening years (Hope, 1995).

There are severe dangers in equating the target of program goals (better
neighborhoods) with the locus of effective actions toward those goals
(e.g., crime prevention should focus on problems within neighborhoods).
For example, if we focus on the exertion of social control within a
neighborhood, we may miss processes by which some neighborhoods
control crime by funneling it into other neighborhoods (Byrum, 1992).

The progenitor of much community organizing in the United States, Saul
Alinsky, said that the two major failures of typical approaches to
neighborhood problems were the failure to recognize the interdependence
of problems and the failure to understand that neighborhood life is
influenced by forces that transcend the neighborhood (Alinsky, 1969: 57).
While highly critical of Alinsky's strategies for avoiding these failures, the
preeminent scholar of urban social movements, Manuel Castells would
agree with him about tendencies of American attempts to improve
neighborhoods: (1) they tend to occur at the level where the problem is
experienced without regard to the broader context, (2) they tend to focus
on single issues isolated from other related objectives, and (3) they are
organized locally without regard for linking neighborhoods to external
agencies and resources (Castells, 1983: 123; see similar list in Boyte,
1980: 35).

Understanding the neighborhood as a product of local and nonlocal forces
is critical in analyzing what a number of researchers and organizers have
called the urban struggle. As Logan and Molotch put it, "Neighborhood
futures are determined by the ways in which entrepreneurial pressures
from outside intersect with internal material stakes and sentiments" (1987:
123). While disorder in neighborhoods has proximate, neighborhood
causes, its roots are embedded in "capitalism, racism, and the emerging
role of the U.S. in the international division of labor" (Skogan, 1990: 172;
see also Hallman, 1984: 261; Hope, 1995: 24).

In Castells' view, the interaction of these forces in urban settings is best
understood as a constant struggle because the quality of city life at any
point in time is a product of different groups' interests and social values
vying for influence in the use of urban space. The process of change is
conflictual because some of these interests and values are contradictory,
and the process is dialectical because the opposition of forces produces a
trajectory of action in the struggle that is unintended by any single actor or
coalition of actors (1983: xviii).

While the outcomes of the struggle are not intended by any single group,
this does not mean that the problems are not the product of policies, rather
than impersonal forces (Wilkins, 1991: 57- 70). The primary threat to
neighborhoods, say Logan and Molotch (1987: 111), is not urbanization
but "organizations and institutions whose routine functioning reorganize 
urban space" (see also Castells, 1983: 12; Warren, 1976: 9- 14). The urban
struggle is not predetermined but open (Castells, 1983: 72), not inexorable
but manageable (Bratton, 1995). But the openness and manageability also
imply that prior failures, especially in the poorest neighborhoods, are
largely the product of policy choices. Poverty and crime, or at least their
concentration, have been created. Arguments to the contrary are most
often put forth by two parties: the currently dominant actors in the urban
struggle who enjoy the greatest benefit from the current use of urban space
(Castells, 1983: xvii) and the exhausted and apathetic who have suffered
the greatest costs of the current use of urban space (Cortes, 1993).

The principal competing values for the use of space are those of exchange
value and use value. Exchange value operates on the premise that owners
of city space or investors in city development should be able to extract as
much profit as possible from the use of urban space. Exchange value
therefore places a premium on high-density usage and population growth.
Use value rests on the premise that those living in urban space should have
accessible services to meet their needs for daily survival, enjoy networks
of informal social support, and share symbols of security and trust (Logan
and Molotch, 1987: 103). Use value places a premium on livability or
community.

Exchange values are typically championed by interests organized in large
institutions such as corporations, banks, and political parties. Use values
are typically championed by grassroots movements in neighborhoods and
citizens' organizations. Therefore, the urban struggle also typically
includes a conflict over the form of decision processes. Use value
adherents tend to push for increased autonomy and power through
grassroots democracy, while exchange value interests stress the
advantages of centralized and expert decisionmaking (Castells, 1983:
12- 48; Bruyn and Meehan, 1987: 24).

The primary actors in the struggle

The primary actors in the urban struggle are State authorities (including
local government), citizens' movements, and exchange value interests,
such as large capital interests, developers, and landlords (Cunningham and
Kotler, 1983: xxi; Logan and Molotch, 1987: 47; Stoecker, 1994: 12).
None of these are consistently unified groups, always acting in concerted
fashion with other members of the same group.

Exchange value interests are fragmented in a variety of ways, including
their relative commitment to place. Large capital can be moved with
electronic speed in response to advantages in international markets and has
little, and increasingly less, commitment to any particular place. In
contrast, utilities and local landlords can hope to influence local markets
but cannot leave (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 39). Within the same space,
various capital interests will compete with each other and forge alignments
with other urban actors to advance their own projects over the proposals of
their competitors (Stoecker, 1994: 15). Nevertheless, all capital interests
will fight to defend the dominant rules of the city game. They expect free
market assumptions to be seen as natural and right. They expect the
negative byproducts of capital exchange to be externalized and paid by
other actors, either by the State or by neighborhood residents. They expect
that most external benefits, such as the increased value of land after
development, will accrue to capital. In other words, economic elites agree
that acceptable debate will take place within the exchange value
framework (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 64).

The American state is likewise separated into Federal, State, and local
systems and a host of public authorities that buffer elected officials from
direct responsibility for and criticism about many urban planning functions
and services. It is the peculiar nature of American federalism that all three
levels of government operate conjointly and simultaneously in the  urban
struggle. Local government is not necessarily closer, in the sense of being
more responsive to neighborhood interests, than State and Federal
agencies (Grozdins, 1963; Stoecker, 1994: 90- 140; Warren et al., 1974).
All three provide direct services as well as planning and coordinating
functions. Despite competition and conflicts among and within
governmental structures, government officials, like various members in
the market, tend to share and defend basic underlying premises. For agents
of the State, the primary expectation is their control of formal
decisionmaking (Lipsky, 1980; Miller et al., 1977: 169- 174). Local
government is likely to respond to neighborhood pressures, capital
projects, and State and Federal policies in relation to how those initiatives
are perceived to enhance or constrict local decision discretion. The local
government generally favors exchange value interests and defends
exchange value assumptions, but it is vulnerable to counterclaims from
neighborhoods because it must maintain legitimacy. If city growth
strategies visibly threaten the livability of neighborhoods, the local
government may become sympathetic to calls for greater attention to use
value in decisions about urban space.

Citizens' groups also vary in several ways. Their objectives vary from
racist and reactionary to progressive (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 37).
Some citizens' groups are organized around public issues that are not
place specific (e.g., Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Ralph Nader and his
consumer protection group, civil rights) but are apparently concerned with
resisting corporate or government power or policies in general. Others are
place specific and have been identified loosely as the neighborhood
movement (Boyte, 1980: 7). The neighborhood movement, in turn, varies
in its philosophy and strategies for action. Neighborhood organizations
can seek to defend specific localities against encroachment of new
members and lifestyles or can seek a greater share of resources for all
neighborhood residents (Skogan, 1988). Neighborhood organizations can
compete with each other or form coalitions to gain power against other
urban actors (Boyte, 1980: 148- 166).

The growth machine

Since the 1950s market forces have overwhelmed the countervailing
forces in the city (Byrum, 1992; Cunningham and Kotler, 1983: xxi). In
the urban struggle, the economic elite have prevailed. As a result, the
concentration of wealth has increased while the payment for infrastructure
costs is less shared. The fastest growing industries pay less for labor than
the declining industries. On average, real wages are down while profits are
rising. The proportion of the population that is poor is increasing while the
proportion that is middle class is decreasing. The proportion of tax
revenues that come from corporations declined by about two-thirds
between 1960 and 1984 (Faux, 1987: 28).

Capital interests have a number of advantages in the urban struggle that
help explain these outcomes. In terms of understanding the expectations of
constituencies in the urban struggle, the economic elite have a strategic
advantage in choosing how to participate. Capital interests can participate
directly in city politics by backing a particular political party or candidate,
but they can also take more indirect routes, such as relying on influence in
government boards and committees or leveraging favorable government
policies through control of the economy. The state will usually act to
please capital interests under the fear (and often the threat) that capital
interests will otherwise go elsewhere (Stoecker, 1994: 12- 14).

Capital interests' expectation that indirection is sufficient is often met. For
example, most government urban planning has favored capital interests
over neighborhood interests despite legislation to the contrary. Eighty
percent of urban renewal funds have been used for economic development
rather than housing, and urban renewal programs have destroyed more
housing than they have built (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 147- 179).

The economic elite can also coopt community organizations, such as
preservation committees, neighborhood associations, and community
development corporations. The efforts of these organizations to promote
stability and vitality in neighborhoods can have the unintended effect of
promoting profit taking, as the value of space becomes more attractive for 
outside investors (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 139; Stoecker, 1994: 240).

Long-term negative effects of short-term improvements in neighborhoods
are particularly likely when collective action by residents is not guided by
knowledge of the urban struggle and therefore does not include limits on
exchange value in revitalization plans. This oversight is frequent when
neighborhoods rely on interpretations for urban problems that are
consistent with the exchange value framework--that the market should
determine how neighborhoods fare (Kling and Posner, 1990: 34; Boyte,
1980: 172).

The coalition of interests seeking exchange value in the use of city space
has been called the growth machine (Swanstrom, 1985: 25; Logan and
Molotch, 1987: 34). Growth machines can be conservative, in which case
government aids and abets the maximization of profit without much regard
for externalized costs. Growth machines can also be liberal, in which case
government both reallocates through taxes some of the benefits from
growth for the development of neighborhood services and also controls
how growth will take place (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 67- 69;
Swanstrom, 1985: 11- 34).

The United States is currently in an era of conservative growth politics, in
which the prevailing view is that government social programs are too
costly and government controls have failed. This includes the notion that
social science understanding of community order is faulty and that city
development should be left to the marketplace (Hope, 1995: 41).

Under the conservative growth machine, legitimate understandings of
community problems are limited to those that concentrate on the
organization and behavior of neighborhood residents. Problems are viewed 
as the product of internal disorganization within the neighborhood.
Policies and programs that seek to enhance the internal controls in
neighborhoods will be favored, while those that examine the position of
neighborhoods in the larger urban system will be seen as off limits (Hope,
1995: 71- 72). Consequently, conservative growth machines will favor
community policing and crime prevention over changes in other policies
as means to deal with community problems so long as these programs
focus on resident behavior rather than on linking that behavior to the costs
of conservative growth policies.

Although concentrated economic power appears indomitable, there are
limits to the conservative growth machine. While a number of
commentators have characterized the current economic system as
unbridled capitalism, even the recognition of that system characteristic
may provide some limitations to the machine, since the power of capital
interests seems greatest when it goes unrecognized and unquestioned.
Dramatically visible inequality may limit continued hegemony of the
conservative growth machine.

The increasing concentration of wealth and the increasing
internationalization of the economy have created fissures in the growth
machine. Internationalization of wealth hasmeant that local economic
actors do not control investment decisions as they used to do. Local
economic leaders have less chance to share in the wealth, and local
political leaders have less chance to share in the decisionmaking (Logan
and Molotch, 1987: 201- 208; McKnight, 1995: 154). This trend has led to
calls that corporations must evaluate moves in capital in terms of
community impact (Etzioni, 1993: 127), to President Clinton's criticism of
the stock market's negative reaction to higher employment, and to
presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan's blue-collar, populist Republican
campaign. It has also led one student of crime prevention to wonder if
neighborhoods need reinvestment rather than disorder policing (Hope,
1995: 61).

Differential costs in the urban struggle

While the growth machine promises that increasing exchange value is in
everyone's interest, it does not deliver on this promise. The benefits and
costs for growth are differentially distributed, both within and across cities
(Byrum, 1992; Logan and Molotch, 1987: 70- 91). Certain neighborhoods
have been increasingly isolated from the rest of their cities and separated
from the rest of society as a result both of market forces and government
policies (Byrum, 1992: 28- 31; Hope, 1995: 73- 76; McGahey, 1986: 233;
Wilson, 1987).

Poor neighborhoods in older central cities are the most vulnerable to the
negative changes that growth politics involves. The poor are the most
likely to be displaced in renewal, and displacement is likely to break the
neighborhood connections that provide the organization for resistance
(Logan and Molotch, 1987: 112- 113). People who have the power in
inner-city neighborhoods typically live elsewhere, reducing allegiance to
use values among those with the skills and resources to object to growth
and leaving exchange values unrestrained (Comer, 1985: 69- 72; Logan
and Molotch, 1987: 132).

In neighborhoods with high concentrations of renters, living in
progressively less maintained older housing stock, these trends have led to
higher turnover of residents, less commitment to particular places, fewer 
ties among residents, and less of the social capital required for
associational structures (McGahey, 1986: 244; Wilson, 1987). These
personal and physical disorders may lead to increased fear, increased
serious crime, further erosion of resident control of public behavior, and
further reductions in neighborhood stability (Bursik and Grasmick, 1993:
15; Skogan, 1990: 3).

The predominating explanation of such neighborhoods in crime control
circles is that they are disorganized because the informal social control
once exerted by residents on each other has disappeared (Bursik and
Grasmick, 1993; Skogan, 1988: 40). But attempts to aid such
neighborhoods based on the disorganization premise have often failed. The
attempts meet with internal resistance from residents who exert
tremendous energy in organizing to survive under such circumstances
(Bursik and Grasmick, 1993: 148- 180; Reitzes and Reitzes, 1982: 343)
and are understandably suspicious of expert motivations and
interpretations of their problems. These attempts are also resisted by
external forces for whom the devalued neighborhood is an important
component of the economy of the city (Byrum, 1992: 1; Hope, 1995:
34- 40).

Within the broader view of the urban struggle, such areas are not
disorganized but controlled by external forces (Alinsky, 1969; Spergel,
1976). In controlled areas, residents' costs in time, energy, and money for
day-to-day survival are so high that there are few resources left over for
the development of social capital (Stoecker, 1994: 213- 215). "[T]hose
who have the most need to mobilize have the least time" (Stoecker, 1994:
215). As a result, there is a dearth of indigenous organizations that can
serve as bases for constituent behavior (McKnight, 1995: 154). As the
police begin to explore the meaning of community policing, such areas
often lack the associational structures that might express expectations about
policing (Grinc, 1994: 459). Bayley (1994) and Grinc (1994) ask whether
the police should have a role in creating such structures. 

Potential realignment of the local State

It is usually only in alliance with the political elite that neighborhoods can
obtain the resources necessary to promote the use value of space and
disrupt the growth machine. While the local State usually sides with
capital interests, it does not always do so. The growth machine is not
always strong enough to form a regime (Swanstrom, 1985: 36). Local city
government is particularly vulnerable to counterclaims, since it must
maintain legitimacy through some attention to use value or the collective
consumption needs of residents (Stoecker, 1994: 14- 15).

Historically, increased demands on the State to ameliorate the problems
left in the wake of capital accumulation have produced other problems,
such as a larger and more oppressive State bureaucracy (Bruyn and
Meehan, 1987: 2; Lipsky, 1980). As State services have grown,
governments have ignored or even destroyed communities in the effort to
provide services to individuals (Etzioni, 1993: 1- 20; McKnight, 1995;
Spergel, 1976). Citizens' movements may then organize against
government as well as, or instead of, against the economic elite (Boyte,
1980: 7).

Until recently, the urban police component of the expanded service State
has been legalistic policing. It emerged in the 1920s and 1930s as
progressive politicians aligned with capital interests sought to wrest
control of city hall from ethnic neighborhoods (Haller, 1971; for a related
court example, see Levine, 1972). The result, according to Kelling, has
been a model of crime control that removed access to law from the citizens
policed (1995: 13). While the typical portrayal of legalistic policing is that
it has been removed from politics, the notion of removal has been an
interpretation fostered by the growth machine. Since the progressive
reforms of city government have generally favored growth machine
objectives (Stoecker, 1994), legalistic policing has removed the police
from the counterclaims of neighborhoods on central authority (Skogan,
1990: 86). The police job has been to maintain order without changing the
dominant direction of the urban political economy toward economic
growth and away from neighborhood quality of life.

Beginning in the 1970s, there have been halting but repeated attempts to
make government more responsive to neighborhood constituents, often
under the notion of partnerships between neighborhoods and government
service organizations with broader jurisdictions (Hallman, 1984: 272).
This trend is borrowed to some extent from the quality movement in
private firms and the active client movements in education and medicine
(Fleissner et al., 1991: 9- 10).

The police have been involved in this trend since its inception (Couper and
Lobitz, 1991; Fleissner et al., 1991; Sherman et al., 1973). But the forces
arrayed against the restructuring of policing (or other aspects of
government) in partnership arrangements are many. These include
bureaucratic standardization, the long isolation of government
bureaucracies from service recipients, and professional or specialist
antagonism to lay participation in deciding actions to be taken (Bayley,
1994; Hallman, 1984: 272; Lipsky, 1980).

In the police case, the internal blockages include a midmanagement
trained in the autocratic, but ineffective, control of officers and wedded to
particular techniques of crime control (Bayley, 1994; Kelling and Bratton,
1993; van Maanen, 1974) and a host of expectations built into police
recruiting, promotion, supervision, and evaluation systems (Goldstein,
1987: 13). The external blockages include a police organization structure
that is unfamiliar with the process of improving linkages with other
organizations, such as neighborhood groups, in voluntary exchanges (Hall
et al., 1977); a deeply ingrained association of neighborhood ties with
corruption; and a tendency to grant legitimacy only to community leaders
associated with the growth coalition.

The result is that "police departments have paid . . . little attention to the
education and inclusion of community residents in their transition to
community policing. Indeed, in most cases, community policing is an
isolated police department phenomenon including neither community
residents nor other city agencies" (Grinc, 1994: 441). If this assessment
remains accurate, then community policing would be only another sop to
the growth machine--a means to pay lipservice to the needs of
neighborhoods while city business progresses as usual (Manning, 1988).

