After presenting a model of interactions between community characteristics and policing, the paper develops this model with an inventory of the basic choices of organizational structure, resources, and strategies in policing communities. The results show that communities vary widely in how police exercise discretion, in their resources, in their mixtures of public, private, and voluntary citizen policing, and in the physical geography that shapes options for policing. Yet communities vary relatively little in basic police strategy. Residential neighborhoods in American metropolitan areas are policed primarily by officers driving around in unfocused patrol, largely waiting for calls for service. The essay suggests that most public police should supplement the single-complaint strategy with a variety of mixed-strategy models based on a community's unique characteristics. Because recent research says little about interaction effects between strategies and neighborhoods, informal experimentation may provide guidance in developing policing strategies for specific neighborhoods. Over 100 references. (Author abstract modified)