Neighborhood-Oriented Policing in Rural Communities: A Program Planning Guide. MENU TITLE: Neighborhood-Oriented Policing Series: BJA Monograph Published: August 1994 107 pages 201,343 bytes NEIGHBORHOOD-ORIENTED POLICING IN RURAL COMMUNITIES: A PROGRAM PLANNING GUIDE Acknowledgments Production of this monograph would not have been possible without the hard work of a significant number of people who are dedicated to the improvement of policing in America. The Bureau of Justice Assistance wishes to acknowledge the contributions of the following individuals and organizations. Gary Cordner from Eastern Kentucky University served as both an editor and contributing author. He drew upon his experience as a police officer and small-town police chief to tailor the guide to the realities of rural law enforcement. The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) contributed its considerable expertise in writing and producing the monograph. Betsy Lindsay contributed a chapter in cooperation with Bonnie Wood and Robert Coates, who additionally helped with reviews. Mac Gray managed the development process and reviewed each draft. The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) oversaw the initial planning of the monograph, and staff members Drew Diamond, Rana Sampson, and Darrel Stephens each contributed a chapter to the effort. Susie Mowry managed the work for PERF and reviewed the monograph at each step. Barbara Webster, from the Institute for Law and Justice, contributed a chapter and served on the committee that developed the initial framework. The Community Policing Consortium--composed of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the Police Foundation--prepared the chapter on evaluation. This chapter was drawn from the BJA-published monograph entitled Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action. Margaret Heisler, Program Manager of the Neighborhood-Oriented Policing Program, Bureau of Justice Assistance, provided initial guidance and substantive comments during reviews of each of the drafts. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Evolving Police Strategies Rural Law Enforcement Overview of This Monograph Chapter 2: Getting Started in the Community The Planning Team Identifying Planning Team Members Structure and Leadership Planning Team Implementation and Maintenance Planning The Elements of a Plan Planning Team Challenges Chapter 3: Needs Assessment and Planning The Value of a Needs Assessment Describing the Community Population and Other Demographics Economics, Employment, and Housing Education and Training Health and Welfare Other Resources and Issues Crime and the Criminal Justice System Drug and Related Crime Problem Questions Criminal Justice Resources and Strategies Community Surveys and Public Forums Resource Acquisition Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Chapter 4: Law Enforcement Responsibilities Mission Strategies Internal Assessment Staff Capabilities Staff Utilization Information and Analysis Structure Supervision and Management Executive Leadership External Considerations Chapter 5: Problem Solving How Does Problem Solving Work? Drug Dealing in Mobile Home Parks Peninsula Skating Rink Unloading a Problem Repeat Calls From a Bar How Is Problem Solving Done? Scanning Analysis Response Assessment Chapter 6: Implementation The Implementation Plan Goals, Objectives, and Tasks Timeframes Communication Training Monitoring Major Challenges Officer/Deputy Versus Special Unit Managing Change Making NOP Work Chapter 7: Evaluating the Progress of NOP Assessing Internal Changes Three Criteria for Assessment Effectiveness Efficiency Equity Refining the Assessment Process Appendix A: 25 Reasons to Plan Appendix B: Traditional Versus Community Policing Appendix C: Community Policing: Key Operational Steps Appendix D: Statement of Purpose, Mission Statement, Goals, and Call to Action for Portland, Oregon, Police Appendix E: Police Management: Principles of Quality Leadership Appendix F: Problem Solving: Guide to Collaboration Appendix G: Problem Solving: Problem Analysis Guide (Topic Headings) Appendix H: Problem Solving: The Range of Possible Alternatives Appendix I: Problem Solving: Situational Crime Prevention Techniques Appendix J: Sources for Further Information Appendix K: References and Suggested Reading Chapter 1: Introduction This monograph can be used by any police or sheriff's agency. It should be especially useful to citizens and law enforcement officials in rural and small town settings. The work was prepared to aid participants in a national demonstration program-- Innovative Neighborhood-Oriented Policing in Rural Jurisdictions (Rural INOP)--developed and funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The jurisdictions participating in this program were selected through competition. The sites are Caldwell, Idaho; Fort Pierce, Florida; Richmond, Maine; and Newton County, Indiana. The focus of this monograph is on redirecting the use of policing resources to achieve greater effectiveness in handling public safety problems such as crime, fear of crime, drug abuse, violence, and disorder. This monograph was prepared to help guide the demonstration program. However, it is part of a developmental process and should be considered in that light. As sites implement the concepts and action steps discussed in the guide, new information will undoubtedly become available. Evolving Police Strategies The basic strategies upon which American law enforcement has been based for the past few decades are changing. The so-called professional model has been criticized for creating too many barriers between police and citizens. Research revealed that the cornerstones of modern police operations-- motorized preventive patrol, rapid response, and followup investigations--are, by themselves, ineffective.1 Bureaucratic and autocratic police organizations seem less and less able to satisfy either the citizens being served (customers) or their employees.2 Mark Moore and Darrel Stephens recently identified seven "problematic realities" that now face police executives and police organizations and that require creative responses:3 1. The police are having a very tough time dealing with crime all by themselves. 2. Effective crime control depends on an effective working partnership between the police and citizens in the communities they serve. 3. Public police are losing market share in the security business. 4. Public police contribute to the quality of life in their communities in many ways other than by controlling crime.4 5. The administrative instruments now being used to ensure accountability and control of police officers cannot reliably do so. 6. The police are routinely held accountable for the fairness and economy with which they use force and authority, as well as money. 7. Rather than seek insulation from political interference, it is more appropriate for police agencies to make themselves more accountable to political institutions and citizens alike. A variety of police strategies are now being developed to respond to these problematic realities. They are often known by their acronyms. The list below probably only scratches the surface: o Community-Based Policing (CBP). o Community-Oriented Policing (COP). o Citizen-Oriented Police Enforcement (COPE). o Community Patrol Officer Program (CPOP). o Neighborhood-Oriented Policing (NOP). o Police Area Representative (PAR). o Problem-Oriented Policing (POP). Although these programs differ in acronyms and labels and may even have some real differences, most incorporate the same two important ingredients: community engagement and problem solving. They attempt to get citizens and community institutions to share the responsibility for dealing with crime and crime-related problems, and they try to reorient police work away from mere reactive incident-handling and toward more proactive and substantive problem solving. This work tries to avoid getting bogged down in a debate over which label is best. It occasionally uses terms such as neighborhood-oriented policing and community policing when describing the community engagement function. It sometimes refers to problem-oriented policing when the focus is on the problemsolving function. The reader should ignore the labels and concentrate instead on the two key ingredients, community engagement and problem solving, that distinguish developing strategies from earlier models of policing.5 While on the topic of terminology, it should be emphasized that when the term "police" is used, it includes sheriffs, troopers, and other public police protection personnel, regardless of their official titles. Similarly, the term "law enforcement" includes police and sheriffs and related personnel. Certainly, sheriffs' deputies and State officers provide a substantial portion of all "police" services in many rural areas. The term "police" is used solely for convenience and is not meant to exclude any law enforcement official with a different title. Rural Law Enforcement Not much has been said about rural law enforcement in the research literature on policing. Most of what is known from research about police behavior, police officer attitudes, police management, police community relations, and police strategy effectiveness has come from studies of large agencies located in metropolitan areas. The National Institute of Justice of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, is conducting research on rural policing that will produce valuable information on the structure and operation of law enforcement organizations in rural areas. This information will be available in the next few years. There is some relevant basic information, though, on the structure of American policing.6 For example, in 1990 there were approximately 3,100 sheriffs' departments and 12,288 general-purpose local police departments among this country's 17,000 publicly funded State and local law enforcement agencies. Of these, 2,268 sheriffs' departments and 11,722 local police departments served areas with fewer than 50,000 residents. Thus, about 73 percent of sheriffs' departments and 95 percent of local police departments served rural populations. As suggested by these figures, most sheriffs' departments and local police departments are fairly small organizations. Well over half of all sheriffs' departments have fewer than 25 sworn personnel, while fully half of all local police departments have fewer than 10 sworn officers. How successful these small law enforcement agencies are in dealing with crime, drugs, and other problems is not well documented.7 Crime rates and other indicators are generally lower in rural areas than in urban areas, but they may be rising faster. Drug-related problems in some rural areas are just as serious in proportion to population as in many metropolitan areas. Rural agencies generally deal with smaller-scale problems, but they have fewer resources as well. They have fewer personnel and are much less likely to employ specialists, although they may have specialized services available to them from Federal, State, county, or neighboring local law enforcement agencies. The stereotypical view is that police officers in rural areas naturally work more closely with the public than do officers in metropolitan areas. To what extent this stereotype is accurate is not at all clear. Many rural areas have quite transient populations and include within them towns and small cities with urban-like problems. Although it does seem to be the case that rural communities enjoy stronger informal social controls, it does not necessarily follow that residents of rural areas are any more (or less) interested than urban dwellers in participating with police in formal programs. The proper approach to take might well be to recognize that considerable diversity exists among rural communities and rural law enforcement agencies--at least as much diversity as is found among metropolitan areas. Each community needs to carefully identify its own crime, drug, and related problems. Response to these problems should involve both police-citizen collaboration and a problem- solving approach, but the mix and nature of problems will vary from place to place, as will community characteristics and police capabilities. Overview of This Monograph The remainder of this monograph is about developing, implementing, and assessing a rural NOP program. Chapters 2 and 3 have an external focus (from the police agency's point of view), explaining how to initiate greater community participation and how to identify and analyze community needs. Chapters 4 and 5 have a more internal focus, describing how to take stock and assess police organizational needs and then detailing the problemsolving process. Chapters 6 and 7 integrate the external and internal views and focus on planning, implementation, and evaluation-- the extremely important process of figuring out what to do, doing it, and seeing what happens as the result. Although chapters in a monograph must be presented sequentially, some efforts to develop neighborhood-oriented policing should proceed on parallel tracks. In particular, efforts to encourage police-citizen collaboration and to develop problemsolving habits should occur simultaneously. This monograph also includes a number of appendixes containing useful information, including suggested reading, national resource agencies, problemsolving guides,a sample police agency mission statement, and suggestions for planning and management. Finally, some words of caution and encouragement are in order. The kind of collaboration among citizens, law enforcement personnel, and other officials encouraged by neighborhood-oriented policing can be very difficult to accomplish. Some people are apathetic, some have huge egos, some have their own agendas. Initial collaboration efforts may not go smoothly. There will be hurdles to overcome and there may be slippages and failures. Police officers may resist adoption of community engagement and problem solving. Some officers may lack the confidence to work closely and openly with citizens and other officials. Others may simply prefer not to share their authority and responsibility. Officers may resist the problem- solving approach if it is not well understood, if it seems to conflict with their preferred image of policing, or if it simply sounds like more work. The problems that are tackled by NOP programs-- drugs, crime, disorder, fear--are very difficult and perplexing problems. Sometimes the very best efforts do not seem to have much effect. External factors beyond local control, such as the economy, may undermine or offset program successes. It is easy to become frustrated and depressed when immediate improvements fail to materialize. The evidence suggests, however, that community engagement is possible, that police officers can adopt the problemsolving approach, and that these techniques may have a longer term impact than their alternatives. The effort involved in developing and implementing the rural NOP program is worth it. Chapter 2: Getting Started in the Community The key to successful neighborhood-oriented policing (NOP) programs in the community is strategic planning. As the adage states, "When you fail to plan, you plan to fail." A strategic plan with measurable long- and short-range goals: o Provides a "road map" for the rural NOP work. o Helps allocate or reallocate resources. o Supports the evaluation of program efforts. o Establishes the approach as professional in the eyes of your agency, other agencies, and funding sources. o Provides continuity. Simply stated, planning must take place before individual commitment can be transformed into collective action (see appendix A, "25 Reasons To Plan"). It is the principal device for getting started. The Planning Team The first step in strategic planning is establishing a planning team. There are seven factors to consider when identifying the agencies, organizations, and leaders to include in the planning team: 1. What are the scope and purposes of the program? 2. Who is knowledgeable about the community and has access to valuable information? 3. Who will be affected? 4. What public policies or procedures will be affected? 5. Who might hinder program progress if not invited to help in the design? 6. Who could contribute leadership and other skills? 7. Who are the key individuals and institutions that can effect change as it relates to the identified quality of life and to crime, violence, and drug abuse problems? This team will play an important role in overall needs assessment, identification of specific problems, design of solutions, marshaling of resources, implementation, and evaluation. The planning team oversees NOP planning and implementation. The planning team should: o Identify data sources for problem identification. o Collect data from a variety of sources. o Identify and describe problems. o List in order of priority the problems to be addressed by the NOP program. o Identify NOP target areas. o Define objectives and identify tasks. o Identify strategies for problem resolution. o Prepare the NOP workplan with goals, objectives, strategies, timelines, and budget. o Identify and secure resources (volunteers, in-kind support, additional funding, etc.). o Implement NOP. o Monitor NOP program progress. o Develop the evaluation design. o Evaluate NOP impact and effectiveness. o Identify and secure continuation funding, if needed. o Develop or review reports and other products. There are many advantages to the team approach to planning. It provides a comprehensive way to address drug, alcohol, and related crime problems, increases coordination among team members, and fosters the feeling that no agency stands alone in the fight against crime and drug-related problems. If the effort is successful, the team experience can easily be transferred to another neighborhood in the community or to other kinds of crime and drug-related problems. The involvement of a team of agencies and community leaders also may attract the media attention and support needed for a successful program. Without a planning team, the success of NOP will be jeopardized. The drug and crime problems challenging law enforcement officials today are much more complex than the problems of a decade ago. These problems require multidisciplinary solutions. If NOP jurisdictions do not look beyond law enforcement approaches, the impact of NOP will be short-term at best. The planning team needs to include all city and county agencies, organizations, and community leaders (formal and informal) who have knowledge of and a stake in the community. Identifying Planning Team Members Agencies and organizations that should play significant roles in planning and implementing NOP include religious institutions, schools, businesses, social clubs and organizations, community organizations, government agencies (education, housing, health, recreation, fire, human services, community development), elected or appointed officials, criminal/juvenile justice agencies, the media, and drug and alcohol treatment facilities. If the drug and crime problems in the community are significantly influenced by the problems in nearby jurisdictions, representatives from other law enforcement agencies and organizations also may need to be included on the planning team. In addition to agency and organization representatives, informal community leaders who represent the racial, age, and economic diversity of the community need to be identified and meaningfully involved. These resident leaders may not hold formal positions or titles, but they have influence within the community. Experience in other communities has shown that citizen involvement plays a vital role in improving the community by changing the way that residents perceive themselves and others, their neighbor- hoods, and the agencies and organizations that serve their communities. One way to identify community leaders is to hold open community meetings to educate residents about drug and crime problems, to inform them about the benefits of NOP, and to recruit those who are interested in becoming involved. Not all of the interested citizens will be appropriate for the planning team, but followup with all residents will be needed to discuss ways in which they can become involved in NOP. Another way to identify community leaders is to talk to citizens and knowledgeable representatives of agencies and organizations to determine: o Who influences attitudes and behavior within the community. o The source of their influence. o Who is influenced by these individuals. o The effect their influence has upon the life of the community. o How their influence can be used to further the purposes of NOP. Other processes may be employed for identifying planning team members; however, the process needs to include all components of the community. As a checklist, the planning team should include (but not be limited to): o Residents. o Law enforcement. o Religious institutions. o Youth. o Businesses. o Schools. o Social service agencies. o Community-based organizations. o Key individuals and institutions with a stake in changing the crime and drug problems in the community. Once selected, potential members of the planning team need to be contacted by the Sheriff or Chief of Police. During the initial conversation, each potential team member should be briefed on the nature of the drug/alcohol/crime problem, the purpose of NOP work, the role of the planning team, the commitment required, and the benefits that will be derived from participation on the planning team. When all planning team members