The police and other segments of government may restructure and realign
with neighborhoods in opposition to the forces of centralization and
capital growth. The fissures in the growth coalition, as described above,
may well provide an opportunity for a different form and function of
policing than that provided by progressive urban reform and professional
law enforcement.

While the political opportunity structure (Stoecker, 1994: 22- 23) may be
more open in many cities than in the past to alliances between
neighborhoods and the State, the most likely predictions are that police 
bureaucracy will find a way to interpret community policing in ways that
are the least challenging to its internal structure and that exchange value
interests in the urban struggle will find ways to bend community policing
to its objectives, contrary to neighborhood desires and independent of
policing intentions.

The extent to which community policing and related efforts at crime
prevention represent a true realignment of government with neighborhoods
is dependent on the extent to which community policing is a part of, rather
than a substitute for, reinvestment in neighborhoods, and to which
community policing facilitates neighborhood constituency building, rather
than simply supplying another set of services to neighborhoods.

The strength of these twin characteristics can be examined in existing
community policing programs. But this search is more accurately
conducted after an elaboration of the nature of constituency building in
controlled neighborhoods.

Constituency building in controlled communities

What would the reorganization of controlled communities require? How
can neighborhoods be less determined by nonlocal forces, have more
influence over those forces (or at least how those forces will affect the
neighborhood), and become more livable, or provide greater evidence of
use value premises in the use of space?

A search of the neighborhood movement and neighborhood revitalization
literature provides a host of desirable outcome variables--characteristics of 
improved livability--such as greater participation in the labor market,
greater residential stability, greater access to services and commodities for
daily living, and reduced disease, disorder, and crime. But the same
literature provides less guidance about processes of neighborly and
organizational interactions and the structures that support and maintain
these processes. Yet all community literature agrees that outcomes are
dependent on altered processes and structures, first to achieve
improvement on these outcome indicators and second to institutionalize
their attainment--to reproduce them on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, descriptions of these neighborhood structural variables are
often embedded in accounts of change in which the focal point is the end
result rather than how it was accomplished. Definitions of neighborhood
qualities therefore remain relatively amorphous, or defined differently by
individual studies. Evidence bearing on their enactment is anecdotal rather
than systematic.

One consequence of this relative inattention to neighborhood structure is
an overconcern with outcomes as opposed to the means of achieving them.
This is hazardous if long-term improvement is desired. As W. Edwards
Deming has said of results-based management, it is like driving a car with
your eye on the rear-view mirror. If that is true of organization 
management, it is also true of neighborhood organizing. The neighborhood
remains a black box.

The deficiencies in this plan are well-known in economic revitalization
efforts. Housing renovation in dilapidated areas fails to improve housing
stock or long-term housing value because the area cannot compete with
more attractive suburban real estate. A local economy is given a boost
through luring to an area a new enterprise, which then hires from a
nonlocal labor pool and later abandons that plant as less profitable than
some other company line in another city (Byrum, 1992).

The same kinds of deficiencies are reported in early crime prevention
efforts. Advice about reducing victimization produces more fear of crime
and less neighborhood participation (Rosenbaum et al., 1986).
Neighborhood complainants about drug markets receive advice from the
police to lie low. Precinct captains who successfully involve neighborhood
residents in neighborhood projects are promoted out of the neighborhood
and away from neighborhood building (Weingart et al., 1994).

The police can and often do create improvements in particular areas, even
without significant participation of the residents in the area or longer term
changes in the structure of neighborhood life. But sustaining those gains
requires that other neighborhood characteristics also change.

A tentative listing of neighborhood sustainability variables and their
definitions is given in exhibit 1. These variables appear to be present in
neighborhood processes and structures that increase social capital and
transform it into constituency behavior--the collective efforts to maintain
quality of life in a neighborhood.

The list is preliminary because of the unsystematic nature of research on
neighborhood revitalization. The definitions no doubt need refinement.
Particularly troublesome is that the variables in their present state do not
seem mutually exclusive. But it is not clear from available research if this
is because they cluster empirically or because they are partially
overlapping indicators of more fundamental concepts. These variables do
appear in several different research reports on neighborhood improvement,
addressing different kinds of neighborhood problems in varying regions
and cultures. Examples to illustrate each variable are provided below.

Internal coordination

The extent to which neighborhood groups and organizations act in
concerted fashion toward solving problems has long been recognized as a
critical variable in the strengthening of neighborhoods. Internal
coordination, or unification, is the primary objective of locality
development--self-help strategies for neighborhood improvement (Warren,
1978). It also is a critical component of social action strategies, such as
those used by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) (Cortes, 1993) and
the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)
(Delgado, 1986).

Internal coordination can also be problematic or incomplete, since some
neighborhood structures can cooperate with each other without
incorporating the views and the energy of other neighborhood 
components. In President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty," for
example, there was great emphasis on the coordination of the formal
structures in a neighborhood, but these agencies systematically excluded
the residents of the neighborhood in the decisions made by the agencies
(Warren et al., 1974). More recently, crime prevention efforts have
stressed internal coordination on the informal level--better communication
among residents--without considering the connections of resident
unification with the public agencies and private organizations in the
neighborhood (Hope, 1995). Measures of internal coordination must
consider both formal and informal interactions to be complete.

Internal coordination can play a critical role in the economic viability of an
area. The Jamestown (New York) Area Labor Management Committee
(JALMC) serves as an example. Among its various objectives was
"cooperative action by union, management, and local leaders to save jobs
in plant shutdowns and to strengthen the economic base of the
community" (Meek, 1985: 142). In line with the strategy of cooperation,
an industry-wide training program was formed through the cooperation of
Jamestown Community College, the United Furniture Workers, and the
Jamestown Area Manufacturers Association. The small plants in
Jamestown all had similar needs, with training being one of the most
pressing. The plants also shared a lack of resources to effectively meet
these needs. Coordination was needed to identify mutual needs and to
utilize resources in an area to meet those needs. The community college,
which previously had little involvement in area economic concerns,
became an active partner in the struggle toward economic viability (Trist,
1986; Meek, 1985). Cummins Engine located a new diesel engine-
building plant in Jamestown in 1974, largely due to this climate of
cooperation between diverse members of the community, resulting in
1,100 new jobs for area residents (Gittell, 1992).

Although Jamestown had benefited from the areawide focus on industrial
needs, the mid- to late-1980s brought increased unemployment and a
general downturn in the quality of life. The unemployment rate in
Jamestown rose above national and State averages. Twenty percent of its
residents were on some form of public assistance (Gittell, 1992).

Problems in Jamestown were attributed to social factors that were not
addressed in the focus on the needs of area industry. An Economic
Development Committee was formed in 1986 with a broader mandate than
that of JALMC to deal with these issues. The committee included
representatives from human services, education, and downtown
development organizations and attempted to view problems holistically,
recognizing the interdependency among economic and social factors
(Gittell, 1992).

External linkages

The extent to which a neighborhood has access to nonlocal centers of
resources and expertise is critical to the viability of any locality. No
neighborhood is self-sufficient. Indeed, one of the major problems with
community revitalization efforts is the lingering but mistaken myth that
community problems are self-generated and that solutions will be only a
matter of mobilizing internal willpower and resources (Byrum, 1992). One
of the major deficiencies in the neighborhoods with the highest rates of
crime and disorder is that they become increasingly isolated from nonlocal
resources and expertise as time passes (Wilson, 1987).

Hope (1995) argues convincingly that crime prevention efforts for the last
30 years have either ignored external linkages entirely or have failed to
alter the nature of those linkages in the few instances in which they have
been viewed as important. Improving external linkages is a critical
component of all social action strategies for neighborhood improvement
(Cortes, 1993) and one of the variables least likely to be affected by
locality development or self-help approaches. Crime prevention efforts
that focus on neighborhood disorganization do not by themselves provide
neighbors with new connections to nonlocal resources (Hope, 1995).

External linkages are critical to the economic well-being of a
neighborhood. For example, neighborhood-level economies are often
dependent on the initiation of small, or "microenterprise," ventures. Butler
reports that two-thirds of all new jobs are in businesses of less than 20
employees (National Council for Urban Economic Development (CUED),
1994). Neighborhood economic revitalization strategies require sources of
funding and expertise for the new entrepreneur that are not typically
available locally. Those lacking collateral and a loan history have
difficulty attaining the capital needed for business startup costs. Also,
banks and other traditional lending institutions hesitate to extend business
loans for the small amounts of money sought by microenterprises (CUED,
1994). Aside from the issue of capital is the lack of expertise to increase
the chances of successful ventures. The following example shows how
these needs for both funding and expertise can be met.

The Detroit, Michigan, Self Employment Project is designed to promote
economic independence through self-employment and entrepreneurship
among individuals with limited resources (CUED, 1994: 37). It is operated
through the collaborative efforts of the Michigan Department of Social
Services and Wayne State University. It is intended to help residents
actualize their business ideas through assistance in a wide range of
business-related skills, including market research, public relations,
problem solving, and loan packaging. Training comes through courses,
workshops, conferences, and problem-solving clinics. Since October 1990,
199 applicants have completed the program and 101 have started their own
enterprises (CUED, 1994).

The timing of public support can be as critical as the level of support.
JALMC received a $22,500 Federal grant, which enabled it to hire a
coordinator at a critical stage in its development. In this instance, the 
Federal Government responded in a timely manner to locally supported
and engineered means of renewal. This strategically placed grant may have
played a large role in the continued growth of an organization critical to
the economic health of the city (Gittell, 1992).

Local development can be assisted by nonlocal allies in a variety of ways.
France's Chomeurs Creature program offers an innovative means of
developing entrepreneurship opportunities. Instead of collecting regular
welfare payments, qualified and motivated recipients are given a
lump-sum payment to cover startup costs for their own businesses.
Approximately 70,000 people are involved in this program. One-third of
all new French businesses get their start in this manner, and 60- 80 percent
have survived longer than 3 years (Meehan, 1987).

Limits on exchange value

Whyte (1985) distinguishes between profit maximization and profit as a
limiting factor. Etzioni's argument for a communitarian value system
(1993) includes enhancing the concern for corporate decisions' impact on
neighborhoods. Stoecker (1994) and Logan and Molotch (1987) argue that
exchange value premises must be limited by, if not replaced by, attention
to use value premises in decisions about how urban space will be used.
Byrum's analysis of housing and labor markets in Minneapolis (1992)
indicates that market forces, left unchecked, will inevitably lead to the
deterioration and isolation of some neighborhoods because the exchange
value premises of the growth machine require some spaces to be devalued
in order for profit to be maximized.

Plants can be closed not because they are operating at a loss but because
profits are not sufficiently high. In the late 1970s, U.S. Steel closed 14
plants, resulting in layoffs of 13,000 workers. It then paid $6 billion to
acquire Marathon Oil of Ohio (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982).
Youngstown, Ohio, was hit by the closing of U.S. Steel and other major
steel mill employers. By 1984, all basic steel manufacturing in
Youngstown was gone. A nearby General Motors plant also moved out.
Closings resulted in an official unemployment rate of 17 percent.
Considering those who were involuntarily retired, and those who were
only employed part time, estimates of true unemployment were as high as
33 percent (Moberg, 1985). Studies on the impact of plant closings
indicates that long-term unemployment is the result for at least one-third
of those affected. Corporations such as U.S. Steel were able to operate on
their own balance sheets with little need to consider the balance sheet for
the neighborhood (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982).

In contrast to that balance sheet dynamic, Whyte (1985) gives the example
of Bates Fabrics Company in Lewiston, Maine, an employer of 1,100
workers. The parent company had grown into a conglomerate, with
increased investments outside of textiles. Corporate decisionmakers
determined that a 15- to 20-percent return was possible on investments in
energy and natural resources. This was compared with the 5- to 7-percent
profit that could be expected from their textile operations. From the
company's standpoint, profit maximization would point toward the
conglomerate ridding itself of the textile plant. However, the community
saw the decision quite differently, given the possible social and economic
repercussions should the plant close. Local management, union leaders,
and citizens in the community were able to arrange for employees to
assume ownership and to modernize the plant (Whyte, 1985).

Neighborhood economic revitalization depends on recasting economic
precepts within a neighborhood orientation. Such strategies center on
long-term, stable growth (Gittell, 1992). Free-market benefits can be
directed toward social needs, thus avoiding both the lack of accountability
of unrestrained capitalism and the lack of flexibility of State control
(Bruyn, 1987).

Self-correcting process evaluation

A healthy, sustainable community requires neighborhood organizations
that are conscious of their place in the urban struggle and are therefore
attentive to their processes for continuing problem solving as well as for
achieving specific outcomes or solutions at any one point in time. To be
sustained, neighborhoods need organizations that learn, that are
self-evaluative, and that are concerned with renewal.

Community development corporations (CDCs) may operate in this
capacity. CDCs act as mediating structures, or "those institutions standing
between the individual in his private life and the large institutions of
public life" (Berger and Neuhaus, 1981). They were initiated in 1966, as
part of the War on Poverty. CDCs are neighborhood-based, grassroots
organizations and are funded through financial institutions, foundations,
corporations, and government programs (CUED, 1994).

CDCs have the potential to expand the professional skills and financial 
resources available to cities for neighborhood economic development by 
coordinating neighborhood opinion and providing leadership to stimulate
the development process within the community; packaging public and
private financing; assisting city planners in development planning;
investing in development projects; developing and managing development
projects; providing technical assistance; and assisting in directing city
investment within neighborhoods to achieve their greatest impact and
leverage (CUED, 1994: 4).

CDCs must be able to develop initiatives in neighborhoods that traditional
funding sources typically avoid and need the competence and direct
knowledge of the neighborhood to bring this about (Blakely, 1989). CDCs
have traditionally been involved in housing activities. In the recent past,
they have expanded their involvement to other business ventures and to
social interventions that are seen as having a positive impact on the
community.

CDCs are not the only neighborhood organizations with potential for
self-correcting process evaluation. In traditional community organizing,
social action organizations such as IAF and ACORN often provide the
most attention to development of urban political consciousness on the part
of their members and are most concerned with a thorough process
evaluation of particular projects and meetings (Delgado, 1986; Reitzes and
Reitzes, 1986). But these organizations can also become ineffective,
develop rifts between leaders and members, or become too caught up in
day-to-day service delivery or problem solving to retain their concern for
healthy communication and member commitment.

Autonomy in decisionmaking

The viability of a neighborhood depends on its ability to define its own
goals and governing structure and to control its access to, and impact
from, public and private forces (Boyte, 1980). For a neighborhood to be
sustained, it must have the autonomy to exert influence on nonlocal
decisionmakers, rather than simply accepting services and resources from
nonlocal centers of power (Cortes, 1993).

Autonomy is one of the most overlooked variables in community
revitalization efforts (Hope, 1995), but a sustained community does not
exist without auton- omy. It is critical to examine autonomy in relation to
external linkages, since autonomy, or the lack of it, indicates the
directionality in those linkages. Some neighborhoods may have access to
centrally financed services but no influence over how those services will
be defined or allocated (Spergel, 1976). Controlled neighborhoods lack the
constituency voice to act on their own behalf.

An independent resource base is a critical component of autonomy
(Delgado, 1986: 204). The few crime prevention programs that included
attempts to increase neighborhood autonomy failed because the
neighborhood groups seeking influence over central decisionmakers lost
their access to resources controlled by those resistant central powers
(Hope, 1995). Neighborhood organizations such as ACORN chapters seek
to increase autonomy by generating their own resources through dues and
neighborhood-controlled economic enterprises (Delgado, 1986).

Trist (1986) states that JALMC's success came with its acquiring of the
properties of a local organization and thereby gained influence over
individuals and organizations, though it lacked formal political 
authority. JALMC then was able to bring about substantive rather than
simply marginal changes.

According to Bruyn (1987), autonomy is obtained when the neighborhood
gains more control over land, labor, and capital. Community land trusts
can rescue these resources from speculation. When applied to housing, it
can assure affordability for present and future buyers. Worker cooperatives
help stabilize the neighborhood, since the neighborhood, as represented by
the workforce, is more directly involved in company decisions.
Democratization of capital can empower neighborhoods to find new
means of local development (Turner, 1987).

The following is an example of increased autonomy in the economically
depressed upper Great Lakes peninsula. The Lake Alternative Energy
Board (LAEB), a CDC, joined with other community action agencies and
a private company to bring revenue to the community, create jobs, and at
the same time provide low-cost fuel to area residents. The area has
extremely low winter temperatures and an annual average of 120 inches of
snowfall. Fuel at affordable prices is a primary concern (Blakely, 1989).

LAEB served as a catalyst for developing solutions to these problems. The
first initiative involved developing wood pellets as a fuel source. Pellets
can be made from scraps from the area lumber industry, the refuse of
wood-chipping operations, and trees and limbs cut down in forestry
operations. Through an arrangement with a private company, a wood
pellet processing plant was constructed in the area. Though the plant
employs only 20 to 25 people, it is estimated that the business activity
sparked by the plant brought $30 million into the area (Blakely, 1989).

LAEB was successful in initiating economic development to meet the
needs of the community. The plant, customers, and sources of raw
materials were all locally based. The product served the local need for
low-cost energy and at the same time brought jobs and revenues to the
area.

Shared culture

Castells (1983) writes of the destructive impact on city movements when
issues are defined in a one-dimensional, ideological fashion. He terms
cities reflecting these struggles as "urban shadows." They simply become
political arenas for partisan organizations. Successful urban movements
instead require the resolution of diverse interests and the sharing of a new
value system. "[O]nly when the bureaucratic city, the merchant city, the
professional city, and the working class city will agree on an alternative
model of government can a city . . . rely on a stable majority supporting
social change. And these very diverse interests can only be reconciled
when a new set of cultural values are shared" (Castells, 1983: 255).
Through the process of reconciling diverse interests and defining a
common cultural heritage, a neighborhood is able to effectively deal with
political forces in ways that increase rather than compromise its autonomy.

Sister Ferre, the founder of the Ponce Playa Project, in Ponce Playa,
Puerto Rico, initiated a photography program for all youths in the area
after a number of cameras were donated by Kodak. To Sister Ferre, the
main point was not simply to teach photography skills but to develop a
greater awareness of family, friends, and neighbors, the subjects of the
photos. This related to the objective that "[T]he community realizes that its
own full development depends on the fulfillment of its members" (Ferre,
1987: 34).

