Hillsborough County's initial steps toward community policing began in 1980 with the decentralization of the Sheriff's Office patrol operations into community-based geographical districts. In 1993, the Sheriff's Office was one of five law enforcement agencies in the nation awarded a three-year Community Policing Demonstration Grant by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Favorable reactions by citizens in areas with community policing and a positive effect on reported crime rates have strengthened the Hillsborough County sheriff's resolve to implement community policing on an agency-wide basis. The Seminole County, Florida, Sheriff's Office studied the corporate model and discovered eight characteristics with direct application to their efforts to change from a traditional response law enforcement model to a proactive community policing model: (1) Several jobs are combined into one; (2) Workers make decisions; (3) Process steps are accomplished in a natural order; (4) Processes have multiple versions; (5) Work is performed where it makes the most sense; (6) Checks and controls are minimized; (7) Reconciliation is minimized; and (8) Concentration of centralized/decentralized operations is prevalent.