have committed to participate, a letter should be sent to each, confirming his or her commitment and letting him or her know who the other partners on the team are. Structure and Leadership To achieve the full potential of NOP, the law enforcement agency must facilitate the active involvement of all members on the planning team and ensure that the process for planning and implementing the program proceeds smoothly. It is important to pay attention to how the group is working together. Techniques that have been used by groups to enhance their effectiveness include: o Repeatedly emphasizing the collaborative nature of the effort and being specific about the potential benefits. o Being clear about the task the group is to carry out and the time commitment that will be expected. o Being clear about the roles and responsibilities of group members. o Ensuring that all meetings are well-planned and facilitated. o Building in time for the group to identify and appreciate their accomplishments. o Developing a system for ongoing communication. The planning team structure can be informal or formal, depending upon the phase of development. Another structural issue to consider is the creation of subcommittees or working committees. It will be necessary for the entire planning team to hold regular meetings to establish and reestablish its purpose, set direction, review progress, and make necessary decisions. However, some of the work required for successful implementation of NOP may be more efficiently completed by a smaller group or committee. If such smaller groups or committees are employed in the name of efficiency, however, it is crucial that (1) they report back frequently to the full planning team and that (2) open and regular communication be maintained. Otherwise, efforts can become fragmented and disjointed, and the overall sense of purpose can get lost. In any effort to reduce or prevent crime, there needs to be a boost of leadership to start the process and get others involved in the program. The police or sheriff's department should organize the planning team and should provide leadership and guidance, but all member organizations and community leaders need to be recognized as equal partners on the team. From the beginning, the law enforcement agency and the planning team need to be clear about who will ultimately have ownership of the NOP program. There are three options to consider. In some communities, the police or sheriff's department serves only as the catalyst, with community groups assuming full responsibility for their respective areas after the initial demonstration and implementation. That option is not recommended because it tends to lead to a nonprogrammatic approach and in all likelihood will not change the way that policing occurs on a long-term basis or result in long-term community police partnerships. As a second option, in some communities the police or sheriff's department assumes full responsibility for the initial implementation and continuation of all aspects of the work. This option is not recommended, because it, too, affects the partnerships that are critical for success. A third option, and the one that is most strongly recommended, is to have the law enforcement agency share program responsibility with the community. If the first or third option is chosen, the department will need to assess the skills of the community in problem identification, problem solving, and resource identification; it may be that the community's skills in these areas need to be upgraded as an initial step in NOP planning. A final issue regarding planning team structure and leadership is decisionmaking style. The experience of other groups has shown the consensus style to be the most successful. Consensus does not mean compromise on the part of planning team members. What consensus does mean is collective opinion that incorporates the points of view of all the members in the final decision that is made. Decisions made using the consensus model ensure that they will be supported by all members of the planning team. Planning Team Implementation and Maintenance The initial meeting of the planning team is a critical step in the planning and implementation of NOP efforts. It should provide an opportunity for social interaction and team-building experiences. To start effective planning, the meeting should focus on the following: o The purpose of NOP. o Why the jurisdiction needs the NOP approach. o Information about quality of life, violence, drugs, alcohol, and related crime problems. o Exploring a common ground among the team members. o Identifying specific roles and responsibilities. o Motivating members to become committed to the long-term impact. After the first planning team meeting, it may be desirable to meet with others from the police or sheriff's department to discuss how the team members functioned as a group, the level of individual motivation and commitment, and potential leaders. In addition, other information and skills training that the members may need in order to participate meaningfully and as equal partners should be discussed. The entire planning team may need additional information and training, or members of a particular committee may need to receive training in basic program elements such as problem solving or in particular program strategies such as crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). Planning A common misconception is that planning is cumbersome, complicated, and impractical. In fact, planning is crucial to good programming and requires mainly just common sense. Planning does take time and effort, but lack of planning almost always costs valuable time. To make the planning process work, one needs to understand first what planning is and then the basic elements of a plan. Planning is nothing more than bridging the gap between where one is and where one wants to be. It involves taking stock of the current situation (i.e., assessing needs), identifying goals, reviewing alternatives, and designing methods for achieving goals. The Elements of a Plan The planning process should result in a workplan that includes the following: o Goals--statements of what is intended. The statements indicate the changes that should result from the program. o Objectives--statements specifying what is to be done to achieve a goal. They should be detailed, time framed, and measurable, and should reflect the desired outcome. o Strategies--approaches to be implemented in addressing identified crime and drug problems. o Activities--tasks that are the elements of the chosen strategies. o Roles and responsibilities--designation of who will carry out specific objectives or activities. o Resources--all resources that will be needed to implement the plan and how they can be secured. o Potential problems and proposed solutions--things that could go wrong during implementation of the plan and contingency plans to resolve crises or alleviate problems that could impede progress. During the planning process, planning team members must also consider issues of monitoring and evaluation. Is the plan specific enough to allow for adequate monitoring of progress? Are goals and objectives clear, measurable, and feasible? The value and benefits of planning are realized only when planning is used as a tool to do the work required and to get the desired results. Having a well-written plan on paper means little unless it is used to direct and coordinate the efforts of everyone participating in the program and to gain the support of the community. Being able to explain what is to be done and why and to demonstrate concrete thinking about a problem enables the planners to convince others that the plan could work. The test of any plan is whether it is used by those doing the work. Planning Team Challenges Once the planning team is organized and operational, methods of maintaining the momentum of the team must be devised: o Keeping team members informed through regular communications. o Identifying and understanding the reasons individual members are involved in the planning team and addressing their particular concerns. o Providing opportunities for team members to learn new information, gain new skills, and assuming leadership responsibilities. o Being realistic about the time and effort that need to be invested. o Recognizing team members for their efforts and contributions. o Building a strong belief among team members that their collective vision can be realized. o Keeping the process moving and taking action. o Evaluating team progress. o Celebrating successes. Activities should be designed that contribute to achieving the planning team's goals. The experience of many groups has shown that when members are not regularly informed about activities and progress, their interest in and commitment to the group lessen. The key to maintaining momentum is communication. Phone calls, letters, minutes from meetings, committee reports, newsletters, and regular "updates" are all valuable techniques. Even when planning teams have the best people, selected with great care, conflict may arise and the team may lose momentum as it progresses. Suggestions for meeting the challenges to the productive functioning of the NOP planning team draw on many of the principles and practices already discussed in this section of the manual. Suggestions include: o Providing training in planning techniques. o Providing an appropriate environment and/or facilitator to talk about and help resolve differences. o Reviewing the purpose of neighborhood-oriented policing and its benefits to the community. o Restating the common ground that exists among the members. o Recruiting and developing new members. o Committing to consensus decisionmaking. o Facilitating the meaningful involvement of every planning team member. o Recognizing and celebrating individual and collective efforts. o Evaluating and integrating lessons learned. o Developing and publicizing a plan to correct a program failure or negative publicity. o Simplifying policies and procedures. The success of NOP depends on the full cooperation and support of all agencies, organizations, and community leaders concerned about the problems of drugs, alcohol, and related crime in your community. The mechanism for ensuring cooperation and support is the planning team. This chapter has provided the information needed to establish and maintain an effective planning team, the key to a successful long-term effort. The chapters that follow provide further explanation of the tasks and activities upon which the planning team will focus. Chapter 3: Needs Assessment and Planning The term "needs assessment" refers to the collection and analysis of information required to determine the nature and extent of crime in the community, community residents' perceptions of crime and how they are affected by it, and information about the environment or conditions of a community. If planned and conducted well, the assessment will identify specific needs and problems that can be addressed through crime and drug abuse prevention. The overall purpose of the needs assessment is to determine--and exchange information about--specific types of community drug and crime problems, their causes, their effects, and the resources available to combat them. Ultimately, the results of the assessment will enable the team to plan a course of action in line with the community's real and perceived needs and resources. This chapter outlines some of the main benefits of conducting a comprehensive assessment and offers some suggestions on how to do it. The Value of a Needs Assessment A needs assessment lays the foundation for a community's entire NOP effort. A community needs assessment is not--or should not be--a paper and pencil exercise that is then filed on a shelf. Although it can take time and effort, much of the information that needs to be assembled is readily available, and there are many potential payoffs for taking a close look at it. There are many reasons to conduct a community needs assessment. The assessment will: o Document, list in order of priority, and clarify the existing crime and drug problems. o Provide a view of resident perceptions about the crime and drug problem. o Provide an excellent means of involving the community in problem identification. o Provide information to the public about problems. o Provide baseline data for evaluation. o Provide initial direction for developing a workplan. o Assist in setting program goals, strategies, and objectives. Before the community needs assessment can be completed, the planning team needs to determine as specifically as possible what it needs to know. This may include information on crime, drug abuse, fear of crime, quality of life, violence issues, and related community conditions. When the planning team has identified its information needs, it should: o Determine the best methods for obtaining the information, such as obtaining official statistics, conducting surveys or interviews with a large number of residents, interviewing neighborhood leaders, holding community meetings, and through direct observations. o Design data collection instruments (such as questionnaires) as necessary. o Develop a plan and timeframe for collecting the information. o Collect the data, which might include: o Demographic information. o Community opinions and attitudes. o Officers' knowledge of the community. o Employment, housing, education, and health information. o Uniform Crime Reports. o Local crime statistics. o Analyze the data, discuss the findings, and draw tentative conclusions on the nature and extent of crime, drug abuse, and fear of crime. o Conduct a planning meeting and establish priorities on the crime and drug abuse problems to be addressed. o Prepare a report on the results of the needs assessment. o Identify and select target neighborhoods and manageable areas. o Report results to the community and test the conclusions. Describing the Community In some communities the assessment process will not need to start from scratch. Reliable and detailed crime statistics may already be available, for example, or a recent community survey may have been conducted. Frequently, though, assessment-related information is not readily available, because it has never been gathered or at least has never been pulled together. The planning team will need to have a common frame of reference for describing the community as a whole. Following are lists of questions the planning team should ask, grouped by topic. Not all of the questions in the next section have a direct bearing on drugs and crime, but they do pertain to conditions that can either encourage or discourage crime and disorder. Population and Other Demographics o What is the overall population? The population density? Is the area gaining or losing population? Why? o What is the average household size? The average number of children per family? o How many single-parent families are there? In how many families do both parents work outside the home? What are the day-care options for these families? o Are there a significant number of single adults in the community? Retirees? Young children? Households composed of unrelated persons? Transients? Migrant communities? Homeless persons? o Are there seasonal variations in population (for such reasons as colleges, agriculture, or tourism)? What impact do variations have on the provision of police, public safety, and other services? o What type of racial and ethnic diversity is found in the jurisdiction? What is the history and what is the current status of relations among persons of different races or ethnic backgrounds? o What are the jurisdiction's natural and designed borders or boundaries (such as shoreline, mountains, and interstate or major highways)? What relevance do they have to drug trafficking and crime? o Has annexation occurred recently, or is it planned? Possible sources of information include: o U.S. Census data. o County and city planning, research, and transportation departments. o State planning agencies. o Social service agencies. o Day-care organizations. o Police and sheriff's departments. Economics, Employment, and Housing o What is the average household income? Are there pockets of extreme poverty? Where are they? o What is the jurisdiction's unemployment rate? Is this rate significantly higher for teenagers? Minority residents? o What portion of the jurisdiction's economy is represented by: o Agriculture? o Light industry? o Heavy industry? o Wholesale? o Retail? o Service businesses? o Tourism? o What new industry is contemplated for the area? What existing industries are experiencing or planning layoffs or shutdowns? What portion of adults in the jurisdiction own their own homes? o Are there institutions in the area such as prisons, nursing homes, residential youth centers, mental health facilities? o What percentage of the population is receiving some form of public assistance? Who are they in terms of age, sex, race, employment status? Where do they live? What are their employment prospects? What special services and support do they need, and how were these needs identified? o Is there publicly assisted housing in the area? If so, what is its age and condition? How many people reside in public housing units? Possible information sources include: o U.S. Census data. o The Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations. o Labor departments. o Housing departments. o Social service agencies. Education and Training o What is the educational level of community residents? o What is the size of the public school population? What are the schools' strengths and weaknesses? What private schools are located in the community? o What are the school dropout and truancy rates? o What proportion of school children come from single-family homes? From homes in which both parents work? o Are school buildings available for use by other agencies or community groups after school hours? Are fees for their use reasonable? o To what extent are police or deputies involved with the schools? Do they conduct safety or drug education programs? o How accessible are colleges and universities? What relationships exist with them for police officer training and education? Are there faculty members who could serve as a resource for NOP implementation or evaluation? Possible information sources include: o The Chamber of Commerce. o U.S. Census data. o School board, administrators, teachers, and guidance counselors. o Parent-teacher associations. o State boards of education. o Colleges and universities. o Police department. Health and Welfare o Is there a hospital in the community? Does it provide specialized services such as drug and alcohol detoxification? Drug and alcohol abuse treatment? Inpatient psychiatric services? Mental health outpatient counseling? o What other health and counseling services are available in the community? For example, where can people find help with problems related to alcohol and drug addiction? Domestic violence? o What is law enforcement's relationship with these agencies? o Is there a public transportation system? How are residents in need of services being assisted with transportation? Possible information sources include: o Hospitals and clinics. o Private physicians. o Public and private drug and alcohol prevention, education, and treatment services. o Public and private mental health services. o Protective services. o Rape and domestic violence programs. o Courts and court services agencies. o Police and sheriff's departments. Other Resources and Issues o What sports, recreational, and cultural opportunities exist in the community? Are they accessible? What is the extent of resident participation? o What service clubs and organizations might assist the NOP effort? o What resident or neighborhood associations exist? How active are they in addressing crime and drug issues? o What role do religious institutions play in addressing issues related to crime and drugs? Possible information sources include: o Recreation and parks departments. o Service clubs (e.g., Kiwanis, Elks). o Social clubs. o Religious institutions. o Youth organizations. o Neighborhood organizations. Crime and the Criminal Justice System The police or sheriff's department will be one of the main sources of information about drugs and crime, but it is certainly not the only source. Many incidents of crime and disorder are never reported to law enforcement. There are many reasons for this, including distrust of the police, fear of public embarrassment, fear of retribution, lack of confidence in the criminal justice system, and simply the opinion that an incident or a piece of information is not important enough to bring to police attention. Thus, while some of the information needed about drugs and crime is available from police records, many other sources of information will need to be tapped. These sources include not only other agencies, but also residents and business people. It may be time to conduct a community survey or a series of public forums to identify residents' most pressing concerns and needs. These options are discussed more fully at the end of the chapter. Listed below are some key questions to ask about drug and related crime problems, along with some possible information sources. Also included are some questions to consider about the criminal justice resources available to deal with these problems. Drug and Related Crime Problem Questions o What are the most commonly abused illegal drugs in the jurisdiction? How has this changed in recent years? Are drugs that have not been a problem in the past becoming