Trist (1986) relates that the JALMC initiative developed through a
perceived need for change rather than through design. It was described as a
gradual, cumulative, but incomplete movement toward establishing a
culture based on symbiotic relationships among organizations, groups, and
individuals. In such a culture, interdependence and collaboration would
qualify and constrain individualism and competition (Trist, 1986:
236- 237). JALMC became the symbol of a new culture. The words
labor-management were repeated liturgically on innumerable occasions in
many settings (Trist, 1986: 227). The meaning gained clarity over time as
specific actions were taken by the committee. Such actions collectively
served as the theme of the emerging culture (Trist, 1986).

Quality of dialogue

Possibly the most subtle aspect of bringing about neighborhood
revitalization concerns the manner and quality of communication. Are
various actors talking past each other or is there instead an equal sharing 
of ideas across differing perspectives and positions? Leadership skills can
be essential in pointing out mutual interests and in empowering others,
rather than focusing on one's own powers and interests.

Stanley Lundine, the mayor of Jamestown, New York, in the 1970s,
played a critical role in the formation of JALMC. What had been an
industrial environment marked by severe conflict was transformed to an 
atmosphere of cooperation. Lundine's credibility as the initial leader of
this effort was based on his strong stand for government activism in
solving Jamestown's economic problems. With the support he had from
both labor and management, Lundine set a tone where both sides could
talk and feel like they were being heard by the other (Meek, 1985). It was
in this climate of trust that the ceremonial activities, such as dinners,
conferences, and picnics, paved the way for labor and management
agreement in project-oriented activities (Trist, 1986).

Pittsburgh was able to avoid economic disaster following the steel plant
closings of the 1980s, largely due to the tradition of constructive dialogue
and cooperation between the public and private sectors. The city was able
to quickly form the necessary alliances and structures to enable it to
rebound from the loss of 100,000 manufacturing jobs. Pittsburgh invested
in its universities, hospitals, and advanced technology firms and was able
to regain many of the lost jobs. This economic strategy was undertaken
concurrently with a strategy to preserve the neighborhoods (Fainstein,
1990).

The mayor of Pittsburgh during the 1970s, Peter Flaherty, was attuned to
neighborhood groups and insisted that city officials retain an open
dialogue with them. Such groups became an important part of city politics.
This attitude was seen as instrumental in establishing the partnerships
necessary for the economic transformation required after the collapse of
the steel industry. Those with different perspectives and interests were
able to work together toward a common goal and resisted the tendency to
pursue their own factional interests (Fainstein, 1990).

Enhancing the level of dialogue in a neighborhood requires multiway
communication and a willingness of all parties to be influenced by others.
Particularly in the early stages of community building, dialogue building
will include the ability of parties to endure messy and angry meetings
(Weingart et al., 1994). 

In the Cedar Riverside (Minneapolis) neighborhood redevelopment efforts,
neighbors were so committed to dialogue that they were willing to meet all
night to reach consensus, rather than settle for compromises and vote
taking (Stoecker, 1994). One of the major threats to community building is
the frequent association in American culture of community with
cooperative, peaceful communication. Many central authority officials will
short-circuit communications with a neighborhood if the initial meetings
are full of anger and resentment. Such impatience simply leads to
continuation of one-way communication. At other times, nonlocal officials
with a commitment to due process and inclusion may need to urge some
neighborhood groups to include other local groups that are being ignored.
Dialogue can break down both within a neighborhood and between the
neighborhood and critical outsiders.

The police and sustained community

Prospects for community policing will depend on the structure of the
urban struggle in a particular city, and even a particular neighborhood, at a
particular time. Expectations abstracted from this context will not make a
great deal of sense. Expectations about community policing can be seen as
pressures for local police departments to manifest or support particular
values toward the use of space in the urban struggle. In other words,
community policing, or any other form of policing, is likely to be only one
more negotiation in an ongoing struggle to define community.

Community policing is not invented out of whole cloth. Expectations for
community policing will be partially shaped by institutional memories of
the urban struggle as implementation unfolds. Therefore, the interpretation
of community policing, by both the police and others will include the:

o Particular variations of professional law enforcement in any specific
city, as interpreted by both those who have benefited and those who have
not.

o Previous experiments by the department with getting closer to
neighborhoods and the results of those attempts.

o Particular traditions of urban growth that have surrounded the police
department.

o Status of the local growth machine in competition with other locations
and whether the local political opportunity structure is relatively closed to
pressures from neighborhoods or, instead, has been opened to coalitions
between government and neighborhoods because of visible failures for
growth politics to pay off as promised.

In relation to these local dynamics, additional factors in determining how
and whether community policing unfolds in a particular place will be the
pressures for adoption of programs highly touted in the media, by national
experts, or by other levels of government. Some of these pressures are part
of the institutionalized environment of police departments, to which 
departments may respond with formalized and ceremonial acquiescence
more than with substantive change in how officers work (Crank and
Langworthy, 1992; Manning, 1988). Other pressures are, or become,
contractual obligations, as when police departments join a State or Federal
program initiative in exchange for resources and perhaps for more
exacting expectations and standards about performance components in
implementation (Grinc, 1994).

Neighborhood interests will be only one of myriad forces which may lead
toward or away from adoption of community policing or toward greater or
lesser sincerity in the commitment to constituency building as part of the
community policing initiative. The police will also find considerable
variation in demand both within and among neighborhoods (Whitaker et
al., 1982). Some neighborhoods will be more interested in community
policing than others, and not all neighborhood demands will be informed
by systematic understandings of the urban struggle. Indeed, most will not.

Those that are not are far more likely to take their cues from the police
about what is appropriate to expect of any form of policing. In most
neighborhoods where there is some organized request for police response,
the most typical overture is the relatively unsophisticated and unspecific
demand for greater police presence (Whitaker et al., 1982; Podolefsky,
1983) rather than for different forms of policing or more involvement by
neighborhood residents in control activities.

Most police departments have no systematic protocol by which to assess
and prioritize interactions with community groups (Weingart et al., 1994:
11). While community policing might theoretically include the
development of such a protocol, that innovation will itself depend on the
initial meanings attached to community policing both in and outside the
department. Unless a particular police department develops a 
sophisticated, critical sense of urban structures and learns to assess the
status of various neighborhood overtures within that framework, there will
be tremendous pressures to adopt a version of community policing that
promises the department the least departure from current practice.

Community policing is generally presented as a realignment of police with
neighborhoods (Bayley, 1994). But is it a way of extending the influence
and dominance of the growth machine, by providing a new approach to
paying for the externalized costs of growth? In other words, do
neighborhoods get more policing, or even more responsive policing, as a
tradeoff for continuing to suffer the negative effects of economic isolation
and profit maximization? Or is community policing a way of providing
neighborhoods with more power to impose use value premises on the
structure of city space, by supporting the process of constituency building
in controlled neighborhoods? Is policing used to pacify neighborhoods or
does it become an active part of the process of constituency building?

Unfortunately, the available community policing research does not permit
more than preliminary, and perhaps inaccurate, answers to these questions. 
Despite exhortations that the neighborhood position in the urban system
must be specified to set the context of police and citizen actions about
crime issues (Taylor, 1995) and that accounts of police interactions in the
community must be disaggregated to the neighborhood level to make
much sense of means and ends connections (Blumstein, 1995), most
community policing evaluations provide little if any direct evidence of
conscious concern for the political economy of neighborhoods (Hope,
1995; McGahey, 1986). Additionally, accounts of police practices give
insufficient detail about the nature of neighborhood organizations to allow
for systematic comparisons of structure, activities, and mobilization
strategies (Skogan, 1988: 42- 43). Under these limitations, the current
assessments of the process and objectives of police-neighborhood
interaction are little more than suggestions for further study. Exhibit 2 lists
the seven dimensions of neighborhood sustainability and provides
examples of their relationship to existing community policing projects.

Internal coordination 

Internal coordination in a neighborhood can be improved through the
linkages community policing officers establish with other municipal and
government agencies. These linkages facilitate residential referrals to
social service agencies and help to coordinate quality of life and law
enforcement activities. The community policing program at the Stonegate
housing community in Fairfax, Virginia, for example, required community
policing officers to make referrals to social service agencies as a part of
their problem-solving activities. These officers were assisted by the
availability of counselors and other social service providers at the project
site. Establishing working relationships with these service providers
enabled community policing officers to give residents information on
available drug treatment programs, as well as family counseling,
education, and health and child care services (Baranyk, 1994). Similar
coordination is reported in Spokane, Washington (Giacomazzi et al., 1993:
97).

Similarly, in Austin, Texas, the simultaneous adoption of Total Quality
Management (TQM) by both the police department (as an integral part of
its community policing program) and all city agencies brought about a
high degree of cooperation and coordination among the police department
and other city agencies. With these linkages, the Austin community
policing project could incorporate into their customer service model an
array of services that were outside of traditional law enforcement
activities. They then also had the capacity to assess the effectiveness of
problem-solving strategies that took advantage of other interventions than
the choice of arrest or nonarrest. Designers of the community policing
program in Austin believed that the simultaneous adoption of TQM by the
police department and other city agencies would cultivate a shared vision
of what the city should be doing and where it should be going. This shared
vision was also viewed as increasing the effectiveness of services to
Austin residents (Barton, 1993: 22).

Linkages with other municipal agencies also helped to coordinate quality
of life and law enforcement activities. Linkages with city agencies enabled
community policing officers in Spokane to take action against conditions
in the neighborhood that contributed to its deterioration. Community
policing officers surveyed the neighborhoods for boarded-up buildings
that might invite exploration by children and accommodate transients,
areas in need of sidewalks, and streets and alleys in need of repair
(Giacomazzi et al., 1993: 98). This information was forwarded to the 
appropriate city agency, and requests for services were tracked over time
to verify that improvements occurred. Similarly in Brooklyn, New York,
and Baltimore, Maryland, community policing officers worked closely
with city sanitation departments to remove abandoned and derelict
vehicles (Pate, 1994: 405) and to seal empty buildings (Skogan, 1994:
169).

Internal coordination is not limited to tightening the exchanges among
agencies in a neighborhood. In Seattle, the initial impetus of community
policing came from a particular set of neighborhoods through an
organization dominated by their business elite. Process evaluation data
indicate that the police were instrumental in community unification by
insisting that the original business group seek minority resident members.
The business group responded with a successful, more inclusive
membership drive (Fleissner et al., 1991).

There is evidence from other community policing efforts that coordination
has not always worked so well. Some departments have expended
tremendous energy and thought in attempts to implement new policing
strategies in controlled neighborhoods. Studies of a few of these (Newark,
New Jersey, Houston, Texas, and Minneapolis, Minnesota) suggest that
these programs were more likely to involve middle-class residents than the
poor and sometimes created dissension within the neighborhood
(Sherman, 1986; Skogan, 1990). In Seattle and elsewhere, police pressures
on other city agencies, on behalf of the neighborhood, resulted in
resentment from the other agencies and concerns that some neighborhoods
would receive special treatment.

External linkages

The external linkage most likely to be affected in policing efforts is
between the neighborhood and the police department itself. However, the
level and effects of that linkage may vary considerably. The literature
indicates that the process of involving the police in neighborhood
organizing is limited, superficial, and in numerous instances, demoralizing
for both the police and citizens.

Goldstein (1987: 24- 25) suggested that involvement could range from
citizens serving as eyes and ears for the police, through citizens providing
consultation and advice, to active citizen participation in determining how
the people are to be policed. This potential range appears to be truncated in
practice to the lower end of the continuum, with a few notable exceptions,
such as Seattle (Fleissner et al., 1991). Buerger (1994: 416) indicates that
even when citizens expend considerable energy, their involvement is
limited to meeting traditional police objectives.

A recent examination of community policing in Richmond, Virginia,
where there is apparently greater concern on the part of the department
than in many other cities for changing the police-neighborhood linkage,
still concluded that officers "who embraced community policing
responded, not as delegates of the community, but more like trustees of the
neighborhood welfare" determined by their own standards (Worden et al.,
1994: 556- 557).

A number of studies have found that, despite rhetoric about greater
community responsiveness by departments, police are often resistant to
stronger connections with neighborhoods. They have understandable
concerns about losing control of internal resource allocation decisions and
trepidation that uninformed and overzealous community groups will 
demand behavior from the police that is unconstitutional. But departments
may hide behind such excuses rather than seek greater linkage. In several
accounts, the police were prodded to respond only when the neighborhood
group threatened to embarrass the police in the media (Fleissner et al.,
1991; Weingart et al., 1994).

Despite these problems, there are instances of increased linkage and
increased resources in both directions. For example, the police may
provide resources for local neighborhood organizations. In Newark,
community policing officers made their storefront substation available to
neighborhood block organizations for meetings. Neighborhood meetings 
at the storefront gave community policing officers an opportunity to
interface with neighborhood groups. (Pate et al., 1986: 7) In Portland,
Oregon, the chief of police reported that selecting the site for a new
precinct station included neighborhood involvement in choosing the site
and in designing the structure to include space for new neighborhood
businesses.

In return, neighborhoods have the potential to generate new resources for
the police, such as in residential tax increases earmarked for the police. In
Flint, Michigan, for example, the success of the neighborhood foot patrol
prompted residents to approve a special tax to continue the foot patrols at
the expiration of the community policing experiment. The citizens were
not prepared at that time to end what they viewed as a successful crime
prevention program (Trojanowicz, 1986: 174).

Limits on exchange value

Policing initiatives may have small but direct and important effects on
limiting profit maximization and inserting use value in the use of space. In
Seattle and elsewhere, civil abatement programs involving the police and
neighborhood organizations have placed pressure on landlords who were
careless in tenant selection or oblivious to drug dealing on their properties.
Direct assault on illegal profit taking is also important. Citizen groups,
especially those with police support, have been successful in disrupting
and closing drug markets (Weingart et al., 1994).

Self-correcting process evaluation

An example of how to increase the self-reflective quality of neighborhood
organizations can be seen in the community policing program undertaken
in Flint, Michigan, Fairfax, Virginia, and Fort Worth, Texas. In Flint,
community policing officers were expected to encourage citizens to work
together in neighborhood associations or citizens' watch groups for their
mutual support and protection (Trojanowicz, 1986: 160). A more hands-on
organizing approach by community policing officers occurred in Fairfax
and Fort Worth.

In Fairfax, community policing officers held regular meetings with core
residents of the Stonegate housing community. These residents were
viewed as having some degree of social influence. At these meetings, they
were given an opportunity to express what they believed to be the most
pressing issues in the housing community. After a number of meetings, the
community policing officers helped to organize residents into an informal
tenants' association. This group was then encouraged to solicit the support
of other residents in addressing neighborhood problems (Baranyk, 1994:
31- 32).

Similarly, in the Fort Worth neighborhood crime watch groups and
citizens' patrol project, a process goal was to simulate a small-town feel
and involvement of community residents by making information available
to organized blocks and neighborhoods as events occurred. It was believed
that this would enable residents to participate more fully in their own
protection and security (Givens, 1993: 9).

In general, however, police organizations are themselves poorly equipped
to deal with organizational health and renewal (Bayley, 1994; Couper and
Lobitz, 1991; Wycoff and Skogan, 1993), and their members are poorly
trained to instill self-corrective processes in neighborhood organizations.
They are likely to provide more attention to the crime and disorder
objectives faced at the moment than to whether the means of reaching
these objectives also builds a sustainable neighborhood organization. Not
only are the police underconcerned with important morale, belonging, and
satisfaction issues, but they also may demand that neighborhood
organizations adhere to stifling bureaucratic procedures (Hope, 1995:
47- 48; Grinc, 1994: 442).

Autonomy

Consistent with the general theory of neighborhood organizing about
noncrime issues (Bursik and Grasmick, 1993: 150), there is some evidence
that attempts to increase involvement of citizens in community policing is
far more superficial and has more negative consequences for neighborhood
autonomy when the initiative is undertaken by the police department
rather than by the neighborhood (Grinc, 1994: 445- 451). Police attempts
to initiate contact are often limited to information dissemination sessions
about the proposed (and preplanned) program, during which the police
misinterpret large audiences as increased citizen participation (Grinc,
1994: 451). The most thorough account of citizen-initiated community
policing (Fleissner et al., 1991) suggests that citizen involvement is more
multidimensional and includes more mutual decisionmaking when the
citizens are pulling rather than the police pushing.

The police, like any other agency of the state, have considerable control
over one nonfinancial resource critical to neighborhood organizations: the
ability to take them seriously. These organizations become 
constituencies for the police only if they are taken seriously. Signs of
constituency status include the department granting access to senior
officials, departmental willingness to share decisionmaking, and 
departmental efforts in providing information (Duffee, 1984; Fleissner et
al., 1991: 15; and Weingart et al., 1994: 14). Granting such access
enhances the autonomy of the neighborhood group because its influence is
increased.

Increasing the autonomy of neighborhood groups does not necessarily
reduce the autonomy and influence of the police organization. Indeed,
some reports suggest it may increase it (Fleissner et al., 1991: 70- 80).
When the autonomy of the neighborhood is enhanced, neighborhood
groups engage in partnership roles, and residents may have greater access
to the media, legislators, and public and private businesses. In Seattle, the
partnership established between the police and the South Seattle Crime
Prevention Council (SSCPC) not only helped decentralize the Seattle
Police Department (giving the South Precinct more control over its
activities) but also provided the department with additional clout to
influence crime legislation and the municipal budget (Fleissner et al.,
1991: 96). Consequently, autonomy for neighborhoods may increase
police influence over other central actors who are sympathetic to the
neighborhood rather than to the police.

