Community policing dates from the earliest days of modern police forces. It seeks to identify and eliminate the causes of crime rather than waiting passively for offenses to occur and then responding to them. Although critics say that community policing is expensive and seeks to transform police officers into social workers with guns, advocates say that community policing is both cost-efficient and effective in reducing the crime rate. In addition to traditional law enforcement activities such as patrol and responding to calls for service, a community police officer may spend part of the day operating neighborhood substations, meeting with community groups, talking with students in school, making security checks of businesses, and other activities. Although community policing has been in effect less than a decade in most places, experience to date suggests that the concept will receive public acceptance only with difficulty. Opinions differ regarding whether community policing is the best answer to the country's crime problem. Photographs, chronology, and annotated bibliography