available? o How have the number of drug-related arrests and citizen complaints changed in recent years? o Where and how are the drugs sold? On the streets? Only in certain neighborhoods? From private residences or businesses scattered throughout the area? In the schools? Primarily in a neighboring jurisdiction? o If drug activity centers around specific neighborhoods, what are the physical conditions in those neighborhoods, such as type and condition of housing, lighting, blight, abandoned cars, and traffic patterns? o Who are the drug sellers? Who are the drug purchasers? Adults or juveniles? Residents or transients? Unemployed? Employees of local industries or businesses? Persons on probation for drug or other crimes? Students? Gangs or those associated with gangs? o What are the nature and extent of violence associated with drug activity? Of other criminal activity (such as burglaries, robberies, or auto thefts) associated with drugs? o Is marijuana grown in the jurisdiction or surrounding area? o Is the jurisdiction a distribution point for illegal drugs (e.g., because of its airstrips, shoreline, easy access to interstate highways)? o Have any clandestine drug laboratories been identified in the area? o What drug problems are occurring in surrounding jurisdictions? What is the likelihood that these problems may spill over into this jurisdiction? o To what extent are the community's youth experimenting with drugs and alcohol? What is the typical age of first use? What are users' attitudes about drugs and alcohol? What is their level of knowledge about the health, social, safety, and legal consequences of drug use? o What are the main problems associated with the abuse or illegal use of alcohol (illegal sales to minors, bar fights, domestic assaults, drunk driving, public disturbances)? Possible information sources include: o Local police and sheriff's departments: call-for-service data, incident reports, arrest reports, field contact cards or reports, citizen complaints, analysis of community "hot spots," internal reports, officers' experiences and observations, school liaison officers, crime tip-lines or crime-solvers programs, and Neighborhood Watch information. o Other criminal justice sources: regional drug enforcement task forces, State police, police and sheriff's departments in surrounding jurisdictions, Federal law enforcement agencies, local and Federal prosecutors, probation and parole officers, juvenile and adult court judges and court services workers, and State departments of criminal justice. o Sources outside the criminal justice system: public and private drug and alcohol treatment services; employee assistance programs; social service personnel; school records and reports; principals, teachers, coaches, and counselors; code enforcement, health, zoning, and related agencies; State alcoholic beverage control boards; crime victim assistance services; resident and business surveys; public forums; and community groups. Criminal Justice Resources and Strategies o What strategies has law enforcement tried in the past to deal with drug and related crime problems? How well did they work? o How many officers are assigned to drug cases? o What training and experience have officers had in drug investigations? What training is needed? o What equipment is needed for more effective handling of drug-related investigations? o What measures have been taken to ensure officer safety? o What arrangements have been made with other local or State law enforcement agencies to address needs for equipment? Training? Patrol officers? Undercover officers? Investigators? o How does the police or sheriff's department work with Federal law enforcement agencies? o What happens to persons arrested for drug violations? How do the courts handle adult and juvenile drug cases for first offenders? Repeat offenders? o How are case outcomes tracked? o What are the prosecutor's priorities and guidelines? o What impact have drug arrests had on the jail? On the courts? On treatment services? o What legal issues need to be addressed? What police policies and procedures need to be committed to writing or revised? Possible information sources include: o Police and sheriff's departments. o Law enforcement training academies. o Citizen surveys and public forums. o Prosecutors. o Probation and parole agencies. o County attorneys. o Federal law enforcement officials. Community Surveys and Public Forums Citizen surveys do not have to be lengthy or complicated to provide the planning team with useful information. A survey of all residents in a very small community or a sample of residents in a larger community can be done quickly and inexpensively; so can surveys of special groups such as businesses or students. Police officers often have been used to conduct surveys--an approach that also contributes to greater police-citizen contact. Local colleges are frequently willing to assist as well. Topics that should be explored in citizen surveys include: o Crime victimization experiences. o Observations of drug dealing, crime, and disorder. o Perceptions of neighborhood conditions and quality of life. o Fear of crime. o Experiences with police. o Attitudes toward police and other government agencies. o Priorities given to various community problems. o Participation in various community activities. o Demographic information. Public forums are another means of obtaining information about residents' perceptions of problems, current services, and alternatives. Such forums can be held on specific topics (e.g., teenage drug abuse) or can be focused more generally on the entire range of NOP issues. Similarly, forums can be targeted for specific neighborhoods or can be communitywide. If substantial numbers of residents participate, and if the participants are representative of the community, public forums can yield very valuable information for the planning team to use in assessing needs and designing new programs. Resource Acquisition During the planning phase, any resources needed to carry out the work should be identified. During this phase, steps should be taken to secure these resources and to manage them, contributing to effective implementation. These resources include: o People. o Materials. o Time. o Money. o Facilities. Implementation Successful implementation requires following the plan, implementing contingency plans as necessary to respond to problems or barriers, and applying the functions of management to ensure that the program is proceeding on course and is accomplishing its objectives. In most crime and drug abuse prevention programs, the implementation phase will require the highest level of citizen involvement. The relationship between planning and implementation is crucial to involvement--if community residents can clearly see how the activities they will engage in will lead to desired goals, they will be more likely to participate. Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation involve the critical review and assessment of the work and, therefore, provide the "feedback" mechanism essential for continued effective planning. Monitoring involves tracking on a regular basis the progress of key activities. Monitoring allows small problems to be corrected in a timely manner, before they develop into crises that can interrupt the progress of NOP. Evaluation focuses on the results of activities, making use of cumulative data (collected over a period of time and analyzed at once to determine the overall effect). Evaluation does not take place only at the end of a program implementation period. For most efforts, it is advantageous to evaluate at the midpoint as well as at the end of a phase of work, with monitoring occurring regularly in between. In this way, concrete information can be used to modify neighborhood actions, as necessary, and to strengthen them. Data collected through the needs assessment process serve as baseline data for the evaluation. The same types of information collected at various points can be compared with the original information to determine if desired changes are occurring. The resources that were indicated as helpful in designing and conducting the needs assessment will also be useful in designing and conducting the evaluation. One caution, however, in using outside resources: Make sure that the evaluation is fully integrated in the planning and implementation cycle. Evaluation does little good if it yields only a report that sits on someone's shelf. The planning team should be able to document for themselves and for the community: o What was accomplished? Were goals achieved? o Did these accomplishments make a difference? o What do these accomplishments mean to the next steps to reduce crime, violence, and drug abuse? In order to conduct an evaluation, it is critical that there be initial goals and objectives that are reasonable, understandable, and achievable. Otherwise it will be virtually impossible to assess whether the program achieved what it set out to achieve. Chapter 4: Law Enforcement Responsibilities Although the rural NOP requires police-citizen collaboration and greater community participation in solving problems related to crime, fear, and drugs, it does not follow that the traditional responsibilities of police departments and sheriffs' offices are somehow reduced. In fact, the agency's personnel remain responsible for the provision of emergency and routine services, while taking on responsibility for engaging the community in more substantive problem solving. Effectively and efficiently fulfilling these responsibilities is a major challenge. This chapter identifies the most important elements of a police agency's "infrastructure," that is, the systems and processes that must be in good shape to facilitate the implementation of NOP. These include such matters as operational strategies, time management, and leadership that affect both the internal workings of the law enforcement organization and its external relations with the community. It is not possible here to explore fully all of the important elements of police administration; therefore, readers are encouraged to consult recent police administration textbooks for more detailed information on these topics.1 Mission A key to understanding newly developing police strategies and to implementing NOP is the realization that the police mission is broader than "law enforcement." Of course, the police mission includes controlling crime and enforcing the law-- these are the primary reasons for having police agencies, and they are among the functions for which police are uniquely empowered and trained. Nothing in the transition to NOP discounts the importance of such functions and, in fact, NOP enhances them. However, experience has shown that the police mission is broader than law enforcement, as evidenced in several ways (see also appendixes B and C): o Citizens request police assistance for a wide variety of problems that do not easily fit within narrow definitions of crime or law enforcement. o Overreliance by police on tactics such as motorized patrol and rapid response has been shown to have limited effectiveness. o Overemphasis by police on "enforcement" tends to encourage police to shoulder the entire responsibility for crime control, instead of sharing responsibility with other institutions and with the community. No single statement of the police mission can be expected to fit perfectly the differing needs, priorities, and capabilities of America's 17,000 State and local law enforcement agencies. It is important, though, for each agency to express its purpose, philosophy, and values in such a way that employees and citizens know, without a doubt, what it stands for. As one example, the Police Bureau of Portland, Oregon, revised its mission (see appendix D for a fuller description) to the following: The Mission of the Portland Police Bureau is to work with all citizens to preserve life, maintain human rights, protect property, and promote individual responsibility and community commitment. The purpose of this example is not to recommend its adoption by other law enforcement agencies, but rather to illustrate the kinds of mission statements and values that are consistent with implementing neighborhood-oriented policing. If part of the implementation of NOP in any agency involves changing the way that employees or citizens think about the police mission, a new mission statement may be in order. Strategies New missions require new strategies--broader missions require multifaceted strategies. Until recently, most law enforcement agencies in the United States relied primarily on two interrelated strategies: the professional model and strategic crime control.2 The professional model emphasized, among other things, strict personnel standards, extensive training, modern technology, and the three tactics of motorized patrol, rapid response, and followup investigations. The strategic crime control model built upon the professional model by emphasizing more targeted tactics, such as directed patrol and repeat offender programs, and by expanding police attention beyond traditional Part I crimes3 to target other offenses, such as drug crimes and organized crime. Over the last decade, more and more law enforcement agencies have turned to the two emerging policing strategies that contain elements reflected in the rural NOP approach: community policing and problem-oriented policing. Community policing emphasizes4 that: o In addition to the law, community norms and values should guide police actions. o Police need to become more responsive to community needs and priorities. o Police and citizens need to share the responsibility for controlling crime, fear, and drugs. o Police should adopt tactics that facilitate more positive police-citizen contact. Problem-oriented policing recommends less emphasis on the incident-handling mode of policing and less reliance on law enforcement as the principal means of policing.5 Instead, police are advised to identify and analyze recurring problems and then to search widely for innovative and collaborative solutions that have more long-lasting effects than merely writing a report, admonishing disputants, or arresting a lawbreaker. It is a mistake to think that one must choose to adopt just one of these basic strategies. It is also a mistake to think that NOP mandates abandoning the professional model and strategic crime control. Rather, NOP serves to broaden the scope of options used to address crime and drug problems. Neighborhood-oriented policing encourages a focus on community engagement and problem solving, because experience strongly indicates that these strategies reduce crime and fear of crime, increase citizen satisfaction with police services, and have beneficial effects on a wide range of crime- and drug-related community problems. Internal Assessment Providing good police services, regardless of prevailing strategies, requires that attention be paid to the infrastructure of the organization. Similarly, changing the balance of strategies in a law enforcement agency generally requires some internal adjustments within the organization to encourage, facilitate, guide, and reward desired behaviors. Such internal changes are crucial to the implementation of greater police-citizen collaboration and more effective police problem solving as part of NOP. Just as it is important to assess the community's needs, it is necessary to assess the law enforcement agency's strengths, weaknesses, and needs before trying to adopt new NOP strategies. Internal assessment does not imply that wholesale organizational changes will have to be made in order to implement NOP. In one or more target areas, however, the broader its implementation, the more focus there should be in the organizational capability to maintain it. Among the organization's components that should be examined are staff capabilities and training, staff utilization on a beat or neighborhood level, information and analysis that is neighborhood based, structure of the organization, supervision and management, and executive leadership. In each of these areas, the relevant question is, "What are we doing now that supports or inhibits community collaboration and problem solving, and what should we do differently?" Staff Capabilities Staff capabilities refers primarily to recruiting practices, selection, promotion procedures, and training. Long-term implementation and institutionalization of NOP can best be ensured if law enforcement agencies attract, select, retain, and promote employees who really care about their communities and who are both committed to and inclined toward community engagement and problem solving. These may or may not always be the same people who are most intrigued by crime fighting and enforcing the law. Both community engagement and problem solving call for behaviors somewhat different from the activities for which police officers have traditionally been trained. Consequently, officers may require additional training in such things as collaboration, negotiation, conflict resolution, dealing with diverse cultures, problem identification, analysis, and assessment, or some skills like making presentations, holding meetings, and developing workplans. Also, police training may need to focus more than it has in the past on the nature of substantive police problems (such as street-level drug dealing and elder abuse), on the range of alternatives available for dealing with such problems, and on what has been learned about the effects of these alternatives. In other words, in the long run, police training needs to develop, incorporate, and transmit to new and incumbent officers the best available knowledge about "what works" in solving various crime, fear, and drug-related community problems. In fact, much of this information will be available from their peers--those who effectively engage in problem solving and can demonstrate the results of the strategies employed to solve the problems. Staff Utilization One of the law enforcement executive's principal responsibilities is to ensure that the organization's resources are being used as efficiently and effectively as possible. Until at least the mid-1970's, this responsibility was minimized, because extensive motorized patrol, rapid response to calls for service, and detective followup investigations easily consumed all available resources and were believed to be effective tactics. Over the last decade, however, three developments have driven staff utilization issues to the forefront of police executive decisionmaking: o Resources became tighter, making it harder, if not impossible, to continue providing previous levels of service. o Studies revealed that motorized patrol, rapid response, and followup investigations were much less effective than once believed. o Service requirements increased, as indicated by more calls for service and by additional expectations, such as collaboration with citizens and problem solving. Today, there is no easy or completely satisfying solution to the dilemma of dwindling resources and increasing service demands. This means, among other things, taking a hard look at traditional practices and cutting back on less effective tactics and lower priority demands. Specifically, many law enforcement agencies are now: o Trying to manage their time and their workloads more skillfully through the use of such alternatives as delayed response and telephone reporting. o Replacing routine preventive patrol with directed patrol, citizen-contact patrol, and a concentrated focus on recurring community problems. o Using case screening to reduce detective caseloads and redistribute investigative responsibilities more evenly between patrol officers and detectives. Managing time and workload deserves additional comment because, in a busy law enforcement agency, freeing patrol officers from the overwhelming burden of calls for service is often a prerequisite to implementing collaborative problemsolving efforts. Research and recent experience have shown that police agencies can effectively handle a large portion of their calls for service--at least half, and probably more--by methods other than immediately dispatching a sworn officer.6 One major reason this is true is that 75 percent of reported crimes are not "discovered" by citizens until after the offender is gone.7 Moreover, even when victims or witnesses are aware of crimes while they are in progress, these citizens delay an average of 4 to 5 minutes before notifying the authorities. Consequently, rapid police response rarely results in response-related arrests. Even more surprising to law enforcement officials, citizen satisfaction does not depend simply on how quickly the police arrive. Satisfaction seems to be tied to whether the quickness of police response meets the citizen's expectation, rather than to response time per se. Also, citizens are generally most concerned with the quality of service they receive once the officer arrives. A number of communities across the country have discovered and subsequently verified that even in cases of serious reported crimes, citizens can often be satisfied with a wide variety of delayed and alternative responses as long as (1) the rationale for the alternatives is explained and (2) the service, once delivered, is competent and caring.8 The implication is that to a considerable extent, law enforcement agencies can proactively manage their workloads instead of reactively letting their workloads manage them. By limiting immediate sworn response to those calls (50 percent or less) that require the onscene presence of a police officer