Shared culture

By recognizing the cultural and environmental uniqueness of the
neighborhoods they work in, community policing officers help to establish
a shared identity that can in turn facilitate the development of shared goals
and objectives. In Austin, the environment provided a quality of life that is
viewed by its residents as their most precious resource. This shared view
of Austin facilitates citizens' involvement in preserving their
neighborhoods. The citizens in Austin vigorously defend any intrusion on
the quality of the environment and on the safety and security of their
neighborhoods (Barton, 1993: 21). Recognizing these sentiments, the
community policing effort in Austin is attempting to utilize them to
maintain the quality of life.

Dialogue

Establishing mutually beneficial communication between residents and the
police is one of the primary goals of community policing. Information
received from police can help neighborhood residents best utilize their
local resources to assist in crime prevention activities. Information
received from residents can help the police target problems that are of the
greatest concern to neighborhood residents. In addition, information from
residents helps police identify individuals or groups engaged in criminal
activity.

The quality of dialogue between neighborhood residents and police
departments about community policing may become an issue before the
initiation of a new strategy in a neighborhood or during its
implementation. In the planning stages, the issue is whether the residents
have influence in the design of the effort. During implementation, the
issue becomes the level of ongoing participation in policing decisions. Do
the police welcome only eyes-and-ears information, or are they prepared to
engage in two-way communication about problem solving and evaluation?

Examples of communication between the neighborhood and the police
prior to implementation are found in Seattle, Washington, Madison,
Wisconsin, and Flint, Michigan. In Seattle, for example, prior to
implementing community policing, members of SSCPC and the precinct
commanders from the South Precinct met regularly to discuss ways to
improve police services (Fleissner et al., 1991: 61). These meetings
eventually built trust and cooperation among the police and members of
SSCPC. Police discussions with residents included sharing information
that was traditionally viewed as sensitive and highly confidential.

In Madison, neighborhood residents and the Madison police department
had a 15-year history of negotiations and discussions about ways to
improve policing. Madison residents have always been concerned with
quality of life issues (Couper and Lobitz, 1991: 86). Immediately
preceding the implementation of community policing in Madison,
community meetings were set up to give residents some input into
identifying and prioritizing neighborhood problems (Couper and Lobitz,
1991: 86). However, in the implementation of the experimental police
district, dialogue did not seem to carry over to implementation. Police 
reported too little time to engage in problem solving, and the police tended
to engage the community as individual customers rather than as organized
neighborhoods (Wycoff and Skogan, 1993).

In Flint, many efforts were made by the police department to avoid
imposing a program on the population (Trojanowicz, 1986: 160). Citywide
meetings were held for 2 years prior to the start of the program. The goal
was to solicit the neighborhoods' views on how the program should
function and to keep neighbors informed on the program's progress.

A more frequent approach is reported in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Discussions primarily focused on information provided by neighborhood
residents on the criminal activities of specific individuals or groups. The
newly created citizen advisory committee was ostensibly designed by
developers of the community policing project in Lawrence to provide
residents with a forum to communicate their concerns with the community
policing officers. Instead, its role was limited to providing the police of
Lawrence with information on criminal activities in the area. Members of
the advisory committee essentially functioned as the eyes and ears of the
Lawrence police department (Bazemore and Cole, 1994: 132).

In contrast, the most successful case in maintaining real dialogue appears
to be Seattle. There, neighborhood committees have been organized
throughout the city, supported by tax dollars, with the expectation that
citizen groups will engage actively in target selection, tactical choices, and
evaluation of control efforts (National Institute of Justice [NIJ], 1992).
This kind of organization was not developed without conflict. The
project's evaluators ask whether both the police and community groups
are prone to interpret conflict as lack of community and to give up on
dialogue rather than engage in conflict resolution. Neither community
participants nor the police may be well equipped with sufficient time,
knowledge about structural sources of conflict, or skills in conflict
resolution, to remain committed once conflict is heard (Fleissner et al.,
1991).

In summary, there are numerous anecdotal accounts suggesting both
positive and negative impacts of community policing efforts on internal
coordination, external linkages, limits on exchange value, self-corrective
process evaluation, autonomy, shared culture, and dialogue. Since no
existing accounts of community policing conceptualize these impacts on
specific dimensions of community, it is impossible to tell how
multidimensional any one implementation effort is or to compare one city
to another on common dimensions with a uniform measure. Moreover, we
cannot assess whether the positive impacts on neighborhood sustainability
variables are more frequent than the negative impacts. The process
evaluations, however, do provide strong evidence that the implementation
of community policing can be conceptualized as a complex process in
which police and neighborhoods interact along all seven of these
dimensions.

Prospects and strategies for sustaining constituency

The police must provide services, enforce the law, and control, if not
reduce, disorder regardless of the direction in which a neighborhood is
moving and of whether the policing efforts are complemented by other
efforts to strengthen community or operate in isolation from other urban
policies and practices. One of the most critical problems, then, in any
attempt to alter police strategy, is that the police do not control all the
elements crucial to the success of a strategy and must proceed despite
counterproductive trends among the elements they do not control. The
police may be sincere in efforts to improve community but find little
community with which to work.

Despite this difficulty, cynicism about the potential for reinvention of
policing and significant increases in police effectiveness are mistaken. The
conclusion that nothing works is itself an action prescription--to leave the
desperate to their own devices much to the benefit of the winners of the
urban struggle. The examination of the variables that renew and sustain
neighborhoods indicates that urban improvements are possible, if difficult.
The review of police effects on those same neighborhood variables
suggests that all of them can be increased or improved through police
action. But the same review indicates that most policing programs
involving community often ignore whether the neighborhood is
restructured. On occasion, there are negative rather than positive effects on
these variables.

How community policing will fare as a strategy will ultimately depend on
whether neighborhoods improve rather than on whether the police perform
well. Therefore, the police must become more cognizant of these
neighborhood characteristics, on the trends among them across and within
neighborhoods, and on the most effective time to deploy one policing
strategy or another in each neighborhood, contingent on the developmental
position of each locality. One size will not fit all.

Because of the typical dynamic of the urban struggle and the fact that the
police department is a part of that struggle, affected by the same forces as
other units of the city, the police will covertly and explicitly be pressured
to be more concerned with some neighborhood characteristics than others.
The growth machine and the professional law enforcement bureaucracy
that developed as part of growth politics will both benefit from particular
values on these variables. For example, they would prefer that:

o Internal coordination be incomplete and limited to improving informal
coordination among neighbors, rather than also coordinating public and
private agencies and policies. Too much attention to policy coordination
could demonstrate that many urban policies do not benefit neighborhoods,
especially poor neighborhoods. Attention to any policies other than law
enforcement itself will be criticized as nonprofessional.

o External linkages be limited--the police should concentrate on
police-neighborhood relationships. Linkages among neighborhoods will be
seen as politically threatening to the power of downtown corporate
interests and to the control by central offices of State agencies.

o There be no limits on exchange value and no threats to competitive
claims on urban space that would limit extracting value from it. Economic
policies that are responsive to neighborhood effects of economic decisions
will be criticized as bad for growth. Police concern for quality of life in
neighborhoods will be criticized as social work.

o Self-corrective process evaluations be limited. Crime control should
focus on immediate crime and disorder objectives. Neighborhood groups
should not become more conscious of the relationship of neighborhood
politics and crime. Neighborhood organization, sustained beyond its crime 
control rationale, may become politically active and critical of centralized
power and resources.

o Autonomy be kept on the lower end of the spectrum. Control efforts
should be organized for the convenience of the experts in central
administrations. Greater services for neighborhoods may be begrudgingly
granted, but greater influence of neighborhoods over the defining of
service will be resisted. No other dimension of city life is more threatening
to bureaucracy than autonomy of constituency groups in neighborhoods.

o Shared culture be the focus of neighborhood improvement. The growth
machine and professional law enforcement will stress the culture-based 
solution to crime and disorder, since it is consistent with the notion that
neighborhoods cause their own problems. Political or economic steps,
which alter external linkages and autonomy, to facilitate and nurture
shared culture will be resisted.

o Dialogue be limited. Central powers should plan and neighborhoods
should accept the well-crafted ideas of planners. A dialogue that requires
interactive and responsive policing will be resisted as too cumbersome and
expensive. Dialogue that includes venting of frustration and anger will be
used as evidence that the community is deteriorating, not improving.

The current evaluations of community policing implementations suggest
that these kinds of limiting effects on neighborhood sustainability are not
only possible but common. However, there is also evidence that, in some
neighborhoods, development of partnerships between the police and
neighborhood groups is also possible. When partnership is actively sought,
there would appear to be more conscious attention paid to these positive
variables and more conscious attempts to increase them. In this case, the
values preferred are that:

o Police interact with other city agencies and the private sector to promote
holistic attention to life in a neighborhood. There is evidence that the
police can occasionally provide encouragement for residents in
neighborhoods to be more inclusive themselves and to form organizations
that represent most neighborhood interests.

o Neighborhoods should be linked to share common concerns and problem
strategies and should have greater access to a variety of State services.

o Quality of life in neighborhoods may need to include setting limits on
the exchange value that space might represent to individuals. Not all
negative effects of growth can be externalized and paid for by resident
bystanders or by the State.

o The self-correcting evaluation capacity of neighborhood organization
should be improved. Partnership includes concern not only for what was
done but how it was done: Did the neighborhood learn from this project
how to solve other problems? Did neighbors become more committed
through participation? Did they end up angry and exhausted?

o Autonomy of neighborhoods should be increased, and the quality of
State services should be judged by neighborhoods, not the bureaucracy.
Increased autonomy for neighborhoods can actually enhance the ability of
State officials to do their work.

o Shared culture is necessary but not sufficient. Opportunities for shared
culture should be identified in all neighborhood undertakings; processes
for achieving specific objectives (such as crime or disorder control) must
also include time for social rewards and celebration of belonging to a
place. Culture without restructuring is fragile.

o Dialogue must be pursued, even if less time-consuming means of
dealing with particular issues appear to be available. Improved external
linkages without dialogue decrease chances for autonomy. Internal
coordination without dialogue reduces chances of shared culture.

The prospects for achieving the higher rather than the lower values on
these variables are not good, but they are not bleak. To take community
seriously and to take steps to empower neighborhoods represent
commitments and actions that are contrary to 50 years of urban politics
and policing tradition. But history does not write the future.

Police departments can take some independent steps to enhance
sustainability, but they cannot do very much on their own. They also need
to encourage independent action by other components of the State, by the
private sector, and, very importantly, by neighborhoods. If neighborhood
sustainability is left to the police, it will not endure.

Some research, planning, and policing strategies may increase the chances
for increasing rather than decreasing the values of these variables.

First, a serious, sustained effort is necessary to obtain reasonably valid,
reliable, and feasible measures of these neighborhood characteristics.
While interest in the measurement of neighborhood indicators and 
police investment in gathering nonarrest data have increased, it would
appear that greater attention is still given to police-relevant outcomes
(fear, disorder, crime) than to measures of how the police, or the
neighborhood with the police, achieved or failed to achieve those
outcomes. Investment in measuring structures and processes will be
important for outcome precision to have any strategic meaning.

If measures for these neighborhood variables can be developed, then it is
critical to also develop an assessment of their prevalence in policing
programs. As policing evaluations stand now, it is possible to find
illustrations of police effects on these variables, but it is impossible to
gauge prevalence. Left to their own devices, the police are less likely to be
concerned about these neighborhood effects than the neighborhoods
themselves. Empowering neighborhood organizations to employ
measurements of neighborhood effects from policing and other urban
programs is more likely to institutionalize commitments to these
neighborhood qualities where they matter most, in the neighborhoods
themselves.

Since the police, like any other agency of the State, have jurisdiction over
many neighborhoods that will differ considerably on these variables, the
chief police executive will be faced with constant pressures to "do
something now," even though what can and should realistically be done
will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. The tendencies among
police agencies will be to adopt programs jurisdictionwide despite the
varying qualities of neighborhoods or to target neighborhoods most in
need, as defined by the department. Both tendencies pressure police to
predetermine how to interact with a neighborhood and, only after services
are planned, to disseminate the plan to the locality. These approaches have
rarely worked in the past, but they relieve the pressure to do something
and failures can be blamed on specific neighborhoods. If the police
recognized the multidimensional character of neighborhood-building
processes and could measure these dimensions, they could use these data
in deciding which neighborhoods were ready for what and in explaining
those choices.

The data on police-neighborhood interaction, while presently sketchy,
suggest that the police cannot build neighborhood constituency but can
take constituency behavior seriously when it occurs. If the police want to
take neighborhoods seriously, they can include a means to scan the
neighborhoods continuously for trends in sustainability, and they can be
ready to respond when invited. A neighborhood's attempts to influence
policing should be read as one indicator of readiness for partnership, even,
or perhaps particularly, when those influence attempts include criticism,
however rancorous.

Finally, the review of the research on the urban context of community
policing suggests that the police, as a city agency, will be affected by
many of the same forces in the urban struggle that affect urban
neighborhoods. An important task in community policing research would
be the construction of a theory about how the political economy of cities
affects the form and substance of community policing. In this concluding
section, we have sketched in broad strokes two different scenarios: one
where the growth machine is strong and police are likely to give
superficial attention to neighborhoods and to stress the causes of crime and
disorder that arise from within the neighborhood, and another where the
growth machine is weaker or has been replaced by a quality of life regime
and the police are more likely to treat neighborhoods as important political
constituencies that have influence over city policies and reshape urban
services. Clearly, the variations in community policing are much finer and
more complex than this sketch can capture. But if we can specify more
systematically how police interact with neighborhoods, then we can also
begin to examine the urban forces that affect the quality of that interaction.
Only at that point can we begin to sort out the noise from the melody in
the huge variety of sounds that are now considered community policing.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance and expertise of Warren
Friedman, Stuart Scheingold, and John Crank, who read and provided
valuable insights on the earliest drafts of this paper. --David E. Duffee

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Wilson, William Julius. The Truly Disadvantaged. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1987.

Worden, Robert E., Stephen D. Mastrofski, and Jeffrey B. Snipes. "Law
Enforcement in a Time of Community Policing." Criminology 33 (4)
(1995): 539- 563.

Wycoff, Mary Ann, and Wesley Skogan. Community Policing in
Madison: Quality From the Inside Out. Research Report. Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1993, NCJ
144390.

-------------------------------

Community Policing: What Is the Community and What Can It Do?

Warren Friedman and Michael Clark

Even perfect partnerships between the community and police are only part
of the answer to the crime that haunts many of America's neighborhoods.
Nevertheless, belief in the power of collaboration is more than just an
article of faith. Over the past decade, it has become clear that urban
communities can and will mobilize against crime and drugs. Despite
decades of serious tensions and hostility between police and residents in
many neighborhoods, serious effort can forge bonds of cooperation,
mutual respect, and trust even in the most crime-ridden communities.

Progress, however, has not been even. Hostility between communities and
law enforcement continues in many areas. Many cities have failed to join
the movement toward improved police-community cooperation, while
others appear to have only adopted the rhetoric of community policing as a
way of accessing Federal funds.

At the same time, hundreds of urban neighborhoods have organized fresh
anticrime efforts and discovered new, more effective ways of working
with local law enforcement. Many police and prosecutors who are
responsible for these neighborhoods have adopted more results- and
community-oriented ways of tackling such tough crime problems as
open-air drug trafficking and gang violence. In the best of cases, these
efforts have led to community-police collaboration that has permanently
closed crack houses, eliminated drug markets, and sustained long-term
reductions in violent crime levels.

Today, it is broadly accepted that, working together, community, police,
and other institutions can reduce neighborhood crime. There is widespread
acceptance--and even praise--of community-police collaboration. This is
clear from the lists of reasons provided by scholars, elected officials, and
police chiefs for the recent declines in most crime categories. Along with
changing demographics and stabilized crack markets, almost everybody's
list mentions smarter policing and the role of the community.

Nevertheless, progress in forging police-community collaboration remains
fragile and reversible. There is little agreement about exactly what
community policing is or what should be expected of it. Nor is there
consensus about what the community is or what can be expected of it.
Little wonder, then, that there is confusion about why and how progress
has been achieved.

Expectations

In cities where community policing has been aggressively pursued,
community expectations of police have shifted over the past decade. In the
early 1980s, it is fair to say, one of two attitudes prevailed among many
urban residents, especially community leaders. Many had come to see
local crime and disorder as products of large forces beyond the reach of
local law enforcement. Coupled with tensions and mistrust left over from
the 1960s and 1970s, city residents often were grateful if local police
simply did not make things worse. On the other hand, many saw public
safety as the job of the police alone. "We pay taxes, we pay their wages,
let them do it," were refrains in many communities that focused narrowly
on government accountability. In either case, "partnership" and
"collaborative problem solving" were not the slogans of the day.

Today, much grassroots activity still remains based on outmoded,
incident-driven strategies. In most American communities, ordinary
citizens report crime and act as witnesses, but they play little further
visible part in preventing or reducing crime. These roles as "eyes and ears"
of the police are not insignificant. But in some communities, grassroots
activity has been far more proactive, creative, and courageous.

The existence of active community anticrime work--often, but not always,
undertaken in sync with so-called community policing--is a reality check
on the common charge of community apathy in America. The best of this
work challenges the common casting of the police as the sole agent of
positive change. Throughout the United States, community anticrime
efforts serve as a source of information about what most concerns a
community: what kinds of roles the community has and will continue to
choose for itself, and who must be negotiated with if policing is to have a
progressive future.

In cities where it has been enthusiastically marketed, community policing
has led to a shift in attitudes and rising expectations. Urban residents in
many cities today expect the police to be visibly present on their streets,
problem oriented (that is, to try to eliminate crime problems, not just
respond to complaints and make arrests), available for and interested in
working with local residents as partners, accountable through periodic
updates for what is being done to solve problems, and concerned with the
prevention of crime.

In well-informed and well-organized communities, police departments are
increasingly expected to understand the community as a partner, prepare 
department personnel for their part in the partnership process, and support
officers in the process. Veteran community organizations expect the police
to know them and understand that they have the capacity to solve crimes
and other problems. Vacant lots can be cleaned up, housing problems
addressed, young people reached, services provided, serious criminal
activity checked, and opportunities expanded through organized
community efforts.

