Unfortunately, the preventive police forces that emerged in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries following Robert Peel's "new police" were linked directly and for the first time to the crime rate. As a result, questions of police effectiveness, resource allocation, and the adequacy of police powers have tended to be examined in terms of crime rate data ever since. However, it is clear that the police can do little about the crime rate. Therefore, finding different ways to measure and evaluate police work is crucial. The major contribution of community policing may be to highlight this issue by shifting the focus of policing away from the crime rate and by forcing police departments, politicians, and academics to confront the real capabilities of the police and to develop methods of evaluating them. Footnotes