and by implementing differential alternatives for the rest, departments can give patrol officers more control over their work days and make more time available for the kinds of community-oriented and problem-oriented activities that are at the heart of NOP. Not every one of these contemporary law enforcement responses to the "do more with less" scenario will make sense in every situation, nor is the intended suggestion that any particular agency must adopt them. Instead, as part of an internal needs assessment, an agency may need to ask the tough questions about whether it is presently making the best possible use of its staff and other resources and whether any alternative uses, such as those described above, would be more effective. Information and Analysis To accomplish community engagement and problem solving, police officers and the police agency need information. Information is needed on workload to make the best use of staffing resources and on crime, traffic accidents, offenders, repeat-call locations, and other items that may be possible targets for problemsolving efforts. This information could come from traditional internal sources, such as crime reports and dispatch records, and from external sources, such as parole agencies, traffic engineering departments, and school systems. Most important, mechanisms should be established to ascertain what problems are of greatest concern to individual citizens and the community as a whole. This is part of the needs assessment described previously. Some law enforcement agencies, because they are small and cohesive and already working closely with citizens, may have easy access to such information without having to resort to special efforts or formal systems. Many agencies, though, even small ones, find that information on crime, calls for service, other types of problems, and citizen concerns is lacking or unreliable. Whatever their current situations, agencies attempting to implement NOP should consider whether sufficient information to support collaboration and problem solving is available, or whether additional information-gathering and analysis capabilities are needed. The importance of neighborhood-based data cannot be overemphasized. Most law enforcement agencies, regardless of size, engage in some form of crime analysis. It is important that the type of crime analysis done by a department be used by those individuals involved in the efforts. Officers will need information about current crime problems, including data on locations, times, methods of operation, and suspects. The members of the planning team may need information necessary for the identification of growing communitywide problems and for understanding the needs of each neighborhood. Because NOP is strongly inclined toward identifying and solving neighborhood-level problems, it is important for agencies to develop their capabilities in location-oriented analysis of crimes and other related problems. For very small agencies, the development of reliable and valid information about neighborhood-level problems may not require computerized systems or even formal crime analysis. Some small agencies and many larger ones, though, will find that detailed location-oriented information is not readily available. These agencies may need to develop or upgrade their crime analysis capabilities in order to extract and analyze data on the neighborhood level. Structure All organizations have structure, which includes such elements as the distribution of authority, the levels of hierarchy, the degree of specialization, and the extent to which actions are governed by formal written guidelines. The issue to be considered for NOP is whether current structures support community engagement and problem solving at the neighborhood level and, if not, what changes might be helpful. This can be tricky--not all experts agree on the best fit between police organizational structure and the strategies upon which NOP is based. However, most advocates of community and problem-oriented policing seem to agree that structures that are more decentralized, that have fewer levels of hierarchy, that have less specialization, and that avoid excessively restrictive rules and procedures are more conducive to the kind of creative policing upon which NOP is based. One's objective should be to examine the agency's structure and consider whether it supports or inhibits police officer initiative, creativity, and risk-taking in collaboration and problem solving with citizens. In order for officers to engage in serious community engagement and problem solving, however, their focus has to be more on people and neighborhoods and their problems, and less on handling a certain amount of calls for service. Officers should be assigned on the basis of geography or neighborhood boundaries. Assignment of officers must be consistent if a relationship is to develop between the officer and the community. This relationship--a known officer and the community working together to address mutually identified problems--is the strength of NOP. Supervision and Management The issues pertinent to supervision and management are similar to those related to structure. If supervisors fail to guide and even coach police officers, if their styles are overbearing or punishment-oriented, if they pressure officers to handle calls quickly in order to get back on patrol, and if they continue to emphasize arrests and tickets in the evaluation of their subordinates, it would take a miracle for those officers to persist in community engagement and problem solving. Officers need flexibility and support from management in order to implement NOP effectively. Individual styles of supervision and management may well need to be adjusted, as may the overall management system of the agency. A "coaching" approach in dealing with subordinates is most likely to be needed, especially while subordinates learn their new roles of community engagement and problem solving. Higher-level managers will need to adopt a more strategic outlook to augment or replace the traditional police "command and control" mentality.9 Agency-level productivity measures, individual performance appraisals, internal communications practices, and other management systems may also need careful attention and adjustment. Officers will need the support of their supervisors to develop contacts in agencies with which they are unfamiliar. Management may be called upon to support officers' needs for flexibility in working hours so that they can meet with the community and with members of other agencies and organizations. This, however, will be difficult in a small rural agency, which may not have such flexibility due to low staffing levels (for example, the number of officers per shift). Officers will also need help from their supervisors when collaboration does not go smoothly. Management must set an expectation that collaboration is the norm for problem solving. They should evaluate officers' efforts and follow up with members of other agencies to determine how well their subordinates collaborate. They should provide appropriate guidance to officers who are found to be avoiding collaboration or doing it poorly. Getting officers involved with the NOP planning team can be an excellent device for encouraging and enabling collaboration. Supervisors and managers should allow officers to attend planning team meetings or see that they are briefed separately about the activities of the team. Officers should have access to much of the same information being used by the planning team to improve the chances they will share perceptions of problems and priorities. Officer interaction with planning team members should be encouraged, particularly because many team members will be representatives of social service agencies and community organizations. Executive Leadership Beyond the relatively tangible issues of structure, supervision, and management is the more subjective element of leadership. The chief executive is responsible for "charting the course" of the law enforcement agency. If NOP represents a change in course, the executive must both steer the vessel and convince others to follow. This can involve articulating the new direction, explaining why it is important and likely to be beneficial, answering questions and allaying fears, creating enthusiasm, overcoming inertia, and leading by example. In particular, the executive must convince police officers that community engagement and problem solving are real police work. He or she must help officers develop a new vision of policing that honors collaboration and problem solving as much as it honors more traditional forms of patrol and detective work. (See appendix E for some principles of quality leadership as applied to police management.) External Considerations Traditionally, law enforcement agency external relationships have been thought of primarily in the following terms: o Protecting the agency from outside interference. o Securing sufficient resources. o Coordinating efforts with other law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. NOP requires an expanded view of external relations, to include individual officer and agency-level relationships with citizens, community groups, the media, other government agencies, and public- and private-sector organizations of various kinds, such as social service agencies, individual businesses, business associations, and nonprofit organizations. These expanded relationships are sought because they are valuable in their own right (for breaking down any sense of police isolation), and because of their contributions to the identification, analysis, and solution of community crime, fear, and drug-related problems. Collaboration among law enforcement agencies, other government agencies, private-sector service providers, and the community is an essential part of NOP (for a guide to collaboration, see appendix F). One way that police managers can facilitate collaboration on the part of officers is by encouraging them to join various civic groups or by arranging (or simply permitting) their appointment to boards of community organizations and advisory panels of local agencies. Newsletters and interagency training can also be used to highlight and enhance working relationships between officers and representatives of external organizations. Getting citizens and representatives of interested agencies involved in the initial planning for NOP was discussed in chapter 2. Citizen involvement was also emphasized in conjunction with the community needs assessment in chapter 3. The presentation on problem solving in chapter 5 similarly encourages collaborative efforts, as does the discussion of program implementation in chapter 6. Suffice it to say that close collaboration among law enforcement agencies, other government agencies, community organizations, private-sector interests, and individual citizens is not an option--it is the very essence of the NOP approach and an integral element to solving crime- and drug-related problems. Chapter 5: Problem Solving In every police and sheriff's department one hears stories of officers or deputies who tried something creative as a response to a continuing problem in the community. Typically, that creativity was not authorized by department policy, was not consistent with standard operating procedures, and would probably not have been approved by a supervisor had permission been sought. Yet the problems communities face in the 1990's are complex and longstanding and demand creative solutions. Many in law enforcement are beginning to question traditional approaches to dealing with these problems and are encouraging, rather than avoiding, creativity in personnel. Reliance on arrest as the sole solution to problems of drugs, prostitution, domestic violence, larcenies, and other crime and disorder problems has not produced the expected results. Departments around the country are looking for new ways to handle an increasingly difficult and expanding workload. Research results spanning two decades lead to the need for delivering law enforcement services that target persistent or recurring problems in the community and look for long-term solutions to these problems. Some call these services problem-oriented policing.1 However, they are also one of the key elements of neighborhood-oriented policing. Using this approach, police and sheriff personnel go beyond individual crimes and calls for service and take on the underlying problems that create them. Research indicates that, in many communities, more than 50 percent of the calls for service emanate from 10 percent of the locations in the communities. Because a good portion of the police workload consists of responding to the same places over and over again, a problem-oriented approach-- addressing the underlying conditions prompting the calls--makes sense as an approach to policing.2 Officers have used the problem-oriented approach to handle homicides, robberies, domestic disputes, larcenies, noise complaints, alarms, prostitution, traffic accidents, and a host of quality of life issues and other problems that communities experience. This approach is being used in midsized and larger cities such as San Diego, California; Newport News, Virginia; Hayward, California; Gaston County, North Carolina; Lewiston, Maine; St. Louis, Missouri; Savannah, Georgia; Tempe, Arizona; Prince George's County, Maryland; Jefferson County, Kentucky; and Portland, Oregon; in small cities and counties such as Lumberton, North Carolina; Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; and St. Charles, Illinois; and many other communities around the Nation. A problemsolving approach to policing differs from traditional policing strategies in four significant ways: o Substantial evidence suggests that problem solving enables police agencies to be more effective.3 Currently, police agencies commit most of their time to responding to calls for service. Problem-oriented policing offers a more effective strategy by addressing the underlying conditions that prompt calls for service. Often, calls for service are related and, if grouped together, disclose a pattern of activity or behavior that presents a more accurate picture of the condition that prompted the calls in the first place. Problem solving offers agencies a model for addressing the underlying conditions that create crime and cause other problems of concern to the community. o A problem-oriented approach recognizes the expertise of line officers and deputies and allows them to use that expertise to study problems and develop creative solutions to those problems. Experience in departments around the country has shown that line officers and deputies are capable of contributing much more to the resolution of crime and other community problems than is presently asked of them. Officers and deputies engaged in problem solving have expressed greater job satisfaction and exhibited a keener interest in their work. o A problem-oriented approach entails greater involvement of the public in police work. Communities must be consulted to ensure that police are addressing the real needs and concerns of citizens. Community involvement and support are key ingredients if law enforcement agencies hope to find long-term solutions to recurrent problems. o The problem-oriented approach recognizes that much of the information needed to examine and understand a problem is not contained in any law enforcement agency's files. As a result, problemsolving officers and deputies are encouraged to draw on a wide range of sources of information outside of their departments to analyze and address problems. How Problem Solving Works Needless to say, police officers and deputies in departments implementing NOP handle calls for service and investigate crimes. In addition, however, they are expected to identify problems in their areas of assignment, gather information from a variety of sources about the problems, look for and apply tailor-made solutions to the problems, and assess whether the solutions applied were effective. Several examples of NOP approaches for rural communities are detailed on the following pages. Drug Dealing in Mobile Home Parks An officer noticed that the police were receiving a disproportionate number of calls from mobile home parks in a rural community. A group of officers launched a door-to-door survey and talked to park residents about their problems. Residents complained of thefts, drug dealing, and domestic disputes. In addition, residents complained of inadequate sanitation and poor maintenance by park owners. Officers began their problemsolving efforts one park at a time. In one, police found that the park owner turned a blind eye to the drug dealing and refused to cooperate with police. Speculation was that he was receiving money in exchange for his silence about the illegal activity. In the past, officers would have focused only on the drug dealers themselves. To increase their effectiveness in this instance, they also focused on the owner who permitted the activity to occur. Police eventually filed a civil nuisance suit against the owner. The owner's assets were seized, and his personal and business checking accounts frozen. Complaints of the illegal activity have subsided. Officers are now working on the other problems they identified in other mobile home parks. Peninsula Skating Rink In June 1985, the police began receiving multiple complaints about noise and vandalism from village residents. Their problem: large groups of rowdy youth paraded through their usually quiet neighborhood between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. every Friday and Saturday night. Many of the complainants added that they thought the youth were coming from a roller skating rink on Main Street. The rink closed at 1 a.m.; presumably, the youth were making their noisy way home. Officer Summerfield drove to the rink early in the evening to watch events develop. He found that virtually none of the patrons walked to the rink; some took a bus that had been chartered by the rink, and many others were dropped off by parents or friends. But many of the drivers wore bathrobes and nightgowns; they clearly had no intention of coming back for their children at 1 a.m. When he talked to the youth, Summerfield found that their parents expected them to take the rink's bus back home. But there was only one bus, and it could not carry the several hundred youth who needed it to get home without making several trips. The cause of the problem became obvious: many of the youth became impatient while waiting for the bus to return, and started to walk. Summerfield discussed the problem with the rink owner. The owner agreed to lease more buses for the return trip. By the next weekend, the problem had disappeared. Unloading a Problem A loading dock for use by semitrailers was the site of repeated complaints to police. During unloading, the semitrailers extended onto the property of an adjacent car park, occupying up to three parking stalls at the Imperial Car Park. Countless repeat calls for service were taken because the two parties could not come to a mutual agreement. The traditional response used by officers dispatched to the scene was to calm down the disputing parties (whose arguments were getting more and more heated) and issue a summons for the unloading infraction. One officer decided to try something different, realizing that the repeated issuance of summonses failed to resolve the problem over the long term. The officer arranged a meeting between the two managers of the respective companies. With the officer acting as mediator, it was agreed that the loading dock company would lease the three car park stalls onto which its trailers extended. Since that time, the police have not had to return even once to that location. Repeat Calls From a Bar The Rock City Nightclub was the site of repeated calls for service, many of them for assaults. An officer analyzed the problem and discovered that many of these repeat calls involved patrons who were served drinks after they appeared inebriated. In addition, the officer found that alcohol consumed by a number of the impaired drivers arrested in the area could be traced back to this bar. He found that the management served more liquor to patrons than the Liquor Board approved, at a lower price than regulations permitted, and exceeded the fire code occupancy capacity on numerous occasions. The officer at first targeted impaired drivers at the location but realized that this tactic was too reactive. He decided to address the problems occurring in the bar itself. He arranged a meeting with the bar owner, the bar manager, employees of the bar, and the Liquor Control Board inspector. The officer explained the law concerning third-party liability, informing them that the bar could be responsible for the actions of impaired individuals even after they left the premises. The employees were shown films on third-party liability and heard a lecture on "The Use of Force, Citizens' Powers of Arrest, and How To Handle Intoxicated Persons." In addition, the officer met with the fire department and presented statistics on liquor-related crimes and occupancy code violations. The fire department reviewed the information and reduced the seating capacity for the bar. As a result of the officer's efforts, including his collaboration with other agencies, the bar's management is serving liquor in a more responsible fashion, and the number of liquor-related complaints at the bar has declined significantly. How Problem Solving Is Done The problemsolving process used by police