Veteran community organizations, many of whom have years of
experience in anticrime work, have begun to recognize and demand
significant departmental commitment to community policing, including:
(1) a focus on serious crime-solving results, (2) periodic, practical training
for police officers, (3) support for the training of community leaders, (4) a
focus on behavior change and measurable results, (5) involvement of the
community at the most decentralized level, (6) outspoken policy support
from departmental leaders and the city administration, and (7) a voice in
policies that set the department's direction so that community policing
evolves to match the needs of neighborhoods.

Community roles

The literature, promotional materials, and discussions of community
policing are full of phrases like "problem-solving partnerships,"
"coproduction of safety," "working together," and "democracy in action."
But, despite the rhetoric, members of the community remain generally cast
in relatively passive roles as "eyes and ears" of the police, reactive sources
of information about crime. They are still primarily viewed as potential
witnesses, much as they were under traditional policing. Partnerships are
too often operationally defined as a few people chosen by police officials
to sit around a table and advise, usually those who have the time and
inclination and with whom a department is comfortable. The division of
labor in the relationship often assigns crimefighting to the police and
neighborhood cleanup to the community.

A great deal of potential progress is lost in this minimal view of the
community role in anticrime work. Police officials and criminal justice
researchers seem to have little sense of community traditions of self-help
and mobilization as they relate to community policing. This passive view
of citizens ignores widespread examples throughout the country--and
throughout American history--of people taking responsibility and
launching their own efforts against crime. In fact, during the 1980s and
1990s in urban America, side by side with the development of new
problem-solving methodologies by law enforcement and new theories of
community policing, there has arisen a deeper and broader grassroots
tradition of active community anticrime work.

Yet, the new community sophistication and activism regarding crime is in
danger of disappearing. Most of the dialogue on public safety continues to
be carried on without the actors and initiators of this activity, those who
are most knowledgeable about communities--community leaders,
professional organizers, and ordinary neighborhood activists. As a result, 
practitioners on both sides of the potential partnership continue to have an
unclear view of community-police collaboration as a strategy or of its
particular targets, strengths, and weaknesses.

The danger is that victories that are not understood are unlikely to be
replicated. Today, when urban police and community residents team up to
solve serious neighborhood crime problems, the history of those victories
is too often misunderstood. As a result, those who care deeply about
making inner cities safer usually do not fully understand the success
stories or know how to repeat them.

When neighborhood residents and police work together successfully to
resolve a high-priority crime problem, a variety of explanations are offered
publicly, usually by a law enforcement spokesperson:

o The "officer friendly" explanation. The police are getting more sensitive
to the feelings of the community. Since they are friendlier, people trust
them and will work with them. Police officers smiling, attending church
breakfasts, helping kids or the elderly, and attending large numbers of
community meetings are generally cited as evidence of progress. The
underlying logic is: When community residents trust the police more,
residents will support them, acting as good witnesses individually or
occasionally playing an organized eyes-and-ears role regarding a specific
crime. The police can then do their job better.

This explanation confuses community policing (police and community
working together to reduce crime) with community relations (police better
communicating what they do to improve public opinion and support). It
also fails to recognize that, over time, trust in the police is usually an
outcome of reducing crime and increasing genuine collaboration rather
than public relations gimmicks.

o The "more is better" explanation. There are more police, or they are
smarter and better equipped. New technology, new enforcement tactics,
new management strategies, and additional or reinforced personnel are the
sole reasons for success. Although police organization and management
certainly matter, such explanations unfortunately evoke the image of the
cavalry riding to the rescue, whether the cavalry is new managers, new
officers, new computers, or new management approaches. This
explanation focuses exclusively on the "better policing" side of the
equation, ignoring new resources, strategies, and tactics brought to the
table by organized communities.

o The "beat cop is back" explanation. The spread of new
police-community collaboration in hundreds of urban neighborhoods is
nothing more than a return to older traditions in policing. According to
this explanation, before the mid-20th century, one cop walked (or cycled
or motor scootered or rode) around a fairly small geographic neighborhood
on a regular beat until everyone on the beat knew and respected him. (It
was almost always "him.") "My granddad did community policing," can
frequently be heard from adherents of this view.

All these explanations, while containing some truth, are misleading in
their exclusive focus on new styles of policing. Sadly, little systematic
analysis has been devoted to digesting the significance of new styles of
community action and organization or new forms of police-community
collaboration, which together constitute the "other half" of community
policing success stories.

Occasional triumphs, therefore, are not turned into conditions for
sustained, citywide collaboration. Few know how to create community
policing departments in which partnership with the community is routine.

Community policing

Community policing is more than a collection of tactics, more than
storefront offices, more than officers on beats or on bikes, more than
friendly relations between police and residents. On the other hand,
community policing is not a general method for improving the quality of
life. It is something more than the sum of these tactics and something less
than community development. It is, as we see it, a specific strategy for
fighting crime based on a working relationship between the community
and the police. The purpose of the work, in which each has an active role,
is to improve the quality of life by reducing crime, disorder, and fear.

One of the precepts that should guide police work is to do things in such a
way that the community does for itself as much as possible--that it
develops the habits and skills of doing. At the community level, this
requires that police see their work in a longer term context, that they enter
into the relationship understanding and supporting the goal of developing
capable communities. It means less doing for and more doing with. This
does not assign the task of organizing communities or community capacity
building to the police; that is work for local leaders and community
organizers. But it does ask for police support of such capacity building.

The hope is that the partners will work together to prevent some future
crimes and help build a more cohesive community. But without clarity
about goals and mutual expectations, there will be no sustained
partnerships that can generate healthier, revitalized communities.

Identifying partners in community policing

Much time is spent attempting to define the "community." People mean
many things when they use the word. "Community" is used to describe not
only specific geographic areas containing residents who live, work, and
socialize together but also entire ethnic or national groups (such as the
Jewish community or the African-American community), groups with
common interests across vast geographic areas (such as the user
communities of the Internet or the artistic community), and even the entire
planet (the global community).

The civilian, nongovernmental partner for the police will be one group, for
instance, in the case of hate crimes against members of a group that are
geographically dispersed. It will mean another group when the people are
direct or indirect victims of crimes by virtue of where they live. 

The job is to identify the most productive partner for the problems. Pattern
analysis studies in Minneapolis, New York, and elsewhere confirm what
patrol officers and community residents know firsthand. Problems are not
evenly or randomly distributed across communities. There are locations
known as hot spots where problems concentrate that account for a
disproportionate amount of a neighborhood's crime and disorder.

Both crime and disorder are important. Kelling and Wilson's classic
treatise, "Broken Windows,"[1] underscores the point that visible and
disruptive signs of disorder are symbolically important to communities
and may be viewed as bellwethers of how seriously a community cares
about crime. (See "Urban Residents Rank Crime Problems.")

But few communities will mobilize for long or pay sustained attention
even to serious crimes involving violence or serious property loss if the
crimes seem more or less randomly distributed and do not threaten
community life. The reality of crime's geographical distribution provides
a critical first step in answering who, in the context of community
policing, the appropriate community partners should be.

A chronic, visible problem sets the stage for community organizing. It
convinces people that it will not just go away. It often leads to frustration,
anger, fear, and impulses to flee or fight. These are the conditions that can
lead neighbors to get organized, to conclude that "something has to be
done." But a problem's persistence only provides one of the necessary
conditions for organizing. The impulse to flee must, if possible, be
redirected. The impulse to fight must be mobilized.

The bulk of urban community anticrime efforts occurs in relatively small
geographic areas within the larger city at the level of individual
neighborhoods or even single blocks or buildings. These are places where 
participants share some common identity or common problems distinct
from others in the city and where they engage in some regular activities in
common. The principal actors in these efforts are those who have deep
stakes in the maintenance of a neighborhood's order and safety. Usually,
they include local residents, community-based organizations, and other
not-for-profit groups.

The residents and institutions based in an area differ significantly from
those who travel in and out. While transients may share concerns about
safety, they are generally far less willing or able to work intensively on
crime problems over the long run. Residents are the actors most affected,
most concerned with, and most likely to volunteer to solve problems that
disrupt the neighborhood, create fear, and reduce the quality of life. They
are the most likely partner in combating community-based crime.

To become effective partners, however, neighbors not only must become
aware of each other's concerns, they must also develop some mutual trust
before they will undertake what may appear to be a risky project. They
must develop skills at conducting meetings and recruiting neighbors. They
must learn to analyze, select among, and prioritize the many problems that
they might work on. They must learn how to work with each other and the
police. They must develop enough trust in their allies to know they will
not be abandoned. Finally, they must develop the capacity to organize
from victory to victory so that the number of involved local residents
increases over time.

Even when well organized, however, most community residents will need
to learn the basic elements involved in tackling crime problems safely,
effectively, and in collaboration with law enforcement. How do you report
crimes confidentially and without exposing yourself or neighbors to
unnecessary risks? How do you reach out to, and work closely with, local
police and prosecutors against serious crime conditions? How do you
organize from victory to victory so that the number of involved local
residents (and your strength) increases over time? How do you use your
neighborhood's own unique resources?

Creating successful partnerships with organizations

Organized people are more likely to safely and simultaneously implement
a variety of crime-reduction activities like civilian patrols, community
rallies, marches, positive loitering, and other forms of direct action, as well
as civil and criminal legal strategies, court monitoring, and legislative
actions. (See "What Can the Community Do?")

Organizations are more capable of focusing on problems that affect a large
number of people in the community. They are better able to get the
attention of agencies and institutions important in a coordinated process of
solving a community problem. Organized groups have greater staying
power than individuals.

It is important, however, to understand that not all kinds of
community-based organizations are equally effective as partners. Critical
to having an impact on locations with chronic crime is an organization that
has a collective problem-solving perspective and a commitment to reach
out to and involve neighborhood residents. The organization can be a
block club, community organization, church committee, school or youth
group, or social service agency. The organization can be formal or
informal, have a big budget or no budget, or have a staff or be totally
volunteer.

An agency that looks at people in the neighborhood only as individual
clients or consumers is likely to have difficulties reaching out to
significant numbers of people and coordinating and sustaining their
efforts. On the other hand, purely volunteer organizations often have
trouble maintaining ongoing activity over the long term without support
from staffed organizations. Block clubs, for instance, are more effective if
they have the support of umbrella organizations. In the most strongly
organized neighborhoods, block or building organizations are linked with
larger neighborhood or civic organizations.

Communities with weak organizations, no organizations, or organizations
that serve only individual clients--especially those communities that face
serious crime--should not be ignored or abandoned to traditional reactive
policing just because they do not make the most effective partners for
police. They need to be brought to the point that they will make effective
partners. They need to be organized. But this is not a job for the police. It
is a task for local leaders, assisted where possible by professional
community organizers who know about crime, the police, and community
policing. These organizers need to know how to involve residents in
collaboration to develop neighborhood leadership, establish organizations,
and design actions to solve community problems.[2]

The Chicago example

Partnership requires the development and implementation of coordinated
activities. This requires meetings, the collection and sharing of
information, planning, and exchanges about the effectiveness of
implementation. Police and community must regularly report to each
other. Of course, anticrime activity goes on in every community without
involving any police time. But true problem-solving partnerships cannot
develop without regular exchanges and some meetings.

The importance of an organized and trained community and the potential
for a wide and effective impact in creating safer neighborhoods is clearly
illustrated by the experience in Chicago. Responding to community
pressure and police support, the city invested several million dollars in
citywide training of the community for its role. The Joint Community
Police Training Project (JCPT), which trained nearly 12,000 people, was
run by a community-based organization, the Chicago Alliance for
Neighborhood Safety (CANS). Twenty-five outreach organizers spent
more than a month in each police beat (average population 10,000
residents) knocking on doors; making presentations to block, church,
school, and other community groups; and inviting them to training
sessions and further involvement.

The orientation on Chicago's version of community policing and on
problem solving was delivered to people invited by the outreach workers.
A team of community and police trainers working with the organizers then
spent weeks supporting residents in actual problem solving.

Evaluators of Chicago's policing strategy and training point out that
"People have turned out by the tens of thousands to get involved in
training, participate in beat community meetings [with police], and take
responsibility for neighborhood problem solving."[3]

The evaluators also found that the likelihood of citizen participation in
crime-and-disorder reduction activities is related to participation in
traditional community-based organizations. Residents involved in a
neighborhood's community, religious, civic, or charitable organizations,
with their developed habits of participation and the organizational support
for maintenance of these habits, were roughly four times more likely to
attend and participate in meetings and get involved in problem-solving
activities. They participated in rallies, positive loitering, and meetings with
landlords and businesspeople to make their neighborhoods safer. Those
with no organizational affiliation participated in problem solving 48
percent of the time. Those who indicated affiliation with four or more
organizations got involved in problem solving more than 80 percent of the
time.

Those most likely to participate in the training live in high-crime
neighborhoods. "In the safest fifth of the beats," the authors report,
"attendance averaged 25 per 1,000 adults, while in the most unsafe fifth of
beats (where the personal crime rate was five times higher) attendance
averaged 53 per 1,000, more than double the lower rate." This training
attracted people in high-crime, low-income, minority neighborhoods
where it proved useful in improving the quality of life. 

Among participants surveyed 4 months after they received training,
attempts had been made to solve 63 percent of the problems they listed. To
make their neighborhoods safer, 17 percent of JCPT graduates participated
in positive loitering, 15 percent joined a community policing-related rally
or demonstration, 41 percent met with property owners to address crime,
and 25 percent met with local businesspeople to address crime. On
average, 26 percent of all problems were partially or completely solved
during the 4- month followup period covered by the study. 

Forty-four percent of the regular beat meetings with the police were run by
a resident or community organizer. Another 14 percent were run
collaboratively by a community person and an officer. These
community-run or collaborative meetings were more likely to prepare an
agenda, call for volunteers, and distribute sign-in sheets for other
activities. At these meetings, discussion was evenly divided among police
and residents at 60 percent of the meetings, and civilians took on a
dominant role at another 25 percent. When area residents or community
organizers chaired beat meetings, police dominated crafting of solutions
only 34 percent of the time. When police ran the meeting, they took the
lead in proposing solutions 77 percent of the time.

Beyond solving a problem

Beyond the education and mobilization of participants for problem
solving, the capacity to sustain efforts must be embodied in ongoing
community-based organizations that do not have to be reorganized to deal
with every new crisis. This is important because the critical issue for the
success of community policing generally is consolidation of victories,
once achieved, over time. Without consolidation, communities will
permanently increase the tax burden and assign hundreds of thousands of
new police officers to the streets. With consolidation, active, informed
community organizations will do their part to maintain safe and livable
communities.

The time horizon in thinking about community policing and problem
solving must extend beyond the initial declaration of victory over a
particular problem. If we want to improve the quality of life in troubled
neighborhoods, sustaining solutions for months and years matters.
Community-based organizations are important in solving problems, and
they are critical in consolidating improvements over time.

Neighborhood safety and the quality of life are not significantly improved
by suppressing a problem temporarily. Although intensive efforts can
reduce a problem--e.g., community groups can apply prolonged and
intense pressure on a drug house and have a dramatic impact--once an
initially defined problem is solved and the situation becomes less pressing,
it can become far more difficult to maintain the capacity and readiness to
bring pressure on that problem if it begins to return. To go through a
process that cannot secure long-term improvements will recreate the
principal shortcoming of incident-driven policing: "Bust them today, and
they're back tomorrow."

If, on the other hand, people who are affected by a chronic crime problem
organize, work with the police and others to reduce the crime, and stay
organized and involved after crime is reduced, they have a better chance of
keeping things safer.

Building partnerships

Police and community each come to the partnership table with their own
traditions and culture as well as their own myths, half-truths, and
misperceptions. These play out within the context of the still-dominant
model of policing that casts the community as passive and police as active.
The more the process is driven by established habits, the more likely it is
to bring community and police together in a face-to-face variation of a 911
call, premised on merely transferring information and delegating the
responsibility for action to police. Genuine partnership should expect to
break this mold.

For most urban residents, even those who have participated in successful
anticrime activities, expectations of the police are a vague and often
contradictory mixture of old and new; of incident-driven,
problem-oriented, and community policing; and of phrases without clear
content. Even if they have followed closely in the press the advent of
police reform in their city, they are likely to have read that community
policing is foot patrols, motor scooters, storefront substations,
nonemergency numbers, or some combination of these tactics.

Both the community and the police must learn that problem-solving
partnerships are often labor intensive. But both parties should also
understand that for every hour of paid police time spent on the process,
dozens, sometimes many hundreds of hours of volunteer time are invested.
The reward for all this effort: the greater the mutual expectation to
coordinate police and community action, the more likely an active
community will develop on which police can depend and in which
neighbors can hold each other, as well as the police, accountable.

If community policing partnerships are to develop and succeed, police and
the community also must understand the different organizational contexts
within which each operates and the constraints and opportunities created
by these contexts. Community and police often come to the collaboration
with false expectations.

Community residents sometimes expect too much of the police: a cop on
every block, rapid response to every call, intensive and exhaustive
investigations of every incident, and great community relations skills. The
community must learn the constraints on an officer's time and
decisionmaking latitude--that, whatever the rhetoric, when a police officer
is on the job, he or she is not one of them. If they are to work together,
police processes must be clear to the community. Agreements made at
meetings with the community may have to be cleared with supervisors
before an officer can commit to participation. Community participants
must understand that, for example, their desire for support from a special
unit, even with an officer's concurrence, is no guarantee of that support.

Conversely, many police often expect too little of community residents.
Police officials and representatives with low expectations of community
roles in crime prevention and reduction generally base their skepticism on
work with unorganized and uninformed citizens. Perhaps experience has
taught them that the best that can be hoped for in such cases is an
eyes-and-ears role.