officers to identify and analyze problems on their beats is similar to the process used by the planning team for community needs assessment (see chapter 3). The difference is largely one of level and specificity. The community needs assessment focuses on identifying the most serious drug- and crime-related problems in the community. The problem-oriented approach to policing focuses on resolving these problems and improving neighborhoods, by gathering additional information, marshaling resources, and seeking to implement carefully tailored actions designed to bring about improvements. In Newport News, Virginia, the first jurisdiction to implement problem-oriented policing departmentwide, officers asked for a model that would guide them through their problemsolving efforts.4 Aided by researchers, officers developed a model called "SARA" for Scanning-Analysis- Response-Assessment. Scanning Scanning in this context means problem identification. As a first step, officers should identify problems on their beats. A problem is different from an isolated incident. An isolated incident is something police are called to or happen upon that is unrelated to other incidents in the community. A problem, on the other hand, consists of two or more incidents that are: o Similar in one or more ways. o Of concern to the community. o Within the police's or sheriff's jurisdiction. In essence, officers look for patterns or persistent problems in the community. They should go beyond the information that their departments possess when identifying problems in the community. Often the officer's perception of the problem differs considerably from the community's--it is information he or she needs to know and understand. Reviewing calls for service, especially repeat calls from particular locations, is only one way to identify problems in the community. Other ways of identifying problems are through citizen complaints, census data, data from other government agencies, newspaper and media coverage of community issues, officer observations, police reports, and community surveys. Analysis The purpose of analysis is to learn as much as possible about a problem to identify what is causing it (see appendix G). First, the officer needs to understand the actions and interactions of offenders, victims, and the environment. Generally three elements are required to constitute a crime in the community: an offender, a victim, and a crime scene. Officers have found it useful in understanding a problem to visualize the link between these three elements by drawing a triangle. If a victim is in a place where crimes occur, but there are no offenders, no crime occurs. If an offender is in a place where crimes occur, but there is nothing or no one to be victimized, then no crime occurs. If an offender, a victim, and their possessions are not in the same place, there is no crime. As part of the analysis phase it is important to find out as much as possible about victims (sitting ducks), offenders (ravenous wolves), and crime scenes (dens of iniquity) in order to understand what is prompting the problem.5 One way to start is by asking Who? What? Where? When? How? Why? and Why Not? about each leg of the triangle. After officers or deputies gather the needed information, it is important to understand who has control over any aspect of the triangle. Those who have control are termed "guardians." What kind of control do the guardians have and have they been exercising it to deal with this current problem? At this point, an example will best explain the interaction among offenders, victims, environment, and guardians. Over the course of a month, police arrested two different men for drug dealing in a local motel. Information leading to the arrests came from an anonymous tip. After the arrests, complaints about the dealing were still coming in to the police. An officer noticed traffic at odd hours at the hotel and drug paraphernalia in the parking lot. The pattern that emerged led the officer to believe that drugs were continuing to be sold even after arrests had been made. In response to this situation, an officer might ask and find answers to some of the following questions in order to describe the relationship of the parties involved. Ravenous Wolves: Wolves produce harm or encourage it. Who are the violators? Sources of information: o Police intelligence. o Vehicle license plates. o Motel employee information. o Motel registrations. o Interviews with arrestees. Why do they deal here at this particular location? Sources of information: o Examination of geographic layout. o Highway and interstate accessibility. o Comparison of nightly cost of rooms to other locations. o Interviews with arrestees. Why do dealers sell here and not at the other motel in town? Sources of information: o Examination of cost differences between motels. o Comparison of registration and visitor policies. o Interviews with arrestees. When are offenders dealing? Sources of information: o Complaints. o Officer observations. o Employee observations. What is the offender's method of operation? Sources of information: o Surveillance. o Examination of crime records and complaints. o Neighbors. o Employees. Who are the customers? Are they local or nonlocal? How do they get to the motel? How did they hear of the motel as a source? Sources of information: o Motel registry. o License plates. o Neighbors. o Officer observations. o Local vs. nonlocal customers. o Interviews with other motel patrons. What types of drugs are offenders selling? Sources of information: o Motel employees, including motel cleaning staff. o Evidence of paraphernalia. o Past arrest data. Where are the offenders getting their drug supply? Sources of information: o Police intelligence. o Surveillance. o Information from other jurisdictions. Sitting Ducks: Ducks are those who are harmed. Who, if any, of the motel staff are involved? What do motel staff know about the problem? Source of information: o Police observations and interviews. How are the legitimate customers patronizing the motel harmed? Source of information: o Interviews with past customers. How are the neighbors harmed by the problem, if at all? Source of information: o Interviews with neighbors. Who else might be harmed and how? Sources of information: o Crime statistics for hotel. o Interviews with past out-of-town victims. Dens of Iniquity: Dens are the social or physical component. Why at this motel and not the other motel in the community? Sources of information: o Location survey. o Registration policies. What are the laws governing the operation of the motel? Sources of information: o Municipal attorney's office. o State Department of Consumer Affairs. o Liquor Control Board. o Zoning Board. o Health and Safety. o Fire department. Which rooms are involved? Are the same rooms used? Are the same people renting the same rooms or renting repeatedly? Sources of information: o Motel registry information. o Interviews with employees. What are the motel rules, and how are they enforced? Source of information: o Motel management. What are the rules concerning employees? Source of information: o Motel management and staff. What is the motel policy on room payment? How are these particular rooms paid for? Source of information: o Motel owner/manager/records. What vehicles are registered to what room? Sources of information: o Motel management. o Officer observation. What is the policy on visitors? Source of information: o Motel management and staff. Once information is gathered, officers should set goals for their problemsolving project. In this case, reasonable goals would include: o Making it more difficult for offenders to sell drugs in this motel; o Preventing the recurrence of this problem in the future; and o Working with the other local motels so that the same problem will not arise there. It is important to strike a balance in problem analysis. On the one hand, analysis should be careful and rigorous, so that it yields insights about the nature and scope of the problem and, most important, what causes it. However, it is a big mistake to get so bogged down in gathering and analyzing information that "paralysis of analysis" strikes. The purpose of problem analysis is to aid in solving the problem--the analysis should therefore be as practical and action-oriented as possible. Response In the third phase of the SARA model, officers look for long-term, creative, tailor-made solutions to the problem. If arrest is an effective solution to a problem, then an officer should take that approach. However, if arrest is not effective, other responses must be applied. Arrest is often part of the solution to a particular crime or disorder problem, but in most cases arrest alone is not sufficient to provide long-term resolution to the problem. For instance, in the example of drug dealing at the motel, two offenders have already been arrested, yet drug dealing continues. Clearly other solutions must be applied in addition to arrest in this scenario. One may be to eliminate one or more legs of the triangle, thereby eliminating the link between the wolves, the ducks, and the dens. In addition, the ability of the guardians to handle the problem can be strengthened or new guardians can be created if there were none or too few before. In the drug-dealing scenario, because arrest did not provide a total solution, an officer might want to see what else can be done to remove the dealers from the motel. Officers might decide to focus on the dealer's customers (also part of the wolves' leg of the triangle) by restricting motel visitors and regulating or disallowing visitor parking. If an officer thinks that working on the dens would be most effective, he or she might work with the motel owner to improve registration procedures or to post signs concerning reporting of illegal activity. In addition, officers and deputies should try to strengthen the guardians because they watch over the problem. Several approaches could be taken. Officers could devote time to educating the motel owner about owner liability for operating an establishment where drugs are sold, or work with the owner to develop procedures so employees assist the owner in the effort. If analysis shows that it is local residents dealing at the location, then the officer might pursue passage of a town ordinance that regulates or prohibits room rentals to town residents. In essence, this ordinance would strengthen the motel owner's ability to keep local dealers out of the motel. In general, if an officer wants to prevent the crime from being perpetrated by others who will take advantage of the opportunity, then the officer will need to work on at least two legs of the triangle and attempt to strengthen the guardians. The search for alternative responses should be wide-ranging. Officers should always attempt to come up with several possible alternatives, even though some may later be discarded as impractical, too costly, or otherwise too risky. One view of the range of potential problem-solutions can be found in appendix H, drawn from Herman Goldstein's book Problem-Oriented Policing. Appendix I shows another scheme, borrowed from the book Situational Crime Prevention by Ronald Clarke. Neither of these classification systems is likely to be the last word on possible solutions to crime, disorder, and drug-related problems--they are offered to guide but not restrict your imagination as you search for customized solutions to the problems in your community. Can officers eliminate every problem they take on? Probably not. Some problems are extremely complex, and a diminution in the magnitude of the problem, a reduction in its frequency, or a lessening of the harm it creates may be the best success one can achieve. Because many problems are complex, it follows that multifaceted solutions are usually recommended. If a community problem is substantial enough to merit sustained attention, including careful identification and analysis, then it will generally also merit an attack from several different angles. "Surrounding the problem" is a good image to employ as officers consider which alternative responses to adopt. The most effective efforts frequently are those that involve the guardians in the solution. Without the input and buy-in from those affected by the problem in developing or implementing the solution, the results will not be as long-lasting as they should be. Officers cannot solve the more complex problems in our communities alone--they need to collaborate with other government agencies, community associations, and citizens affected by the problem (see appendix F for a guide to collaborative problem solving). Assessment Are the solutions the officer applied effective? It is important, once an effort is complete, to assess whether what the officer did was effective. If a noise complaint problem came to an officer's attention through a rash of calls for service, then the officer might look to see if the number of calls coming decreased, and by what amount, to determine if the solution was effective. The officer might also interview the complainants to learn if the solution produced satisfactory results from their perspective. Counting arrests or other measures of effort may not prove whether or not a problem was solved or reduced, so officers are encouraged to look to other indicators for measurement of results. Assessment is an important step in the SARA model. Unless one tries to determine whether what the officers did was effective, they will never know whether the solutions worked. A useful way to think about assessment is to think of it as a way of showing the before/after contrast. Even if the solutions applied did not totally eliminate the problem, a reduction still constitutes an improvement and may be all that can be accomplished in many situations. The need to assess the effectiveness of the effort emphasizes the importance of documentation and baseline measurement. Many officers fail to document the work that they have done on a project (the effort expended), and therefore have trouble claiming after the fact that any impact should be attributed to their effort as officers. Similarly, failure to measure the magnitude of the problem before initiating the response makes it difficult to prove conclusively that conditions got better after the response was implemented. Chapter 6: Implementation Neighborhood-oriented policing requires that law enforcement agencies make some fundamental changes in the way they go about their work and relate to the communities they serve. Traditional policing emphasizes patrol, rapid response, and followup investigations as the primary responses to crime and drug problems. Solutions to crime problems are generally sought within the framework of the criminal justice system. In the traditional law enforcement model, members of the community serve primarily as the victims, witnesses, and financiers of the enterprise. NOP requires the police agency and all its personnel to expand the way it thinks about and responds to drug, crime, and service problems and to consider the role members of the community play in dealing with them. Making the transition from traditional policing to NOP requires the department to think through what changes need to be made and how they will be made. The most helpful way to think through these changes is to develop an implementation plan. This chapter focuses on implementation planning and some of the challenges a law enforcement agency faces in moving away from traditional policing to a more proactive style that involves the community in the identification and resolution of problems. A well-thought-out plan will help the department anticipate problems and minimize costly mistakes in the implementation of changes. At a minimum, the plan should specify the general direction the department is heading in a clear statement of goals and objectives. It should identify who has responsibility for ensuring that specific objectives are met. It should also specify realistic timeframes for achieving the objectives and indicate how success will be measured. The plan should provide overall guidance for management of the department's activities. The topics discussed earlier in this document are important to the development of an implementation plan, and it is assumed that they will have been completed prior to implementation. Refer to the chapters on Getting Started, Community Needs Assessment, and Law Enforcement Responsibilities to ensure that all aspects of planning have been considered. The Implementation Plan Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Tasks The first step in developing an implementation plan is to establish goals and objectives. The goals and objectives provide department members and the community with a general sense of what NOP expects to achieve and how. A goal is a broad statement of the end toward which the effort is directed. An objective is related to a particular goal but is more specific. It details what will be done to achieve the goal and who will do it. Goals and objectives may be refined as the work progresses and specific needs of the jurisdiction are addressed. A sample goal and objectives appear below. o Goal: To develop an environment in which patrol officers or deputies work with community members in solving problems that contribute to illegal drug abuse. o Objective: The training director will develop and implement a program for officers or deputies that will train them to work with the community to identify, analyze, and solve problems. o Activity: Conduct 1-day training session for patrol officers on conduct of meetings and making effective presentations. o Objective: A patrol and communications task force will be established to develop a calls-for-service management policy designed to allow officers or deputies the necessary blocks of time to work on problems. o Objective: Officers will be assigned or will volunteer to work in specified geographic areas on a continuous basis. Additional objectives related to this goal could be developed to facilitate its achievement. Goals, objectives, and strategies should be developed for the most significant NOP activities. Tasks are those specific activities that need to be carried out in order to accomplish the goals, objectives, and strategies. Tasks should be explicitly identified for each objective. For example, the following tasks might be required by the call-for-service management objective noted above: o Form the task force. o Elect or appoint a chair and reporter. o Carefully document the agency's current policies and procedures pertaining to call-for-service management (even if not already written). o Gather workload and time utilization data to document the current need for call management. o Gather information from the literature on call management. o Identify comparable agencies that have already developed call management systems and solicit their policies and procedures. o If possible, visit agencies that have implemented call management systems that are considered to be working well. o Use the information gathered to identify the principal alternative call-for-service management features that could be adopted. o Select those call-for-service management features that seem best suited to the agency and its particular problems. o Write a draft of the new call-for-service management policy. o Distribute the draft to the task force for comment and reaction. If it is likely to be controversial or misunderstood, consider holding open meetings to explain the proposed new policy and its rationale. o Present the new policy to the chief, sheriff, or other appropriate top executive for approval. o Once approved, print and distribute the new policy. o If the new policy requires changes in behavior on the part of telephone operators, dispatchers, or patrol officers, consider the need for training. o Check to see whether this new policy requires changes in other policies, in performance evaluations, or in any other related organizational systems. Timeframes After the goals, objectives, and tasks have been identified, the department will be in a position to establish timeframes for completing the tasks associated with program implementation. Setting realistic timeframes for completing program-related tasks will facilitate implementation by allowing personnel and community members to schedule program activities around their normal responsibilities. They also provide an important monitoring tool for the chief or sheriff. It's necessary to emphasize the need to set realistic timeframes for achieving objectives. In the training objective, for example, several strategies and activities need to take place before it can be achieved. At a minimum, the training director would have to take these steps: o Develop a curriculum. o Identify and possibly train the trainers. o Acquire training materials (books, handouts, etc.). o Develop a training schedule and make arrangements for officers to attend. o Conduct the training. The time required for each of these tasks can be estimated and will provide an idea of how long the objective should take. By following the same process for each of the objectives, the task force achieves a realistic timeline for developing the implementation phase. Communication The implementation plan should specify the process by which everyone will be informed about the work to be done and the changes necessary to get it done. The initial steps, such as conducting a needs assessment and establishing a planning team, will serve as useful communication mechanisms. However, not everyone can be involved in the planning, so