Individual police officers can come to community meetings expecting too
little or too much. Often impatient, under pressure from a supervisor to get
back "in service" and fearful of being swallowed by the dynamics of
neighborhoods and their organizations, it becomes increasingly critical for
police officers to understand those dynamics and values of community
organizations. Among the most cherished values and an important
determinant of the dynamics in many volunteer-based community
organizations is participatory decisionmaking. Especially in the case of a
community's actual and potential leaders--those who can move their
neighbors into action and set the direction of that action--participation in
decisionmaking is key to buying in or having a stake in the process.
Having a stake is key to sustained activity. To maintain volunteer
involvement, organizations need to engage people in selecting the problem
they will work on, fashioning the strategy to solve it, and implementing
that strategy.

This participatory nature of decisionmaking in many community
organizations is foreign to police departments. It can be frustrating to
professionals who have become used to a paramilitary chain of command.
Yet such participation is critical to the community-police collaboration.
Police must come to meetings in the community with the expectation of
negotiating with volunteers with whom they hope to be involved. Resident
volunteers are neither passive resources nor paid employees: It is their
neighborhood, and they must live with whatever decisions are reached on
a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis.

Often, what is uppermost for the police department does not match what
concerns the community. Like the community, officers must be prepared
to take as well as give leadership. They also must understand that
follow-through is critical, that losing momentum loses volunteers.

In the problem-solving process, both parties can expect initial venting,
passing of the buck, and defensiveness. Police may blame the courts,
personnel on another shift, the command structure, or community apathy
for the persistence of problems cited by the community. The community
may blame the police, city services, the kids, or neighbors not getting
involved. Both may blame the decay of the family, the absence of jobs,
and other root causes. All these accusations may contain elements of truth,
and some venting and finger pointing is inevitable. But it is critical that
someone at the meeting have the skills to keep the focus on the targeted
problem, and what participants will do to solve it.

Inevitably, there will be testing throughout the process. If the recruitment
of neighborhood residents has been successful, it will have reached
beyond those comfortable with the police. These residents will have come
because they have felt the urgency of a crime problem in their
neighborhood. But they also will bring their doubts and bad experiences to
the collaboration, and their defenses will be up. Doubters will look for bad
attitudes and signs that an officer is not doing his or her part. They will
need to be convinced that this is worth their time, that the police care and
are reliable. (This will be especially true among young people.) If a
problem is solved through cooperative work, former doubters become a
voice in the community for future collaboration. Their doubts are worth
working through because their word-of-mouth advocacy is powerful.

To accomplish its mission, community policing must build on the shared
traditions and objectives of the partners. Both have much to learn from
each other. Both share the goal of safer neighborhoods, and hidden
beneath the partners' specialized vocabularies is a core of shared concepts.
On the police side, there is problem-oriented policing as a methodology
for looking at and responding to crime. On the community side, there are
community organizing and anticrime activity as community-building
activities. Both the police and community traditions are, to a large degree,
geographically focused and involve the ideas of sustained, purposeful
effort and concepts like targets, patterns, repeated occurrences, and
coordinated activities. Both call on research and analysis before action,
and both encourage evaluation of results.

Measuring what matters

While problem-solving partnerships are the foundation of community
policing, what matters most is how the goals are selected, how the
participants work together to accomplish those goals, whether the goals
are accomplished, and whether community capacity is developed.

Some of the assessment or evaluative questions that need to be asked
include:

o Is the collaboration target-oriented? What kinds of targets were selected?
Did the community and the police both have roles in selecting the problem
and designing the strategies? Did both play a role in implementing the
strategy? What was the division of labor? What kinds of support, training,
and technical assistance did each receive (and should each have received)
for their part in problem solving?

o Were the goals realistic? Was the strategy a success? Were the desired
outcomes actually realized? Did trust between police and community
improve? Were previously inactive residents enlisted in the work?

o Did participants understand the process in which they participated? Did
they gain a new under- standing of collaboration? Did attitudes toward the
use of 911 and incident-driven policing change? Did community residents
know what to expect from officers and how to assess whether they were
getting it?

o Did organizational skills such as setting agendas and running meetings
improve among community participants? Did collaboration continue over
time, from problem to problem? Did collaborative work expand across
communities?

Conclusion

Measuring the problem-solving interaction of community and police is
measuring something that matters deeply to the future of America's cities.
Focusing on community self-help and the development of its capacity to
solve neighborhood problems is not to deny the major influence that issues
at the national, State, and city levels have on neighborhoods. The Nation's
deeply entrenched divisions of race and income, and recent rises in the
numbers of youth living in poverty, affect the prevalence of crime and are
mostly beyond the reach of local activity.

Focusing on community-police partnerships does not diminish the
importance of community development. Community action against crime
will obviously have a greater effect if it takes place in the context of a
concerted effort to produce locally accessible jobs, decent education, and
hope for young people. The impact of community action would also be
greater in the context of efforts, for instance, to improve housing stock,
business investment, and transportation in poor and at-risk communities.
But even in the absence of broader efforts, local anticrime action is
valuable. It can raise people's sense of efficacy and increase community
cohesion, reduce crime, improve the quality of life, and heal a tiny part of
the rift between government and citizens.

Getting communities organized and maintaining community organizations
cost money. If the police can't produce neighborhood safety by
themselves, if they need community partners, if improving the general
welfare and domestic tranquillity of our neighborhoods requires 100,000
community organizers to match the 100,000 police, then the community
has a right to expect public support from police and other law enforcement
leaders for the resources they need to fulfill the community role
effectively. 

Notes

1. Kelling, George, M., and James Q. Wilson, "Broken Windows,"
Atlantic Monthly 249 (3) (March 1982): 29- 36.

2. The "how to's" of community action against crime have been translated
by support organizations that work with neighborhood residents--such as
the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety, the American Alliance for
Rights and Responsibilities (now the Center for the Community Interest),
the Citizen's Committee for New York City, the National Crime
Prevention Council, and others--into practical guidance materials in basic
skills and strategies. The citywide Citizens Committee provides technical
assistance, publications, small grants, and a Neighborhood Safety
Leadership Institute. The Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety also
offers technical assistance and training. See also Kirby, Felice, Alex
Kopelman, and Michael E. Clark, Drugs: Fighting Back!, New York:
Citizens Committee for New York City, 1995; Cadwalader, Wickersham
& Taft, Attorneys at Law, A Civil War: A Community Legal Guide to
Fighting Street Drug Markets, New York: Cadwalader, Wickersham &
Taft, 1993; and Conner, Roger, and Patrick Burns, A Winnable War: A
Community Guide to Eradicating Drug Markets, Washington, DC:
American Alliance for Rights and Responsibilities, 1992.

3. Skogan, Wesley G., et al., Community Policing in Chicago, Year Three:
An Interim Report, Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information
Authority, November 1996. See also Friedman, Warren, Building on the
Promise: Reason for Hope/Room for Doubt, Chicago: Chicago Alliance
for Neighborhood Safety, 1996, for a community perspective on the status
of Chicago's version of community policing and what must happen to
sustain and enhance community participation.

-------------------------------

Urban Residents Rank Crime Problems

As communities differ widely in socioeconomic status, ethnicity, level of
organization, and local history, so do their crime priorities. Ultimately, this
means there is no substitute for sitting down with representatives of each
neighborhood to ask them about these priorities. Nevertheless, survey data
and experience suggest that crime problems often are ranked by urban
community residents roughly as follows: (1) serious crimes that cause
community disorder--either directly (as when streets or hallways become
unusable), or indirectly by grossly escalating local fear of crime and
inhibiting normal community activities (like the use of streets, parks, or
playgrounds); (2) less serious crimes that cause disorder--such as
widespread graffiti, street prostitution, illegal parking, misuse of parks and
other public spaces, loitering, and vandalism; and (3) isolated crimes that
do not appear to persist over time.

-------------------------------

What Can the Community Do?

o Identify, analyze, and solve problems. An informed, organized, and
involved community can work with police to identify, analyze, and
implement solutions to community problems. As Herman Goldstein has
written, "A strong commitment to consulting with the affected community
is inherent in problem-oriented policing."* Citizens not only have unique
knowledge of their own community but also may have skills and contacts
that facilitate problem solving.

o Mobilize the community. Members of the community are best
positioned to organize their neighbors to safely combat crime and related
problems. Groups often get started through neighborhood meetings,
rallies, and recreational events. Door-to-door surveys serve as both
information-gathering and community outreach efforts. Community
organizations, by their very nature as continuing organizations with rosters
of members and regular meetings, can help sustain community
involvement in community policing over time.

o Share information with police. Citizens often help by gathering
information. Community organizations can organize community meetings
on how to safely provide police with useful information (license plate
numbers, detailed descriptions, brand names of street drugs, and code
signals used to alert drug dealers of police presence). Standard forms for
recording information can also be distributed.

o Deny criminals access to space. No matter how dedicated community
policing officers are, they cannot be everywhere all the time. Community
organizations can help by conducting antidrug patrols and initiating block
watches in neighborhoods, in apartment buildings, and along school
routes.

o Influence city agencies. A group of organized citizens are much more
likely than individual citizens or police officers to get a response from city
agencies. Community organizations can request meetings with mayors or
city council members to support effective community policing practices,
adequate street lighting, towing of abandoned cars, and additional social
services in their neighborhoods.

o Educate the media. Neighborhood groups are well positioned to provide
information to the media about crime and disorder problems and the
effectiveness of problem-solving and community policing approaches.
Leaders of neighborhood and citywide community organizations can write
letters to the editor, appear on local radio or TV shows, and organize press
conferences.

o Take legal action. Citizens can pressure landlords to evict drug dealers
and maintain and improve building security by improving lighting, door
locks, intercoms, and roof doors. Legal actions can be taken, in concert
with local officials, to close down bars or other establishments that tolerate
illegal activities. Civil actions can be used in lieu of, or to complement,
criminal proceedings.

o Monitor court actions. After arrests in the neighborhood, community
members can monitor and track the progress of cases and encourage
prosecutors to seek and judges to give appropriate sentences.
Neighborhood organizations can also encourage prosecutors' offices to
develop drug courts, community courts, and alternative sentencing
programs.

o Develop prevention and treatment programs. Community groups can
draw on private and public resources as well as their own "people power"
to establish youth centers; mentoring, tutoring, or parenting projects; and
Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or other substance abuse
prevention or treatment programs for neighborhood residents.

o Partner with neighborhood-based institutions. Churches, synagogues,
mosques, and temples as well as private businesses and schools can be
recruited to help combat crime and recruit volunteers for
community-based programs.

o Rebuild social cohesion. Community organizations, through their
neighborhood activities, can help communities rebuild social control and
increase citizen accountability for the actions of residents and their
children.

o Create a constituency for community policing. Independently organized
communities, partnering with police and other agencies, not only help
prevent and control crime in particular neighborhoods, but also
collectively build and sustain a jurisdiction's long-term commitment to
community policing.

* Goldstein, Herman, Problem-Oriented Policing, New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1990.

-------------------------------

Americans' Views on Crime and Law Enforcement: A Look at Recent
Survey Findings

Jean Johnson, Steve Farkas, Ali Bers, Christin Connolly, and Zarela
Maldonado

Americans from every walk of life, in every community in the country,
routinely make decisions that strengthen or hinder the country's ability to
fight crime. Citizens elect the governors, mayors, and legislators who
shape crime-fighting policy. When citizens choose not to report crimes or
press charges, when jurors decide to accept or discount police testimony
for any reason other than merit, they profoundly affect the quality of law
enforcement and justice in this country.

At the request of the National Institute of Justice, Public Agenda, a
nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, analyzed recent public
opinion data on crime, the criminal justice system, and the role and
effectiveness of the police. This paper summarizes our key observations
based on an analysis of surveys from the past 5 years.[1] Unless otherwise
noted, the surveys cited here are national random sample telephone 
surveys conducted in 1995 or later.

Crime and law enforcement are areas where attitudes often vary sharply
between African-Americans and whites, and we have reported the views of
these groups separately where the differences are significant.
Unfortunately, most national surveys are not large enough to allow us to
report with any confidence on the views of Hispanics or other minority
groups. 

Falling crime rates: rooted fears

Despite falling crime rates and remarkably good news from some of the
Nation's large cities, crime remains an urgent issue for most Americans.
Crime routinely appears at or near the top of surveys asking Americans to
name the most important issues facing the country. Ninety-two percent of
Americans, for example, say the issue of crime should be a priority for
Congress (The Gallup Organization for CNN/USA Today, October 1997).
Just 24 percent of the public believe the country is making progress on
crime; 44 percent say the country is losing ground (Princeton Survey
Research/Pew Research Center, November 1997).

The public's concerns about crime seem to be somewhat independent of
the actual crime rate, a phenomenon that may discourage law enforcement
professionals but underscores just how frightening this issue is for most
people. Public concern about jobs and unemployment often shows a
similar pattern, remaining high even in times of comparatively low
unemployment. Crime and unemployment can devastate people's lives in
ways that a far-off foreign policy crisis or long-term environmental threat
cannot. Deeply held public fears about crime--developed over decades--
may be slow to dissipate even in the best of circumstances.

Public attitudes in New York City, which has experienced dramatic and
highly publicized decreases in violent crime, provide a case in point. Polls
in New York City show a remarkable jump in the New York City Police
Department's approval rating, which rose from 37 percent in 1992 to 73
percent in 1996 (Empire Foundation, April 1996). Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, former Police Commissioner William Bratton, and current
Commissioner Howard Safir have earned good marks for their efforts in
fighting crime (Quinnipiac College, April 1996 and February 1997).
Although half of New Yorkers (51 percent) say the city is now safer,
almost two-thirds (65 percent) say they worry about being a victim of
crime (Quinnipiac College, February 1997).

Many observers have suggested that public fears about crime are driven by
media coverage rather than by any real knowledge of crime rates in their
area. And 76 percent of Americans themselves say this is true: They get
their information about crime from the news media (ABC News, May
1996). 

Almost 6 in 10 Americans (57 percent) say their own community has less
crime than the country as a whole (Los Angeles Times, January 1994); 8
in 10 say they feel safe in their own community (Los Angeles Times,
October 1995). Even in New York City, where 81 percent of residents say
crime is a "big problem," only 38 percent say crime is a "big problem" in
their own community (Quinnipiac College, February 1997).

But people's fears are nevertheless real, and they may be intensified by the
conviction of many Americans that the crime problem is getting worse,
not better. Sixty-five percent of Americans say they think there is more
crime in the United States than a year ago (The Gallup Organization for
CNN/USA Today, July 1997); 62 percent say they worry "a lot" about an
increase in crime in their own community (Yankelovich Partners for
Time/CNN, January 1995).

Some groups in the population voice even higher levels of concern. More
than two-thirds of women (68 percent), compared with just over half of
men (56 percent), say they worry "a lot" about an increase in crime in their
community. Seventy-six percent of African-Americans, compared with 60
percent of whites, voice a high level of concern. Two-thirds (66 percent)
of low-income Americans (those earning less than $20,000), compared
with only half (51 percent) of those with incomes above $75,000, worry a
lot about an increase in crime (Yankelovich Partners for Time/CNN,
January 1995). Since crime statistics show that blacks and low-income
Americans are more likely to be victims of crimes, the concerns of these
groups have a factual base (see exhibit 1).

Causes of crime: complex and multifaceted

Americans identify a wide variety of social, economic, and moral
conditions as the causes of crime. Fifty-six percent cite illegal drugs as a
chief cause of crime; 38 percent name a lack of religion and morality in
families; and 36 percent point to economic problems and lack of jobs.
More than a quarter (28 percent) say the way judges apply the law is an
important cause of crime (CBS News/New York Times, June 1996).

People back a variety of approaches they view as effective ways to fight
crime--some designed to remove dangerous criminals from their
neighborhoods, some to prevent youngsters from falling into a life of
crime, some to express society's outrage at those who disdain its laws.
Public views on fighting crime do not fall neatly into either a liberal or
conservative political framework. Sixty-nine percent of Americans want to
make it more difficult for individuals to own handguns or assault weapons.
A virtually equal number (71 percent) want to make greater use of the
death penalty (Hart and Teeter Research Companies, December 1996).

The public considers "mandatory life sentences for three-time felons" and
"youth crime prevention programs" equally effective as crimefighting
measures (Los Angeles Times, April 1994). Asked about the best overall
approach to reducing crime, 30 percent of Americans want to emphasize
punishment, 18 percent want to address the causes, and 51 percent want to
emphasize both (Hart and Teeter Research Group, January 1995).

Research on prison overcrowding and alternative sentencing by Public
Agenda for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation also strongly suggests
that most Americans believe in a mixture of approaches.[2] For youngsters
in particular, people want the preventive approach--"stop them before they
start, if you can." But for most Americans, the worst possible lesson for
young offenders would be to not to get caught or to receive the "slap on
the wrist" of probation. Indeed, the Public Agenda studies found that the
most popular sentence for young offenders is boot camp. Most Americans
are convinced that the young person who "gets away with it" is all the
more likely to continue a life of crime.

Opinion research strongly suggests that, for the public, the concept of
justice includes both protecting the rights of the accused and redressing
wrongs done to victims and society. The vast majority of Americans
appears to believe that the balance between these two goals has tipped too
far in favor of the accused. Eighty-six percent of Americans say the court
system does too much to protect the rights of people accused of crimes and
not enough to protect the rights of crime victims (ABC News, February
1994). Only 3 percent of Americans say the courts deal too harshly with
criminals; 85 percent say they are not harsh enough (National Opinion
Research Center [NORC], May 1994).

The police: on the front lines

Putting more police on the streets as an effective way to fight crime is
broadly supported. Nine in ten Americans (90 percent) say that increasing
the number of police is a very (46 percent) or somewhat (44 percent)
effective way to reduce crime (ABC News, November 1994). And, given
the general skepticism people feel about many institutions and most of
government, Americans voice substantial confidence in law enforcement.
Sixty percent of Americans say they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of
confidence in the police; another 29 percent say they have "some"
confidence in the police; only 12 percent express very little or no
confidence (The Gallup Organization for CNN/USA Today, May 1996).