it is important to the overall success of the effort to develop an approach for communicating key aspects of NOP to the community, the department, and other elements of local government that will be involved in addressing problems in collaboration with the police. The implementation plan itself will serve as a source of information about NOP, as will other documents that are developed to support the effort. None of these activities can substitute, though, for a specific and aggressive effort aimed at informing the public and others of the changes planned. The police chief or sheriff must play a key role in the communication process. The nature and extent of the changes required make it critical that everyone realize that the chief law enforcement executive is committed to the success of NOP. The police chief or sheriff must take the time to make personal appearances at community, department, and local government meetings to talk about the new way of doing business and what it means to each. Every opportunity should be taken to publicize NOP activities in the local news media. An initial press release and press conference would be appropriate. Any events or results of NOP-related activities that might be newsworthy provide an opportunity for coverage. The plan should identify all of the vehicles that could be used to inform people inside and outside the department. Some of these include: o Daily/weekly newspapers. o Radio stations. o Newsletters (government, neighborhood, religious institution, etc.). o Service club meetings. o Neighborhood meetings. o Cable television. o Television news. o Department roll calls. o Neighborhood/community papers. o Ethnic-oriented papers where appropriate. o Inservice training. o Special events (county fairs, holiday gatherings). o School events (PTA, athletic contests). In some instances it may not be enough simply to inform planning team members, police officers, or other service providers about new activities that should be performed, or about old activities that should henceforth be done differently. Proposed changes in attitudes and philosophy may be so significant that individuals must be convinced, if not converted. Also, the preferred changes in behavior may be substantial enough that individuals need to be trained in the new ways of thinking about and doing their work. In other words, successful implementation may involve efforts to win over the hearts, minds, and bodies of important participants. Police officers are likely to require the greatest amount of convincing that community collaboration and problem solving are worthwhile approaches to reducing drug violence and other crime-related problems. Law enforcement executives must carefully explain to officers why these new approaches are being tried, and show them evidence from around the country in support of NOP. Executives should also make their own clear commitment to giving NOP a fair and full test. Whenever possible, they should lead by personal example. In addition, consistency demands that when asking officers aggressively to seek citizen input in controlling community problems, executives should similarly seek officer input in running the department. Treating officers with respect and dignity is a prerequisite to asking officers to treat citizens as equal partners (see appendix E for a fuller presentation of principles of quality leadership).1 A key hurdle is the belief by officers that community collaboration and problem solving are not "real police work." One suggestion for both the planning team and law enforcement executives is to avoid equating NOP and its components with either social work or with any kind of "softer" approach to drug and crime problems. Assurances should be given that NOP includes enforcement of the law, and consistent emphasis should be given to the goals of NOP--reducing drug and crime related problems. NOP is promising not because it is a nicer or kinder approach, but because it marshals greater resources, implements more tailored specific solutions, and addresses real and perceived problems. Ultimately, officers will be most convinced once they have had the opportunity to participate in community collaboration and problem solving. Law enforcement executives should first concentrate on explaining the rationale for NOP, then on getting as many officers as possible actually involved in the program. (More on the difficult task of managing change is presented later in this chapter.) Training Beyond the need to convince officers and others of NOP's desirability, several aspects may have training implications. o The planning team may need training in the planning process, to learn how to set goals, objectives, and strategies, or to learn techniques for resolving conflicts and reaching consensus. (Appendix A gives a fast course in planning.) o The planning team, local politicians, law enforcement officers, city agencies, community-based organizations, and residents may need general training in NOP. o Law enforcement officers, other service providers, and citizens may need training in specific techniques of community collaboration and problem solving. o Law enforcement managers may need training in such matters as supervision, leadership, quality management, or program planning or evaluation. o Specific NOP activities may create training requirements--training for officers in civil code enforcement, training for school teachers in recognizing signs of drug abuse, or training for landlords to prevent drug or other criminal activity on their property, for example. The best kind of training will vary depending on a number of factors. If a large number of individuals need training on a particular topic, it may be most efficient to bring in one or two trainers to provide it. If only one or a few individuals need training, it may be more economical to send them away to a formal training course or to visit a jurisdiction where they can observe similar activities. For general topics such as the planning process or quality management, qualified and effective trainers may be available locally. For somewhat more specialized topics, assistance may be available from local or regional universities, from State law enforcement training facilities, or from other not-too-distant jurisdictions. For specialized topics, such as landlord training or training in problem-oriented policing, training may be available from national law enforcement organizations or through the Federal Government. When seeking to satisfy NOP-related training needs, the best advice is to look before leaping. Because training is important to successful NOP operations, training needs should be carefully assessed. Once training needs are identified, the selection of individuals to provide training should be given equal care. One can contact other jurisdictions, other law enforcement agencies, local universities, the State training commission, and the appropriate resource agencies identified in appendix J in order to determine how the training might be obtained and which training programs are most highly recommended. It is also important to check with previous customers to make certain that they were satisfied with the product. Information should be sought about possible funding sources, including Federal and State grants and private support (corporations, foundations, other philanthropies, and civic organizations in the home community should not be overlooked). Before spending a lot of money on any kind of training, one should make sure that the achievements sought for are well in mind and should be able to communicate the specific needs to others. Monitoring The implementation plan should also address how program activities will be monitored. Although this may require special reporting procedures, the monitoring function should be built into the routine activities of the department to the greatest extent possible. If the department has regularly scheduled staff meetings, NOP's progress should be included on the agenda. If the department requires division or unit heads to prepare activity reports, program-related information should be part of the report. The individuals or units with responsibility for a particular objective should be required to provide scheduled feedback about the progress being made toward its achievement. The main purpose of monitoring progress is to let key program personnel know if things are going as planned. If not, the monitoring process will provide ample lead time to make the necessary adjustments. The crucial role of monitoring was vividly demonstrated during the initial stages of the Citizen-Oriented Police Enforcement (COPE) project in Baltimore County, Maryland, in the early 1980's.2 When they first began implementing COPE, officers were understandably cautious and relied primarily on such traditional tactics as preventive and saturation patrol. Careful monitoring revealed this behavior, and the officers were encouraged to increase their citizen contacts. When the COPE officers then adopted such standard crime prevention tactics as home security surveys and Neighborhood Watch, monitoring again kept program managers informed about actual program activity. Ultimately, the COPE officers adopted problem solving as their method of operation--choosing saturation patrol, crime prevention, or other tactics only after carefully identifying specific problems and after considering a variety of possible solutions. This evolution of COPE from saturation patrol to crime prevention to problem solving would never have occurred without systematic program monitoring. Quarterly progress reports are an important vehicle for documenting and communicating the status of NOP actions. Besides conveying routine activity-related information, these reports should identify successes, failures, challenges, hurdles, and opportunities. If written well, progress reports can provide considerable insight about the program- -insight that can be beneficial to other members of the agency, members of the planning team, and individuals implementing NOP in other jurisdictions. Major Challenges The implementation of any effort at change will bring with it various challenges that must be addressed either before or during implementation. Although you cannot anticipate all of the challenges a department might encounter, several are worth discussing because they have been encountered in most communities that have attempted to implement a new approach to policing. Officer/Deputy Versus Special Unit One of the critical initial decisions a department will encounter is whether NOP activities will be the primary responsibility of one officer or a special unit, or structured so that all officers have some responsibility for activities. Some departments have elected to create community policing or problemsolving units (or specially designated officers) that perform this work full time and are free from the responsibility of answering radio calls (such as in Baltimore County3). Other departments have decided to implement the approach throughout the department, with each officer responsible for engaging in problemsolving activities with the community in his or her area of assignment in addition to normal patrol responsibilities (such as in Newport News, Virginia, and Aurora, Colorado4). Some have made the decision to take the department-wide approach, but they have started with a small area of their community and expanded it from there with additional areas phased in over a specified period of time (as in Madison, Wisconsin5). Still other departments have started with a special unit as a way of introducing the concept and gradually expanded to officers in patrol and other parts of the department (this is what happened in Baltimore County). Obviously, the approach a department takes will be dictated by local circumstances and resources. This issue should be carefully considered because initial decisions will have long-term effects on the program and the department. If, for example, a department elects to assign NOP responsibilities to one officer or a special unit, a number of questions will have to be addressed: o Who will provide supervision? o How will positive working relationships be maintained with officers on patrol who must shoulder the call-for-service workload? o How will these officers be evaluated? o How will information be exchanged between officers and units? For each approach a department might take, there will be questions that will need to be taken into consideration in the planning process. Managing Change One of the most significant challenges facing the introduction of a new way of doing things is the process of managing change. One can safely assume that people inside and outside the department will offer some resistance to the changes proposed in conjunction with NOP. The planning process and implementation plan must take this expected resistance into account and specify steps to minimize any negative effects on the program. Obviously, a well-thought-out approach to informing citizens and officers is a key part of the process of managing change. Employees (at all levels) may resist changes expected in neighborhood-oriented policing. Understanding why is crucial. The reasons will vary from one organization to another, but the department may want to anticipate some common, general reasons for resistance. It is important to look at the situation from the employee's point of view. Among the issues might be these: o Is there a chance employees might see a personal loss of some type in the program? Freedom? Pride? Satisfaction? Status? Some may think that working with the community to identify and solve problems is not real police work. o Do they have a negative attitude toward the organization? If so, the reasons need to be addressed, or at least separated from the project. o Could they see the change as personal criticism of what they have been doing for years? Some officers have considerable personal investment in the current approaches to policing--a new approach has to be presented as an enhancement and in a manner designed to be sensitive to this issue. o Do they view the approach as requiring more effort without seeing tangible results? Employees need to see value in their work and have a sense that what they do makes a difference to the organization and community. o Have they had any input into project planning? It is not unusual for a promising initiative to fail because the employees expected to do the work have not had any involvement in the planning process. These issues, and others, often serve as significant barriers to change. Although it may not be possible to resolve all of them, understanding that they exist and considering them in the implementation process can mean the difference between success and failure of a new initiative such as NOP. A law enforcement agency should also prepare for external resistance to change. One way of doing this is to examine program elements to determine which areas might be viewed in a negative light by members of the community. One example might be call-for-service management systems. Some departments have been reluctant to implement differential police responses, such as delayed response or telephone reporting, for fear of negative community reaction. Actually, most agencies implementing call-for-service management systems have not encountered significant resistance to these approaches, but it is an area that needs to be fully explained to the community. External resistance also may be anticipated from the city or county council. In most cases, they will quickly embrace the NOP concept. They may, however, see the change as simply a new program in addition to activities the agency has always done instead of the first step to a change in how policing is done. They must be educated about neighborhood-oriented policing: why it is needed, what it involves, and what impact, both positive and negative, there might be at various stages. To the extent possible, the police or sheriff's department needs to include in its planning and implementation strategy careful consideration of how best to educate the political leaders of the community about the approach. Dealing with change is a complex process that requires thoughtful leadership and planning. Police chiefs and sheriffs must recognize that they work in a number of arenas that are important to the success of any new effort, including NOP, and within which they must exercise leadership. These include: o Community. o Political. o Organizational. o Intra-organizational. o Media arenas.6 Each of these contexts is important. They are interrelated and each requires consideration by the chief police executive in advancing any new ideas or programs. The community must be convinced that the new approach has a greater chance of success than traditional methods. Politicians must be convinced that the resources they will invest are going to be well spent and that the majority of the community will go along with what is being proposed. Employees in the organization must have a sense that the new strategies will succeed where others have not. Other organizations with which the police interact have to understand what effects the proposed changes in the delivery of police services will have on their operations. The police executive also must find a way to effectively communicate a new program, a new idea, or a change in policies and procedures to interested parties in all of the arenas. The news media are usually among the most effective ways of doing this. Police executives who are effective in managing change are able to provide leadership in all of these settings. That is, they influence, they guide, and they create a vision of how things ought to be that is acceptable to the majority of the people involved and affected. Making NOP Work The implementation planning process is critical to the success of rural NOP. The department needs to think through carefully what it wants to achieve, how it will be done, who will do it, who might be affected, and whether or not the objectives are in fact being achieved. The discussion in this and other chapters of the monograph provide useful guidance to the development of a sound plan. A cautionary note is in order, however. The planning process and the development of a plan are important, but it is even more important to do the work. It is not unusual for police agencies to invest heavily in developing a plan, then never get around to doing the work. That has contributed to the frustration that one often finds in police agencies. Employees have seen projects, programs, and plans come and go while things look pretty much the same to them. The plan is not an end in itself- -it is simply a means to an end, in this case a means to implement greater police-citizen collaboration and problem solving in order to reduce the harm caused by crime, drugs, fear, and related problems in rural communities. Chapter 7: Evaluating the Progress of NOP A critical step in implementing NOP is assessing its effects, both in terms of (1) achieving necessary change within the organization itself and (2) accomplishing external goals such as establishing working relationships with the community and reducing levels of crime, fear, and disorder. An ongoing assessment meets a number of fundamental needs. Every government and public agency, including the police, should be able to explain to policymakers and taxpayers exactly what it is doing and how. Ongoing assessment of policy and performance should thus be a primary function. It becomes even more vital in an organization undergoing the changes involved in a shift to NOP. Managers need constant assessment of where the organization is in the change process in order to determine what steps are needed to keep implementation on track. They also need to know which strategies are most effective so they can make informed choices about where to allocate limited resources. The feedback provided by ongoing assessment helps give the organization implementing NOP a clear sense of direction and allows management to steer efforts toward the most productive and efficient channels. Assessment is indispensable in determining which elements of NOP should be maintained, altered, or eliminated. It also offers key decisionmakers in the jurisdiction a gauge of NOP's impact and cost-effectiveness. Assessing the progress of NOP informs management whether necessary changes in the spirit or "culture" of the organization are indeed taking place and if appropriate efforts are being made to accomplish the goals set out. Assessment also can help tell employees what is expected of them. The aspects of performance that are measured come to be considered important by those who do the job as well as by those who assess how well the job is done. Giving community members a measure of the progress of NOP efforts from the police point of view is critical to maintaining strong ties, ensuring their continued participation, and documenting that joint efforts to improve the safety and quality of neighborhoods are making headway. On the other hand, obtaining an assessment from government and community leaders on how NOP is working from their point of view also has a strong effect on how cooperative efforts are put together in the future. Thorough assessment helps make police more responsive to the community's needs, which should help deepen the trust and partnership on which NOP is based. As noted earlier, before a sound assessment program can be developed, a strategic plan that outlines the goals, objectives, and timetable for internal and external changes is needed. This strategic plan should address, in specific terms, (1) what needs to be accomplished; (2) how it should be accomplished; (3) by whom it should be accomplished; and (4) when it should be accomplished. These goals and responsibilities form the basis of concrete methods of assessment. Assessing performance in terms of well-defined goals allows police leadership to detect failures and roadblocks, as well as chart progress and document accomplishments. Assessing Internal Changes Astute police leaders recognize that large gaps can exist between what policy dictates and what personnel do. Management must take nothing for granted in the implementation of NOP policies and procedures. In one form or another, the chief executive must constantly ask, "How are we doing? Are we on track? What problems are occurring? What help is necessary?" In smaller and moderate-size organizations, this critical assessment can be accomplished through the chief's "management by walking around," stopping by at offices of key managers and groups to get on-the-spot reports on implementation efforts. The chief also can talk with patrol officers to get their views of how implementation is proceeding. In any size organization, the chief executive can hold useful regular meetings with those responsible for overseeing implementation of NOP and ask for their reports in a setting that reinforces accountability and allows for immediate discussion of ways to deal with problems. Management also can require regular reports on progress toward specific NOP objectives and timetables. Periodic personnel surveys can help identify what modifications have occurred in management style, obstacles that stand in the way of change, and what agency leadership can do to facilitate necessary adjustments in the roles of managers, supervisors, and patrol officers. Three Criteria for Assessment Evaluating the impact of NOP is critical for several reasons. Key decisionmakers in the jurisdiction need a gauge of the strategy's impact and cost-effectiveness. The police organization implementing NOP needs a measure of its success or failure to determine which elements of the strategy should be maintained, altered, or eliminated. Assessment measures may vary depending on the size of the organization and the scope of its NOP actions. Close and continuous monitoring is necessary in every organization moving to NOP. Assessing its results will expedite the implementation process, help attract support, circumvent problems, and reveal new opportunities for productive partnerships with the community. Much can be learned from both successes and failures. Ongoing assessment measures also will help fix accountability for implementing the changes imposed by the strategy. In the past, police efforts were evaluated solely on a traditional and narrow set of criteria: statistics on whether serious crime is increasing or decreasing, the number of 911 calls, the rapidity of police response to calls for service, number of arrests and citations, and so forth. These measurements often were taken only at times of serious crime increases, which were highly influenced by factors outside police control, such as rising unemployment rates or the advent of the drug culture. Although many of the traditional methods of assessment remain valid, they measure only the effectiveness of crime-fighting tactics, not crime-prevention efforts. The changes in the scope of policing and in personnel responsibility that mark NOP necessitate a revised system for evaluating performance of the strategy, the organization, managers, and neighborhood patrol officers. NOP expands the focus of police activity to include a proactive role in deterring crime in partnership with the community. This expanded role calls for a broader set of assessment criteria, one that augments traditional measures of crime-fighting activities with those that encompass community partnership and problemsolving activities. Activities such as arrests and responses to calls for service become only one barometer by which the NOP effort and individual officers are assessed. A revised system for evaluating performance must take into account both the outcome and how the outcome was achieved. Many indications of the success of NOP are intangible--absence of fear, quality of interaction with community members, and so forth. Assessing a NOP strategy is, therefore, a qualitative process in addition to a quantitative one. The culture and values of the department will be invaluable in revamping the assessment process. They will form the basis of sound qualitative measures of effectiveness. Assessment must take into account and reward organizational and individual behavior that makes a real difference in deterring crime and solving other neighborhood problems. Creativity, initiative, and ingenuity should carry substantial weight in the evaluation of individual officers. Three major and broad criteria can be used to appraise the success of NOP. These criteria-- effectiveness, efficiency, and equity--offer a sound foundation for developing quantitative and qualitative measures of progress. Effectiveness An effective NOP strategy has a positive impact on reducing neighborhood crime, allays citizens' fear of crime, and enhances the quality of life in the community. It accomplishes these goals by combining the efforts and resources of the police, the local government, and the community. From the police perspective, an important goal of the strategy is to provide higher quality service to neighborhoods; therefore, assessing customer satisfaction becomes a significant measure of the strategy's effectiveness. Periodic surveys of community opinion can function as benchmarks of NOP's progress and act as a guide for weighing the various elements that make up the assessment process. The perception of progress among community members and ongoing feedback from all elements of the community are inherent parts of the assessment process. Randomly and routinely conducted surveys keep the agency in touch with how the public views police performance, measure the level of popular fears and concerns, and let the organization know how successful it has been in its efforts to make community members feel a part of bringing order to neighborhoods. A core component of NOP is establishing community partnerships. Accordingly, an early measure of the strategy's effectiveness is the number, depth, and productivity of community partnerships formed. Also central to NOP is identifying and solving problems within a neighborhood to deter crime and reduce fear of crime. The cooperation and participation of community members is necessary to accomplish this goal. Assessing the effectiveness of NOP includes determining whether problems have indeed been solved and judging how well the managers (sergeants, lieutenants, and captains) and patrol officers involved have used the community-partnership and problemsolving components of NOP described in chapters 3 through 5. Assessment should focus not only on whether problems have been effectively eradicated or reduced but also on the way this goal was accomplished. For example, the number of arrests is only one possible measure of effective problem solving. In many cases, arrests do not ensure that a problem will disappear entirely, and the solutions to many problems do not involve arrest. Furthermore, not all problems will involve criminal activity. Many will not even be considered a priority by the police agency. It is the concerns and fears of community members that order priorities where serious crime is not involved. Police must take their lead from them. The number and type of problems solved and the creativity and scope of the solutions will provide a yardstick of NOP's effectiveness. In NOP, solving problems is not the sole responsibility of the police. Sometimes officers may act as facilitators, mobilizing community support. In other instances, they may function as mediators in disputes between individuals or organizations, or they may refer a problem to an appropriate social or governmental agency. Effective use of these governmental and community agencies is another indication that NOP policies are working. Thus, mobilization and intelligent use of community resources in solving problems and sensitive handling of dissension become important considerations in assessing the performance of officers as well as the success of the program. Another important measure of the success of NOP is increased levels of community participation in crime reduction and prevention efforts. Community members do not act if they are afraid or suspicious. One indication that bonds of trust are being built is that community members become more willing to work with the police in a variety of ways, ranging from converting abandoned buildings to community assets to involving police actively in community meetings. In addition, with trust, they may be more forthcoming in providing information on criminal activity in the area. In fact, calls to report crime might increase considerably during the early phases of NOP implementation, as community confidence in police capability rises and trust increases. However, experience with NOP has shown that the number of 911 calls decreases over time, then providing a quantitative measure of the strategy's efficacy. Emergency calls in the pioneering Flint, Michigan, foot patrol district, for instance, dropped 43 percent over the course of that department's experiment.1 A concrete indication of NOP's success is an increased level of community resources devoted to enhancing crime reduction efforts. Active consultative and financial participation by public and private agencies, schools, and the business community will signal that community-partnership efforts are yielding desired results. Another manifestation of effectiveness emerges when communities begin to initiate, conduct, and sustain projects with minimal guidance from the police. Renewed activity within the community also demonstrates the effectiveness of NOP efforts, particularly in areas where citizens have been afraid to leave their homes because they felt they risked physical harm. Reduction in fear also can result in the perception among residents that crime is on the wane, whether or not statistics bear this out. Willingness of citizens to walk within their neighborhoods, use parks, patronize stores, and attend a meeting at a school or church that is not a regular choice signals that the NOP strategy is working to reduce citizen fear. In turn, the very fact that community members are reclaiming their streets will help deter criminal activity. NOP also goes a step farther. It makes citizens stronger and helps create more vigorous neighborhoods. Improved quality of life is difficult to measure, but it is an important goal of NOP and will be reflected in comments from community members. Removing signs of disorder--such as ridding a town's streets of gangs, drunks, panhandlers, or prostitutes, perhaps with the help of public and private social agencies--also enhances quality of life. The absence of previous signs of neglect (seen in abandoned cars, derelict buildings, and areas littered with garbage and debris) offers a tangible indication that NOP efforts are working to bring about increased order in neighborhoods. The police function broadens in NOP to embrace the provision of services that in the recent past have often been regarded as being outside a police organization's purview. These services include helping accident and crime victims, arbitrating neighborhood and domestic disputes, and providing emergency medical and social services. An analysis of the nature of calls for police service (for example, a lower percentage of calls reporting criminal activity in proportion to calls requesting social assistance) will provide a measure of how well the strategy is working, from the viewpoints of both the police and the community. Efficiency Efficiency for NOP means what it does for any enterprise--getting the most impact with available resources. Measuring the efficiency of NOP involves, first of all, defining the available resources, including those of the police agency, local government, and private agencies, citizen groups, the business community, and the neighborhood itself. Assessment measures must then determine whether these resources are being used to their fullest to solve any given problem. In addition, the extent to which an agency successfully realigns its resources and enhances them with community partnerships will have a major impact on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of NOP. In law enforcement agencies with several layers of hierarchy, two major shifts must occur if NOP is to work efficiently. The first shift involves establishing staunch partnerships and collaborative efforts with the community. The second shift involves moving from a central to a decentralized command structure in which problemsolving, decisionmaking, and accountability are spread downward to all levels of the organization. According to Moore and Stephens,2 such decentralization challenges personnel to be more creative and results in more effective operational decisions because they are more timely and are made with firsthand knowledge of the facts. It also allows higher level managers to spend more time formulating strategies that will improve the organization's ability to perform in the future. In a decentralized policing organization, initiative, decisions, and responsibilities are pushed downward. Neighborhood patrol officers take care of the bulk of the daily policing needs of the community, with guidance and backing from supervisors. Long-term shifts and neighborhood patrol assignments are a prerequisite if personnel and the NOP strategy are to function efficiently and successfully. This greater discretion in handling police functions allows a bond of common ownership to develop between the officer and the community. This "pride of ownership" offers a strong mutual motivation to solve the problems that affect the security and harmony of the neighborhood. Job satisfaction among patrol officers is apt to increase with the higher levels of responsibility and accountability. Officers are often able to resolve issues within a short time, allowing them to see relatively swift results of their efforts. Employee morale and job satisfaction take on new significance in NOP. Patrol officers function more efficiently and effectively as catalysts and mobilizers of community support if they are highly motivated, given the necessary support, and appropriately rewarded for their efforts. Job satisfaction will both affect and result from the success of the NOP program. Depending on the scope of implementation of NOP within the organization and community, roles and responsibilities of all police personnel potentially are altered. The leadership and ingenuity displayed by personnel become important factors in determining the efficiency of the NOP program. Therefore, assessment and reward procedures must be revised accordingly. Efficiency is enhanced by the availability of help from the community, which also removes some of the strain from tight police budgets. Strong community ties can bring fresh resources to bear on problems, even those considered "police-only" business under traditional policing methods. According to one sheriff, "There is virtually no limitation on how much more effective and efficient a sheriff's office can become, working collectively as a partner with community members while, at the same time, saving resources, dollars, and frustration on the part of constituents."3 The move to decentralized decisionmaking and partnership with the community gives rise to key organizational and resource issues that must be addressed for the entire system to operate smoothly and efficiently. For example, budgets must reflect the goals of NOP. This means that money and resources should be allocated in proportion to desired results. Decentralized management entails more input in budgetary decisions from police officers who have the greatest responsibility for the day-to-day policing operations. This could lead to more efficient allocation of resources. Along with more budgetary input and greater decisionmaking powers comes greater accountability for the way the money is being spent, the actions taken, and the results achieved. Training is paramount in an efficient shift to NOP. Changed and augmented responsibilities require expanded and thorough training. Initially, training could be costly in terms of both dollars and time. However, intensive training eventually produces its own efficiencies as well-trained and experienced personnel share their practical knowledge with their colleagues. Redefined job functions at all levels of management may have distinct consequences on efficiency in larger agencies. One large jurisdiction implementing NOP called for sergeants to coordinate officer decisionmaking across beats as necessary and confer with their lieutenants on decisions that involved a large or long-term commitment of resources. The role of lieutenants was to apprise their respective captains about happenings on beats across their districts. With these amended roles for mid-level managers, some speculate that the organization may require fewer levels of supervision to run efficiently. While an important role of supervisors is to help maximize the time neighborhood officers can spend in communities, supervisors also coordinate problem-solving activities within and across communities, help secure resources, evaluate activities and decisions, and provide guidance and support to neighborhood officers. Controlling calls for service is also central to achieving efficiency in time and dollars. Sophisticated technology advances can help prioritize calls and facilitate communication between and among the NOP partners. Alternative response strategies for nonemergency calls include a delayed officer response and officer response by appointment. Low-priority situations can be handled by telephone, walk-in, and mail-in reporting. "All indications are that these systems save an enormous amount of time, reduce officer frustrations, and are equally satisfactory to the callers."4 Effectiveness and efficiency are important yardsticks by which to measure NOP's achievements. But it is equity, the third major criterion for judging progress, that has the most comprehensive impact on its success. Equity Equity is grounded firmly in the Constitution of the United States, which all police officers are sworn to uphold. NOP promises equity in the foremost tenet of democracy: that all citizens should have a say in how they are governed. The close cooperation that characterizes NOP and the concomitant recognition that police are an integral part of the community may help officers better relate to citizens as individuals and make policing a force for enhancing the democratic principles on which the United States was founded. NOP should be treated as an opportunity to reemphasize the need for uncompromising integrity, unyielding standards of fairness, and unwavering equality at all levels of policing. These ideals are especially important because officers work closely with the community and may be increasingly confronted with moral and ethical dilemmas. Equity has three separate and distinct dimensions in NOP. The first involves equal access to police services by all citizens. The second dimension pertains to the equal treatment of all individuals according to the Constitution. The third dimension involves equal distribution of police services and resources among communities. Equal access to police services. The paramount commitment of NOP should be respect for all citizens and sensitivity to their problems and needs. Equal access to police services is the foundation of a full and productive partnership with a community. All citizens have an equal right to police services, regardless of race, religion, personal characteristics, or group affiliation. Neighborhood officers must treat community members in a nondiscriminatory and equal manner. Supervisors should help ensure that police services are readily available throughout the community. In addition, lines of communication must be kept open with all partners in the NOP effort. Any hint of favoritism for one group will severely hamper future cooperative efforts. More vocal groups cannot be permitted to use NOP to serve their own purposes to the exclusion of others in the community. Police must prevent such behavior before it adversely affects the bonds of cooperation that have been established within and among communities. Equal treatment under the Constitution. A basic obligation of policing is to ensure that the police treat all individuals in accordance with the constitutional rights that police are sworn to protect and enforce. Careful attention to these rights in dealing and working with citizens, victims, or perpetrators must guide the actions of the patrol officer, thereby helping to engender bonds of trust between the police and community. Equal treatment means dealing with all persons with respect and impartiality, rejecting stereotypes, and using reason and persuasion rather than coercion where possible. Equal distribution of police services and resources among communities. Because NOP customizes policing services to the unique needs of each community, it theoretically should result in an equitable distribution of services among poor and minority communities. Care must be taken to ensure that this is indeed the case. Equitable distribution of resources among communities depends heavily on the extent to which the community articulates its needs, the extent to which the neighborhood officer listens to the community, and the willingness and motivation of the officer to work with the community to meet those needs. Another factor influencing the distribution of resources is the community's ability and willingness to work with the police to ensure its equal share of police services. Some neighborhoods may appear unwilling or unable to help the police in their efforts to improve life in the community. Officers must realize that sometimes "the community seems so helpless because it feels abandoned and would discover new strengths if only the police could make an effective alliance with important community elements . . . . Departments that have taken early steps [into NOP] are full of stories of apparently lost neighborhoods that flowered under new police attention."5 No community must be given preference over another. All communities must have equal access to police services. However, equity does not always mean equal distribution of police service and resources. Wealthier communities are often able to contribute more resources to the problemsolving process than poorer communities can. Crime rates may also be higher in some communities, necessitating a greater level of police intervention and consuming a larger proportion of police resources to bring about a decrease in crime and to turn neighborhoods that people fear to live in or travel through into assets for the city or county. Refining the Assessment Process Assessing NOP should be an ongoing process and should include assessing even the assessment measures themselves. As a police agency gains experience with NOP, it will become more adept at developing measures that accurately chart success and point to ways in which success can be multiplied. Notes: Chapter 1 1. Robert Sheehan and Gary W. Cordner, Introduction to Police Administration, second edition, Cincinnati: Anderson, 1989: pp. 365-76. 