In a 1996 Gallup survey, only one major American institution rated higher
than the police: 66 percent of the public have a great deal or quite a lot of
confidence in the military. The police score about as well as "organized
religion" (56 percent), and many groups--business corporations, Congress,
the news media--do much worse. The police also score significantly higher
than "the criminal justice system" as a whole; only one in five Americans
(19 percent) voices strong confidence in it (The Gallup Organization,
1996). (See exhibit 2.)

But confidence in law enforcement is one area where African-Americans
and white Americans differ dramatically. While 66 percent of whites say
they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police, only 32
percent of African-Americans feel the same way. Perhaps even more
important, while only a handful of whites (8 percent) say they have very
little or no confidence in the police, 25 percent of blacks make this
statement (The Gallup Organization, May 1996). (See exhibit 3.)

Incidents that shape perceptions

Much of the recent opinion research on police bias and brutality has
focused on two widely publicized incidents in the past 5 years: the trial of
four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King and the
role of retired Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman in the murder trial of
O.J. Simpson.

Public attitudes about these two incidents suggest the basis for some of the
public's thinking about what constitutes appropriate police behavior and
the degree to which people believe most officers act professionally most of
the time. Surveys conducted during periods of extensive press coverage
and heightened public debate can, of course, show levels of concern or
anger that recede in quieter times. Mark Fuhrman, for example, has written
a bestselling book and made numerous media appearances in the wake of
the civil judgment against O.J. Simpson. Public attitudes about him
personally may shift somewhat with time. But the initial public reactions
to these two incidents as people understood them at the time are revealing.

Surveys of public reaction to the Rodney King beating--undoubtedly
shaped by repeated broadcast of a videotape of the incident--show that the
overwhelming majority of Americans did not like what they saw. Just 6
percent of Americans surveyed after the officers' initial acquittal said they
thought the verdict was "right" (CBS News/New York Times, May 1992).
Only 9 percent said they "sympathize[d]" more with police than the
beating victim (Yankelovich Clancy Schulman for Time/CNN, April
1992.)

Reactions to the tape-recorded comments of Mark Fuhrman played during
the Simpson criminal trial show a similar public recoil against an officer
who did not seem to fit commonly held standards for appropriate police
behavior. At the time, 87 percent of Americans, with blacks and whites
agreeing in roughly equal numbers, said they had an "unfavorable
impression" of Fuhrman (The Gallup Organization, October 1995),
although Americans were split largely along racial lines about whether he
actually planted evidence in the Simpson case (CBS News, September
1995).[3]

Regardless of their differing perceptions about what Fuhrman actually did
or did not do, there is one area where blacks and whites agree
overwhelmingly: Only 9 percent of either group said that watching the
Simpson trial gave them more confidence that "police officers perform
their duties in a professional and ethical manner" (The Gallup
Organization for CNN/USA Today, October 1995).

The exception or the rule?

For many white Americans, these kinds of incidents are mainly viewed as
regrettable exceptions to the rule. Only 15 percent of white Americans
think that "the kind of improper behavior by police described on the
Fuhrman tapes (racism and falsification of evidence)" is common among
their local police (Princeton Survey Research Associates, August 1995).
But black Americans see things very differently. More than half of
African-Americans (53 percent) think that the racism and falsification of
evidence described on the Fuhrman tapes is common among the local
police (Princeton Survey Research Associates, August 1995). Almost
twice as many blacks as whites (43 percent compared with 24 percent)
consider "police overreaction to crime" a very serious threat (The Gallup
Organization for America's Talking, June 1994). (See exhibit 4.)

Moreover, concern among African-Americans about their chances of being
treated fairly extends beyond law enforcement: While 41 percent of whites
say that racial and other minorities receive equal treatment in the criminal
justice system, only 12 percent of African-Americans say they are
confident that this occurs (ABC News, May 1996).

Common standards, different experiences Interestingly, there is substantial
agreement among black and white Americans about what constitutes 
appropriate police behavior. Nine in ten Americans (90 percent)--with no
significant differences between blacks and whites--disapprove of an
officer striking a citizen who is being vulgar and obscene. A roughly equal
number (92 percent) disapprove of an officer striking a murder suspect
during questioning--again with no significant differences between blacks
and whites. Ninety-three percent say a police officer should be allowed to
strike a citizen who is attacking the officer with his fists, with blacks and
whites again in agreement (NORC, 1994).

But judgments differ widely about what actually happens in most
communities regarding police behavior. Middle-class whites generally
have only positive interactions with the police, and most experience a
sense of relief at seeing police officers out and about. In contrast, a study
by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (April 1996)
reports that 43 percent of blacks consider "police brutality and harassment
of African-Americans a serious problem" in their own community.

The level of distrust obviously affects the degree of support law
enforcement can expect now and in the future. While 72 percent of whites
think the police generally are fair in collecting evidence, only 47 percent
of blacks believe this (Yankelovich Partners, June 1995). Even prior to the
Rodney King incident, African-Americans were more likely than whites--
82 percent compared with 65 percent--to think that charges of police
brutality are likely to be justified (CBS News/New York Times, April
1991).

Although blacks and whites agree on how police officers should behave
when the situation is relatively clear-cut, there are important differences
when the situation is more problematic. Seventy-eight percent of whites,
compared with only 57 percent of blacks, would approve of an officer
striking a suspect attempting to escape custody (NORC, 1994). Given a
Rorschach survey question capturing the most immediate first thoughts of
the respondents, the racial differences are marked: More than
three-quarters of whites (76 percent) say they can "imagine" a situation in
which they would approve of a policeman striking an adult male citizen,
but less than half of blacks (45 percent) give the police this kind of benefit
of the doubt (NORC, May 1994). (See exhibit 5.)

The fault line

There are some issues, such as affirmative action, where policymakers
cannot easily accommodate the anxieties both blacks and whites bring to
the issue--fears among blacks that they will be the subject of
discrimination if affirmative action is curtailed; fears among whites that
they will be the subject of reverse discrimination if affirmative action
stands.

But concerns about police bias and brutality are different. Although blacks
and whites disagree about how widespread these problems are, neither
group finds such behavior acceptable. Both blacks and whites disapproved
of the Rodney King beating, at least as they saw it. Both groups were
repulsed by the attitudes and behavior depicted on the Fuhrman tapes.

Indeed, those concerned that police officers behave--and are perceived as
behaving--in a professional manner should not be overly consoled by the
judgments of whites either. Americans of both races seem dubious that
police departments will act forcefully to address problems of racism,
dishonesty, or brutality to the extent that they exist in police ranks. Only
14 percent of white Americans and 15 percent of black Americans think it
is "very likely" that the controversy surrounding detective Fuhrman will
lead to "significant improvement in the way police in this country treat
blacks" (The Gallup Organization for CNN/USA Today, October 1995).

In a decade when many Americans seem to think that "government" can
do no right, law enforcement is viewed as an essential public service, and
the police enjoy a robust vote of confidence from most of the public. But
support for law enforcement has a fault line. Far too many black
Americans are disaffected and suspicious. They are not confident that the
police will be fair. They are not confident that the police will be
professional. They are not confident that the police will "protect and
serve." And while the personal encounters most whites have with police
officers may be positive, white Americans have witnessed some graphic,
highly publicized examples of police behavior that, in their view, are
entirely unacceptable. They may regard these incidents as exceptions, but
not ones to be glossed over as "the cost of doing business."

Over the past 5 years, Public Agenda has looked closely at public attitudes
about teachers, another group of government workers whom the public
likes. Teachers, like police officers, are seen as performing an essential
public service and are generally regarded with respect. But Public Agenda
research also shows a rising frustration with teachers--and their unions--
for seeming to tolerate and protect the few incompetents among them.
Focus groups erupt in anger when discussion turns to teacher tenure. The
stories pour out about the one bad teacher the school cannot seem to get rid
of. Anger against the few infects attitudes about teachers overall.

Law enforcement may now be in a similar position. Police departments
that are seen as tolerating racist, brutal, or corrupt officers--or police
unions that are perceived as protecting them--could slowly and
incrementally jeopardize the strong support for law enforcement overall. It
is fair to ask how long police departments can tolerate widespread lack of
confidence among the black community--an outlook that must daily
undermine police effectiveness in fighting crime. Public confidence in law
enforcement is, for the country and for law enforcement itself, a priceless
asset, but it is not indestructible nor a cause for complacency.

Notes

1. In preparing this paper, we have relied extensively on data from the
Roper Center Public Opinion Location Library (POLL), a resource
housing survey data from many of the Nation's most respected opinion
research firms--ABC News, The Gallup Organization, Louis Harris and
Associates, National Opinion Research Center (NORC), Princeton Survey
Research Associates, and others. POLL is operated by the Roper Center at
the University of Connecticut and can be accessed through NEXIS. The
service can provide full-question wording, complete responses, and, in
most cases, demographic breakdowns for the surveys cited here, along
with other findings about crime and criminal justice that could not be
discussed in this brief overview.

2. Public Agenda has conducted three studies on public attitudes about
incarceration and alternative sentencing in Pennsylvania (1993), Delaware
(1991), and Alabama (1989). The research was sponsored by the Edna
McConnell Clark Foundation.

3. The poll found that 78 percent of African-Americans think it is likely
that Fuhrman planted the glove as evidence. In contrast, only 33 percent of
whites think it is likely he planted the glove.

-------------------------------

To Whom Do We Answer?

Johnnie Johnson, Robert Berry, Juanita Eaton, Robert Ford, and Dennis E.
Nowicki

The costs of crime have reached such a level that the police community
must take a cold, hard look at itself. The criminal justice system is failing
the public. People want to be safe from crime, and it is up to the police to
be the catalyst in making that desire a reality. (Wadman and Olson, 1990,
p. 40)

One of the questions confronting modern criminal justice theory is that of
responsibility. Upon whom does the burden of "crime" in the United
States lie? In addressing this matter, one must look not only at enforcing
laws but also at the broader, more encompassing concepts of "service" and
"accountability." To whom does law enforcement actually answer, and to
whom are we responsible? The first, most logical response is that our
primary responsibility is to the public we serve. This is a simple answer to
a complex question. We will attempt to explore our cultures and the
communities to whom we answer.

Modern, innovative law enforcement is rapidly coming to the realization
that the era of adding more police, answering more calls in less time, and
buying new gadgetry is coming to an end. Many agencies recognize that
the police car, the radio, the air conditioner, and the decreased response
times have actually removed and isolated the police from the public they
are sworn to protect.

Modern police departments are 24-hour emergency operations that are
available to any citizen. Technology, in particular 911 and enhanced 911
(which automatically identifies the call location), has not been a total
solution to our problems. Although certainly a boon, it has also created
new problems. Skolnick and Bayley (1986) note that many departments
regard the emergency response system they created as a monster that
consumes the operational guts of the department. Citizens are so
accustomed to dialing the emergency number that police spend a large
portion of their time speeding from one call to another without solving the
underlying problem or benefiting anyone.

This pressure to react quickly is more often than not a response to outdated
command staff strategies or priorities rather than to the public as a whole.
Lack of knowledge of what the public actually wants is what has gotten us
into our present situation.

The police community has slowly come to realize that the old tactics of
preventive patrol and reactive investigation are incapable of preventing or
solving most crimes. New innovations may have helped police manage
their time better, but they have not helped to reduce crime significantly.
The major point is that crime simply can no longer be the police's sole
concern. Nationwide pressures have forced police to consider a broader
range of problems and solutions. Eck and Spelman (1987) note that police
can no longer regard themselves as part of the criminal justice system;
they must become part of the larger human services system. Likewise,
police administrators recognize that the old "classical" model described by
Fesler and Kettl (1991) is obsolete. Police can no longer reach their
objectives through rigid, hierarchical management styles. In police work,
this style not only fosters standardization and specialization, it also
decreases the motivation, innovation, and creativity needed to implement
new solutions to old problems. Many departments are experimenting with
newer alternatives and seeking help from the private sector and the public
as a whole.

Legitimacy

Let every person render obedience to the governing authorities; for there is
no authority except from God, those in authority are divinely constituted,
so that the rebel against the authority is resisting God's appointment.
(Romans 13:1)

Fesler and Kettl (1991) write that a government having legitimacy has
authority and that we as citizens owe our obedience ". . . only insofar as
the demands . . . comply with the relevant constitutional, judicial, and
executive limitations and instructions" (p. 42). Therein lies one of the
major controversies of modern policing. Justifying what police have to do
has always been difficult in democratic societies. This is especially true in
the United States where ambivalence about government authority is a
constant force. The police and others who implement the will of the
governed--and are given the power to intervene in private lives and the
authority to use force to gain compliance--are always under close scrutiny
in this country. 

Pivotal to the character of American policing is its source of authority or
legitimacy (International City Management Association [ICMA], 1991).
Prior to the 1930s, U.S. police mandates came directly from local
politicians. Reform movements pushed police away from political
priorities and domination into a role of being primarily enforcers of the
law. By characterizing criminal law as the fundamental source of police
authority, reformers eliminated many social and regulatory functions from
law enforcement duties. During this time, the perception of rising crime
was prevalent. The notoriety surrounding such crime figures as John
Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Clyde Barker pushed the public to
demand police protection. The police readily accepted and enhanced the
portrayal of themselves as America's last bastion of defense against crime
and held that picture for over half a century (ICMA, 1991).

This sense of mission is also described by Mastrofski (1988) as a
recognizable source of authority and legitimacy. He portrays police
acceptance of a crime fighting mandate as comparable to other
occupations that seek resources and status by claiming professional
domain or the capacity and responsibility for certain outcomes--in this
case, lower crime rates.

Regardless of the source, police power, autonomy, and isolation have
predominated for many years. To succeed, that role must change. As early
as 1829, Sir Robert Peel emphasized that police should work in
cooperation with the people and police officers should protect the rights,
serve the needs, and earn the trust of the population they police (Critchley,
1967).

Both police and researchers are coming to realize that for decades law
enforcement agencies have taken on more responsibilities than they could
ever handle. Sociologist Amitai Etzioni uses the term "communitarianism"
to describe the general concept of community involvement in problem
solving. He states that we have gone too far in extending rights to our
citizens and not far enough in asking them to fulfill responsibilities to the
government as a whole. It is the duty of all of us to pay our civic rent with
our time, skills, and money, not just "lip service." This brings us back to
the question: "To whom do we answer?" Do citizens feel they are valued
customers when they visit us or call on us for service, or are they treated as
distractions who keep us from doing what we perhaps perceive as our
"real" job? If this is true, then we have probably excluded them from our
processes for some time, and we will have trouble identifying our "clients"
and defining our goals and mission.

Herman Goldstein has noted that bureaucracies risk becoming so
preoccupied with running their organizations that they lose sight of the
primary purpose for which they were created. The police seem unusually
susceptible to this. Organizations usually seek to minimize the influence of
the external environment on internal operations. The external environment
poses uncertainty for the organization and can affect government agencies
dramatically. One major concern has been departmental ideologies.
Changes in public beliefs threaten potential changes in government
agencies. Though all agencies resist change, it is hard to think of one more
resistant than the police. Typically, we have always been paramilitary rigid
bureaucracies fiercely defensive of the status quo.

Skolnick and Bayley (1986) note that it was not easy to transform "Blue
Knights" into community organizers. Police belong to a subculture marked
by an "us-them" mentality that mistrusts working with outsiders. The
authors reference the television program "Hill Street Blues," which
depicted veteran Sergeant Yablonski saying, "Let's do it to them before
they do it to us." This dichotomy of trust only lends itself to reinforce the
split between two of the bases of organization described by Fesler and
Kettl (1991), namely, purpose versus clientele. For years, police agencies
have isolated themselves by claiming the right and professionalism to
handle "operational matters" about which the public knows little. Despite
the omnipresence of cops on the street, the American public seems to get
most of its information about police from television shows that grossly
distort reality and give rise to impossible expectations about what police
can and cannot do (Bouza, 1990). Police tend to play up these beliefs and
reinforce the public's ignorance by shrouding operations in secrecy.

The public often does not understand, and perhaps does not want to
understand, the way police and their organizations operate. Police
generally encounter people at their worst, not their best. They are called to
family fights, not family picnics. They see mostly the dark side of human
nature. Someone has to deal with the blood, the hurt children, and the
human anguish that no one wants to face, and it is usually the police.

On the other hand, the public is often as guilty of causing rifts by
maintaining the attitude that police work is dirty, tainted, or disgusting,
forcing the police to isolate themselves. This exacerbates the clash
between purpose and clientele. The police are there to "protect and serve."
Unfortunately, police officers often see their purpose mainly as "to
protect," and the public or clientele sees the purpose solely as "to serve."
This isolation on both sides makes joint efforts difficult, and, in the
meantime, the criminal element of society takes advantage of both sides.

One of the first steps is toward what Skolnick and Bayley call
"police-community reciprocity" (1988, p. 211). The "us-them" attitude
must give way to an "all of us" perspective. The community and the police
have to be partners in crime prevention. All must share. The first move is
to involve the public in the police mission.

Mission, values, policy, and culture 

The function of the police mission as defined by Couper and Lobitz (1991)
is to focus on the department's purpose, call attention to what is important
to the department, and define its values. The culture of a police department
reflects what that department believes in as an organization. Those beliefs
are reflected in the policies of the department and the way it conducts
daily business.

All departments have a culture. The question is: Was it carefully
developed or just allowed to happen? As an example, if a department
views the use of force as a typical occurrence and the normal way to
handle situations, its response to an excessive force complaint will be
radically different from a department that views routine use of force as
atypical. Its officers come to view the use of force as an acceptable way to
resolve most conflicts. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "An institution is
the lengthened shadow of one man." The tone set by the leadership must
be reflected by the organization, and the organization must project that
tone to the public, who must respond in return.

In light of this, a department must establish a value system and state its
policy. It must list goals, guidelines for performance, and standards for
evaluation. Most important, and sometimes most difficult, is to involve the
community in the policymaking process.

Dunham and Alpert observe: "Power sharing is not a central feature of . . .
police agency programming" (1989, p. 353). A department must be
accessible to the public, and that accessibility depends on whether there is
a plan to enhance citizen involvement in police activity. Where the
policymaking and decision- making relationship is one-sided, there is little
hope for long-term involvement. If the public has little voice in how its
problems are prioritized and addressed, there will be little desire for future
participation. Likewise, if a department does not articulate its values to the
community, the community cannot begin to understand how to help.

Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy (1990) state, "Managing through values,
and the values police executives choose to manage by, will play a crucial
role" (p. 195). Ideologically and functionally, the police traditionally have
resisted community participation in policy and goal formation.
Unfortunately, police departments also have resisted the police officer's
role in policymaking. Line officers often feel alienated from the very
organizations that employ them. Police officers themselves have been
disenfranchised and frustrated by complex, impersonal, and degrading
organizational policies and practices (Dunham and Alpert, 1989). In
general, rigid, bureaucratic police agencies often exclude not only the
public they serve but also the officers who serve that public. 

In the late 1970s, in the face of this truth, the police realized they needed
help. As crime rates tripled between 1960 and the late 1980s (Bouza,
1990), both the police and the public began to see the flaws of the system,
and changes began to be implemented. 

To whom do we answer?

In an informal survey of several chiefs of police, we asked, "To whom do
you answer?" We received responses such as, "the mayor," "the elected
officials who appointed me," "the community," "God," and "myself." All
of these are elements of the communities we serve. Their strengths and
demands for attention may wax and wane, but they are always present and
are potential clients. 

How individual officers and their departments are assessed is one of the
specific issues that leads to many misconceptions on the part of the police
and members of the community. The criteria used to evaluate a department
must be consistent with the police mission and culture of the department.
Morgan (1986) refers to culture as "the patterns of development reflected
in a society's system of knowledge, ideology, values, laws, and day-to-day
ritual" (p. 112). As previously noted, the culture of a department reflects
what the department believes as an organization. The beliefs are reflected
in the department's recruitment, selection, training, and, ultimately, the
actions of its officers as they interact with the public. The values of the
department should reflect its own community and should be based on
concepts such as service, commitment, professionalism, integrity, and
community involvement. The police should demonstrate leadership that is
sensitive to community needs. Accountability to other institutions
conforms to the American notion of a system of checks and balances. Our
communities will not, and should not, tolerate isolation and lack of
accountability.

Reviewing the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics--adopted by the
Executive Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police
in 1989 to replace the 1957 Code of Ethics--we are freshly reminded of the
simplicity of the guidelines we must follow. The Code offers direction on
the primary responsibilities, performance of duties, discretion, use of
force, confidentiality, integrity, cooperation with other officers and
agencies, personal/professional capabilities, and private life of a police
officer. Policing is not an exact science, and dealing with people is not
always easy. We are not perfect as police officers, administrators, or
people, but our chosen career means we are held to a higher standard. We
are all bound by this Code, which clearly defines our obligations.

Except in the smallest, most homogeneous police jurisdictions, various
neighborhoods have different needs and require different responses from
their police departments. Tradition, as well as need, affects these
expectations and demands. Police departments are civil service agencies
and are responsible for providing a service and answering to the public.
Whether a police agency defines its operational style as traditional,
community-oriented, or some mixture of the two, it must recognize the
various communities it encompasses. Using this broad definition,
everyone is a member of at least one community. Past practices have
created a breach between the police and certain communities as we have
minimized external influences on policymaking and how services are
rendered. We are not an invading army, owing allegiance only to a distant
force that commissions us. We are civil servants, and, although many of us
work in positions that are protected from termination without cause,
common sense and fairness dictate that we work to serve the public. We
may define the public as composed of the communities that make up our
jurisdictions. Mayhall, Barker, and Hunter define community as "a group
of people sharing common boundaries, such as common goals, needs,
interests, and/or geographical locations" (1995, p. 14). They divide the
population into three communities: internal, external, and overlapping. We
are responsible to each community.

Internal communities

As policing has become more professional with a code of ethics, required
training, professional associations, and stringent Commission on
Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) standards, police
missions, training, and day-to-day activities have to some degree become
standardized throughout the United States. Acceptable police behavior in
the Southeast is appropriate in the Northwest, and inappropriate behavior
in New York City is not acceptable in Los Angeles. National news has
kept us abreast of police misconduct and scandal across the country, and
we all recognize these behaviors as offensive, unethical, and even
criminal.

The age of technology has brought us, as professional police officers,
many welcome tools and advances. But it has also brought police
indiscretions and criminal actions from across the Nation into the living
rooms and lunchrooms of our communities. All officers are looked at with
a jaundiced eye when a scandal-thirsty media paints us all with the same
brush. We are all part of the police community and affected by the
communities' perceptions. The stereotypes given us by the national media,
including television and movies, are not so negative that we cannot
overcome them. We need the support of all of our employees.

Support personnel. Most calls for service begin with a phone call to the
communications center. Regardless of the size of the operation, the person
who answers the telephone sets the tone for the entire police interaction. A
professional, helpful, concerned calltaker may never be recognized or
praised, but an unprofessional, disinterested one will soon come to the
administration's attention. All support personnel must be trained and
motivated to do their jobs with pride. As members of our internal
community, their importance cannot be overstressed, and communication
between them and the administration must be two way. We answer to the
support personnel.

Sworn personnel. We must encourage our officers to use each citizen
contact as an opportunity to demonstrate professionalism and commitment
to service. Police officers are not called to celebrate joyous occasions but
to handle tragedy, disaster, crime, and, most often, petty annoyances. The
officers are affected by the stressful nature of the job, and we owe them
the benefit of our experiences. They are our hands, eyes, and ears, and we
cannot accomplish our missions without their willing assistance. Our
employees are our internal communities and are vital to the success of our
organizations. All members of our internal community are what Lipsky
(1980) calls "street-level bureaucrats" as they make decisions and render
justice based on their interpretation of departmental policy. Lee P. Brown,
during his tenure as the chief of the Houston Police Department from 1982
to 1990, gave his officers the charge of solving problems on their beats.
He encouraged their interaction with local individuals and groups to get to
the direct causes of crime. He said, "Police can be most effective if they
help communities to help themselves." We must use selection and training
to make our officers "the finest," then we must charge them with the duty
of managing their areas of responsibility. If they are treated with respect
and trust, they will respond in kind. We answer to the police officers.

To better serve our internal communities, we must realize the fabric of
society is changing, and so are the persons who seek employment as police
officers. Historically, work was viewed as performing one of four roles.
First, work was considered to have intrinsic value, and people worked
because they enjoyed it. Second, it had moral, spiritual, or ethical value,
and people received purpose, challenge, and responsibility from hard
work, thrift, and frugality. Third, work was a necessary evil to be
performed to get enough money to have pleasure while not depriving the
worker of too much leisure. Finally, although work was a source of
material existence, Eli Ginzberg, in Contemporary Readings in
Organizational Behavior (Luthans, 1972), states "it also satisfied man's
spiritual, social, and psychological needs, for research has shown that
work regulates the life of individuals and binds them to reality" (p. 148).
Although people find their productive role important in relating
themselves to the social system and maintaining their sense of well-being
in the economic order, many workers today seem to have difficulty in
perceiving their jobs as being important except as they improve their
standard of living.

Among other factors, this growing sense of low status and the inability to
achieve a position of prestige in one's job minimizes employee
individuality and creativity, resulting in boredom, lack of interest, a sense
of inferiority and unrest, and a search for other means of obtaining status,
especially in the personal struggle for professional identification. Loss of
employment and subsequent embarrassment simply do not carry the same
social risks for younger people as they do for older employees who would
suffer greater loss. Some younger people fail to exhibit loyalty to their
employer or express pride in workmanship. They seem to view shirking
their duties as merely "ripping off the establishment" and feel no
responsibility to perform. Employers can expand their relationships with
employees to include concern and involvement with them as individuals
who have needs, potential, and responsibilities that extend beyond the
workplace. Stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, and other maladies are
emerging, reflecting the new realities and conditions of work.

As Tofoya (l990) noted, the Metropolitan Police Act of l829 marked the
beginning of the "first wave" of law enforcement reform. Sir Robert Peel
structured the London police on a military model but emphasized the
"mutual reliance" between officers and citizens. In the l930s, August
Vollmer (chief of the Berkeley, California, Police Department) and O.W.
Wilson's (chief of the Chicago Police Department) efforts brought on the
"second wave" through "professionalization." Although the need for this
reform was clear, it heralded the period of police isolation as they traveled
rapidly in radio cars and wanted "just the facts, ma'am," because these
"professional" officers had all the modern technology and did not need the
citizens. We stood alone and answered to ourselves. The civil and social
unrest of the l960s and l970s provided the impetus for the "third wave" of
reform. Police researchers and practitioners such as Patrick V. Murphy
began to question the value of the bureaucratic and military models of
professional policing.

Top-heavy organizational structures are no longer tolerated in private
industry. Stepping forward, we must leave the inflexible organizational
structures and adopt more flattened, progressive structures that push
authority and decisionmaking to lower levels. We must recognize this as a
positive change and begin developing managerial partnerships with
supervisory and line officers. Through empowerment and job enrichment,
we must share the decisionmaking with our personnel, thereby improving
our relationships with our internal communities and our services to our
external communities.

External communities 

There is a long list of external communities with which we interact. These
groups include people who share strong bonds and histories and others
whose associations are accidental. These may be public, private, or civic
organizations. All of these communities have individual needs and
demands, but we must consider the greater good when allocating
resources. We have all heard demands for greater enforcement that have
been contradicted by complaints when the increased enforcement struck
the "good" citizens who had complained in the first place. As individuals,
we have different personalities, and our departments often reflect this
diversity. Our employees are aware of our treatment of them and
"ordinary" citizens and often use this as a guide for their behaviors.

Our approach is no longer just crime reduction driven but citizen driven.
When continuous, this approach creates the need for sound information
about the community. The only place to obtain reliable information about
the key shifts in the needs and expectations of the community is from the
citizens and patrol officers who work most directly with them. Police
administrators must understand that respect for citizens and a sincere
enthusiasm and desire to serve are true necessities. The only way we can
develop a close relationship with our citizens is to accept them as
intelligent, aware, and capable.

We know we cannot resolve the problems associated with crime without
community support. The theory of community-oriented policing is based
on establishing a partnership between the police and law-abiding citizens.
We experience varying levels of success. It frequently seems we are
"preaching to the choir" because the same concerned citizens are always
involved. Some of them pledge involvement but never quite make the
commitment and follow through. Others honestly admit they feel they pay
the police for a service and do not want personal involvement with law
enforcement. Just as police officers exercise discretion, so do citizens.
They may choose not to report, witness, or testify. However, good
police-community relations increases the number of involved citizens.

Media. Our interactions with the media are far reaching and vast.
Although they are sometimes difficult, we must take care not to develop
an adversarial relationship. Negative experiences felt by both the media
and the police have caused feelings of distrust and anger. The media have
a responsibility to provide information to the public, and the people have
great interest in police activities. In their endeavors to earn the highest
ratings in a competitive market, members of print and electronic media
make constant demands on law enforcement agencies and may exploit
citizens' fear of crime. The fourth estate is very powerful, and we were all
taught as rookies that the pen is mightier than the sword. We must respect
the media's power as they must respect our authority and need to maintain
investigative integrity. Media activity is protected by the First
Amendment, and it is our job to defend their rights and see that they are
treated justly. We must keep our relationships with the media honest and
as open as investigations permit. Negative experiences in both sectors
have caused distrust, fear, and anger. The reporters do their jobs, just as
we do ours. We must not misuse and abuse but, rather, make use of their
services to educate the public on crime trends, provide safety tips, and
seek assistance in obtaining information to solve crimes. The media can be
very effective in presenting our proper image to the public, or it can be
damning to an extent that public confidence and internal morale are
harmed severely. 

Therefore, our relationship with the media must be cultivated, but not to
the point of "back scratching." We answer to the media.

Elected officials. A simple answer to the question "To whom do we
answer?" is, "the elected officials." Police may answer to a mayor, city
manager, council, commission, or an elected or appointed body. With civil
service status and court rulings, the "political boss" atmosphere has
thinned. We owe loyalty and service to the elected officials, just as the
agency personnel owe us. These elected officials have received a mandate
from the voting public as to the level and direction of law enforcement
required by the community, and they must pass this information on to us.
We rely on these officials for our budgetary needs, and we enforce the
statutes they enact. We answer to the elected officials.

Victims and other law-abiding citizens. Law-abiding citizens outnumber
criminals in all neighborhoods, but sometimes they are not as obvious.
These people are the foundation of society, paying taxes and leading lives
that require little government intervention. They are our supporters and
our employers. Although many view us as the "thin blue line" and give us
almost unconditional support, others judge us based on their limited police
contacts, those of their friends and neighbors, and the image of police they
receive from news reports, television, and movies. The degree of trust
between citizens and police is a major factor in determining how much
confidence is placed in the police response to their concerns. Modern
society is better organized, more vocal, and less intimidated by
government agents, and police managers must be prepared to address the
concerns of the public in an honest and direct manner. 

Birmingham, Alabama, has a strong neighborhood association, made up of
99 neighborhoods, that elects officers and meets monthly to discuss local
matters. Beat officers and supervisors attend these meetings and address
concerns pertinent to the department. The citizens of each neighborhood
review all zoning changes, liquor permits, and other requests for licenses
of businesses they feel will impact the quality of life in their communities,
then make recommendations to the city council. Their decisions greatly
influence whether these requests will be granted.

Citizens working with police officers at neighborhood association
meetings and in other community activities help the residents to better
understand the officers, just as the officers feel firsthand the climates of
the neighborhoods. This interaction increases the sensitivity of both
groups and is beneficial in increasing the officers' empathy with the
citizens they serve. This knowledge is particularly important in dealing
with victims. People experiencing the worst events of their lives rightfully
become offended when responding officers seem not to care and to make
light of their problems. We are judged by our reputations, and reputations
are fragile. We answer to all law-abiding citizens.

Offenders. Offenders and suspects have certain inalienable rights, and we
are sworn to uphold those rights. As police officers, we interact with the
criminal element on different levels. We cannot discount recent
technological advances, but it is our knowledge of criminal behavior and
individual offenders that serves as our greatest weapon and allows us to
succeed in our fight. We recognize that even those who engage in
unlawful activities can be victims of crime and are also our clients. We
answer to the offenders.

Corporate citizens. Businesspeople are often the most demanding of our
constituents. The forceful personalities that have contributed to their
success in the business world often make them difficult to serve.
Businesses typically pay a large share of the tax base and demand
commensurate services. They require a safe environment to operate.
Although there are almost twice as many people employed in private
security as public police, we are often the sole providers of corporate
safety. We owe the same level of service to all "communities." We have
not developed a model for measuring the social, psychological, and
economic impact of crimes committed against business entities to those
committed against citizens in their homes. We understand the economic
repercussions of losing businesses to other "safer" jurisdictions, but we
also sympathize with the suffering of all our constituents without regard to
their status. We must provide adequate protection to our corporate citizens
and their employees and customers, but there are not enough personnel to
place an officer on every corner as some demand. We know this is an
unnecessary level of police involvement, yet we hear constant requests for
this service, and we must be able to explain our personnel allocation. We
answer to the corporate community.

Other government agencies, including the courts, corrections, service
agencies, and law enforcement agencies. Police departments do not answer
directly to these other agencies, but they must work cooperatively with
them. The effectiveness, efficiency, and services rendered by each
depends, to some degree, on the other. The concept of community-oriented
policing has shown the need for a greater degree of cooperation between
the police and these agencies. Programs such as Weed and Seed have been
used to foster this working relationship. However, the relationship works
because of mutual respect for each other.

The relationship between the police and courts is not only different, it is
complex and sometimes difficult. The police have been and are affected by
judicial decisions from the courts. The Miranda and Terry cases are two
cases that affect or dictate how police do their jobs. The court will issue
orders directing the police to pick up certain person(s) and may hold the
police in contempt if they fail to comply. There was a case where, as a
young officer, Chief Johnson was ordered by the court to go to a hospital
and arrest an older, feeble gentleman in a wheelchair and deliver him to
jail. Had he been free to exercise discretion, Johnson would have chosen to
leave the man in the hospital. We answer to other government agencies,
especially the courts.

Overlapping communities

Many people are part of overlapping internal and external communities
interacting with law enforcement. These overlapping affiliations are based
on social class, gender, ethnic status, sexual preference, and membership
in civic and political groups. None of these are our "bosses," but they all
have an impact on the way we do our jobs. 

Depending on our backgrounds and the traditions and cultures in which we
work, some groups will have more influence than others. Religious
institutions and leaders hold more sway with the Southern and
African-American cultures. Ethnic communities influence their local
governments and have more of an impact on local police departments as
hiring practices continue to reflect more closely the diverse communities
served. (This is the personal opinion of the authors based on the church's
role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.) Police departments have
traditionally been against homosexuals, but this position has softened.
Civic groups serve a multitude of purposes, but most are supportive of law
enforcement. Citizens involved in civic groups are generally involved in
other aspects of the local community, and, recognizing this, police officers
are responsive to their needs. Even in times of political reform, human
nature dictates that those in powerful positions--whether because of their
economic status, education, or political position--have a greater influence
on law enforcement than we would like to admit. We surely answer to all
of these overlapping communities.

Summary

Most important, we answer to ourselves. We must answer to the "man in
the mirror." How we answer is framed by all of our past experiences,
knowledge, and beliefs. Former Chicago Police Chief O.W. Wilson said
that each police administrator must be prepared to resign rather than
compromise on a serious ethical issue. It is incumbent on us to be good
stewards and serve those who serve us. We can never be all things to all
people, but we have achieved positions of authority and responsibility, and
we have a duty to act with courage and honor. As we have seen, police
executives recognize that their departments must be more accessible to the
communities. We are trying to establish our legitimacy and manage our
accountability by fostering closer relationships and tearing down the
barriers that have isolated us from our internal and external communities.
We must lift the veil of the police mystique and open our departments to
public and internal scrutiny. We must step out in Faith.

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Dunham, Roger G., and Geoffrey Alpert. Critical Issues in Policing.
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