2. David C. Couper and Sabine H. Lobitz, Quality Policing: The Madison Experience, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1991. 3. Beyond Command and Control: The Strategic Management of Police Departments, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1991: pp. 112-113. 4. "Quality of life" concerns police, and police can positively affect it, to the extent to which that quality reflects a neighborhood's stability and pleasantness--and the lack of graffiti and other signs of decay and disorder that James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling pointed out (1982) in their now-famous article "Police and Neighborhood Safety: Broken Windows" (Atlantic Monthly, March, pp. 29-38). More recent discussions are found in Communities and Crime, ed. Albert J. Reiss, Jr., and Michael Tonry, vol. 8 (1986) of Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, especially in Robert J. Bursik, Jr., "Ecological Stability and the Decline of Delinquency," pp. 35-66; Wesley Skogan, "Fear of Crime and Neighborhood Change," pp. 201-229; and Ralph B. Taylor and Stephen Gottfredson, "Environmental Design, Crime, and Prevention: An Examination of Community Dynamics," pp. 387-416. 5. Community Policing Consortium, Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action, Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1994. 6. Brian A. Reeves, "State and Local Police Departments, 1990," Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 1992, and "Sheriffs' Departments, 1990," Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 1992. 7. National Institute of Justice, "Policing in Rural Areas," in Research and Evaluation Plan 1992. Washington, D.C.: NIJ, 1992: pp. 56-60. Chapter 4 1. See, for example, William A. Geller, ed., Local Government Police Management, 3d edition, Washington, D.C.: International City Management Association, 1991; Larry K. Gaines, Mittie D. Southerland, and John E. Angell, Police Administration, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991; and Robert Sheehan and Gary W. Cordner, Introduction to Police Administration, 2d edition, Cincinnati: Anderson, 1989. But especially see also Community Policing Consortium, Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action, Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1994. 2. See Mark H. Moore and Robert C. Trojanowicz, "Policing and the Fear of Crime," Perspectives on Policing 3, Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Harvard University, 1988. 3. The crimes listed in Uniform Crime Reports as "major offenses" and thus a measure of the extent of criminality at any given time: murder, negligent homicide, voluntary homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. 4. Robert Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqueroux, Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective, Cincinnati: Anderson, 1990. 5. Herman Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990. 6. J. Thomas McEwen, Edward F. Connors III, and Marcia I. Cohen, Evaluation of the Differential Police Response Field Test, Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, 1986. 7. William Spelman and Dale K. Brown, Calling the Police: Citizen Reporting of Serious Crime, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1981. 8. McEwen, Connors, and Cohen, note 6 above. 9. Mark H. Moore and Darrel W. Stephens, Beyond Command and Control: The Strategic Management of Police Departments, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1991. Chapter 5 1. Herman Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990. 2. Some of the ideas presented in this chapter have their origins in routine activity theory and situational crime prevention, which seem to go hand in hand with problem-oriented policing. Interested readers are referred to: Ronald V. Clarke on situational crime prevention-- see appendix I. Marcus Felson on routine activity theory--"Routine Activities and Crime Prevention in the Developing Metropolis," Criminology 25(4), February 1987, pp. 911-947; "Linking Criminal Choices, Routine Activities, Informal Control, and Criminal Outcomes" in The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending, ed. Derek B. Cornish and Ronald V. Clarke, pp. 117-128, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986. Lawrence W. Sherman on repeat complaint policing-- Sherman et al., Repeat Calls to Police in Minneapolis, Washington, D.C.: Crime Control Institute for National Institute of Justice, 1987. 3. John E. Eck and William Spelman, Problem Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1987. 4. John E. Eck and William Spelman, Problem Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1987. 5. William Spelman and John E. Eck, "Sitting Ducks, Ravenous Wolves, and Helping Hands: New Approaches to Urban Policing," Public Affairs Comment (1989), Austin, Texas: School of Public Affairs, University of Texas. Chapter 6 1. See also David C. Couper and Sabine H. Lobitz, Quality Policing: The Madison Experience, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1991. 2. Gary W. Cordner, "A Problem-Oriented Approach to Community-Oriented Policing," in Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality, ed. Jack R. Greene and Stephen D. Mastrofski, New York: Praeger, 1988: pp. 135-152. 3. Philip B. Taft, Jr., Fighting Fear: The Baltimore County COPE Project, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1986. 4. John E. Eck and William Spelman, Problem Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1987. Jerry Williams and Ron Sloan, Turning Concept Into Practice: The Aurora, Colorado Story, East Lansing, Michigan: National Center for Community Policing, Michigan State University, 1990. 5. Couper and Lobitz, note 1 above. 6. Donald C. Witham, The American Law Enforcement Chief Executive: A Management Profile, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1985, and Robert Coates and Susie Mowry, Community-Oriented Problem Solving, Washington, D.C.: National Crime Prevention Council and the Police Executive Research Forum, 1993. Chapter 7 1.Robert C. Trojanowicz, "An Evaluation of a Neighborhood Foot Patrol Program," Journal of Police Science and Administration 11 (1983). 2.Mark H. Moore and Darrel W. Stephens, Beyond Command and Control: The Strategic Management of Police Departments, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1991: pp. 76. 3.Robert J. Prinslow, "Community Policing in Marion County, Oregon" Roll Call. Alexandria, Virginia: National Sheriffs' Association. Special edition, June 1993, p. 9. 4.Herman Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing, New York: McGraw Hill, 1990. 5.Malcolm Sparrow, Mark H. Moore, and David M. Kennedy. Beyond 911: A New Era for Policing, New York: Basic Books, 1990: p. 180. ------------------------- Appendix A 25 Reasons To Plan 1. Focus effort where action is needed and productive. 2. Avoid the "business as usual" trap. 3. Maximize use of existing resources. 4. Uncover new resources. 5. Reflect and incorporate changes in the real world. 6. Create a road map to reach goals. 7. Increase ability to check progress and results. 8. Bring problems into manageable focus. 9. Help make goals clearer, more solid, more achievable. 10. Aid in establishing priorities. 11. Help identify milestones and progress to celebrate. 12. Establish evaluation criteria and baseline. 13. Galvanize action. 14. Develop clear choices and alternatives. 15. Help minimize confusion and frustration. 16. Improve communication and reduce conflict. 17. Sustain commitment. 18. Spotlight basic assumptions for reexamination. 19. Help control events instead of letting events control. 20. Check perceptions of problems against realities. 21. Act and prevent more, react and control damage less. 22. Focus on results rather than process. 23. Develop shared agenda for the future. 24. Solve problems and improve conditions. 25. Deal more effectively with contingencies and emergencies. Source: National Crime Prevention Council, Washington, D.C., 1992. ------------------------- Appendix B Traditional Versus Community Policing Questions and Answers: Who are the police? Traditional Policing: A government agency principally responsible for law enforcement. Community Policing: Police are the public and the public are the police; police officers are those who are paid to give full-time attention to the duties of every citizen. What is the relationship of the police to other public service departments? Traditional Policing: Priorities often conflict. Community Policing: The police are one department among many responsible for improving the quality of life. What is the role of the police? Traditional Policing: Focusing on solving crimes. Community Policing: A broader problem-solving approach. How is police efficiency measured? Traditional Policing: By detection and arrest rates. Community Policing: By the absence of crime and disorder. What are the highest priorities? Traditional Policing: Crimes that are high value (e.g., bank robberies) and those involving violence. Community Policing: Whatever problems disturb the community most. What specifically do police deal with? Traditional Policing: Incidents. Community Policing: Citizens' problems and concerns. What determines the effectiveness of police? Traditional Policing: Response times. Community Policing: Public cooperation. What view do police take of service calls? Traditional Policing: Deal with them only if there is no real police work to do. Community Policing: Vital function and great opportunity. What is police professionalism? Traditional Policing: Swift/effective response to serious crime. Community Policing: Keeping close to the community. What kind of intelligence is most important? Traditional Policing: Crime intelligence (study of particular crimes or series of crimes). Community Policing: Criminal intelligence (information about activities of individuals or groups). What is the essential nature of police accountability? Traditional Policing: Highly centralized; governed by rules, regulations, and policy directives; accountable to the law. Community Policing: Emphasis on local accountability to community needs. What is the role of headquarters? Traditional Policing: To provide the necessary rules and policy directives. Community Policing: To preach organizational values. What is the role of the press liaison department? Traditional Policing: To keep the "heat" off operational officers so they can get on with the job. Community Policing: To coordinate an essential channel of communication with the community. How do the police regard prosecutions? Traditional Policing: As an important goal. Community Policing: As one tool among many. Adapted from Malcolm K. Sparrow, Implementing Community Policing, Perspectives on Policing 9, Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Harvard University, 1988: pp. 8-9. ------------------------- Appendix C Community Policing: Key Operational Steps Step 1 Uniformed police officers must be assigned full-time, wherever population density, crime, and community needs permit, to beats manageable by foot. Step 2 Community police officers should establish networks of contacts with people representing all walks of life throughout their neighborhoods. Step 3 Police should create precinct and neighborhood committees, to consult with about local problems and priorities, wherever such committees do not already exist. Step 4 Community police officers must be given time to carry out their varied responsibilities for consultation, problem solving, and mobilization. Step 5 Community police officers must be allowed to set their own hours, rather than conform mechanically to a mandated shift schedule. Step 6 Community police officers should make themselves available for nonemergency meetings with citizens on a daily basis. Step 7 Police should coordinate police operations so that officers unfamiliar with a neighborhood undertake enforcement action there rarely and selectively, or, if necessary, under the guidance of local community police officers. Step 8 Local commanders should be allowed, indeed required, to adapt the use of their resources, especially personnel, to fit the needs of their particular areas, based on suggestions made by community police officers. Step 9 Front-line supervisors must be trained to understand that they are responsible for facilitating, as well as supervising, the activities of community police officers. Adapted from David H. Bayley, "The Best Defense," Fresh Perspectives, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1992:7-8. ------------------------- Appendix D Statement of Purpose The Portland Police Bureau will transition to a community-based philosophy of policing that encourages more citizen participation in crime reduction and allows greater coordination with other City bureaus and social agencies to address crime-related problems. Police officers will be catalysts who bring the necessary resources to bear on specific community safety problems throughout Portland. Community Policing is a strengthening of the partnership among citizens, police, and public and private agencies. All are joint stakeholders in the vitality and livability of Portland's neighborhoods and business districts. Community Policing expects a reduction in the fear of, and occurrence of, crime through cooperative resolution of immediate community safety problems and identification of root causes and remedies for crime and disorder. Citizens and police officers will mutually participate in, and be responsible for, strategy design and problem solving that emphasizes comprehensive responses to criminal incidents. The key to problem solving is joint empowerment of police officers and citizens to allocate public and private resources as dictated by the uniqueness of the problem and its most effective and efficient resolution. Essential to this process are flexible police officers with good interpersonal communication skills who take a vested interest in, and are sensitive to, the cultural and ethnic diversity of the areas they serve. The Police Bureau is committed to fostering a proactive organizational climate that rewards its employees for initiative, innovation, citizen involvement, and consensus building in problem resolution. The Bureau encourages decentralization of Bureau resources and delegation of decisionmaking to those persons or units most impacted by the identified community safety problem. The Police Bureau has designed this 5-year incremental plan to gradually transition into Community Policing. This is a process of organizational development which will examine, evaluate, and restructure, as necessary, Bureau resources, policies, and practices. This transition plan is a guide to facilitate an orderly transition and to ensure the continuation of Community Policing as the basic mission and operational philosophy of the Bureau. Mission Statement Old The Bureau of Police is responsible for the preservation of the public peace, protection of the rights of persons and property, the prevention of crime, and the enforcement of all Federal laws, Oregon State statutes, and city ordinances within the boundaries of the City of Portland. New The mission of the Portland Police Bureau is to work with all citizens to preserve life, maintain human rights, protect property, and promote individual responsibility and community commitment. Goals 1. Partnership--Develop a partnership with the community, City Council, other Bureaus, service agencies, and the criminal justice system. 2. Empowerment--Develop an organizational structure and environment that reflects community values and facilitates joint citizen and employee empowerment. 3. Problem Solving--Enhance community livability through use of proactive, problem-solving approaches for reduction of incidence and fear of crime. 4. Accountability--Foster mutual accountability for Public Safety resources and strategies among Bureau management and employees, the community, and the City Council. 5. Service Orientation--Develop a customer orientation in our service to citizens and our Bureau members. 6. Project Management and Direction--Develop a process for overall management and direction of the Community Policing transition. A Call to Action Community Policing requires the best efforts of everyone. Whether it is citizens improving the safety of their local communities, officers directing resources to the root problems in their districts, or agency heads and Council members pursuing more effective solutions, each individual must feel as if the problem was his or her own, and they must push themselves, and work with others, to solve them. Community Policing will work to the degree that we, as a community, can assume individual responsibility for making our City work, and to the degree that we, as a community, fulfill our role in helping to make that happen. The task ahead is a large one and changes are required. Community Policing will require new resources and new attitudes--one without the other will make little difference. The combination will be powerful. No one of us should wait for Community Policing to come to our doorstep, or find its way onto our desk. Rather, we must go out and get started. The men and women of the Portland Police Bureau: We ask that you be open minded, yet impatient. Success will require your openness to new approaches and your willingness to give those approaches the very best chance to work. But it will also require that you not wait for innovations, but instead pursue them. Look for new ways, large and small, that can help address crime and its root causes in the City. Search for ways to build a more effective partnership with the citizens we serve. And when you find solutions, share them. Those who are in a position to influence policy and allocate resources: We ask that you maintain the courage of your commitment to a fully implemented Community Policing--providing resources equal to the job and support for a more active, empowered citizenry. We ask you to challenge us--to use our resources wisely so we can realize Community Policing's full potential and restore Portland as one of America's premier cities. The citizens of Portland: If you haven't already, get involved! Whether it is through the Police Bureau, the Office of Neighborhood Associations, some other agency, or on your own, learn what you can do to strengthen the safety of your own block, your own community. Once you have begun that, look around to see if you can help someone with their problem. Think of our City as our family. As neighborhood organizers have pointed out, "living in a decent neighborhood is both a right and a responsibility." Without your help, we can't succeed. The success of Community Policing depends on the willingness of each of us to get involved. Much has been done. Much remains to be done. Make it happen today. Adapted from Portland Police Bureau, Community Policing Transition Plan, Portland, Oregon, 1990:6- 19, 41. Appendix E Police Management: Principles of Quality Leadership 1. Believe in, foster, and support teamwork. 2. Be committed to the problem-solving process: use it, and let data, not emotions, drive decisions. 3. Seek employees' input before you make key decisions. 4. Believe that the best way to improve the quality of work or service is to ask and listen to employees who are doing the work. 5. Strive to develop mutual respect and trust among employees. 6. Have a customer orientation and focus toward employees and citizens. 7. Manage on the behavior of 95 percent of employees, and not on the 5 percent who cause problems. Deal with the 5 percent promptly and fairly. 8. Improve systems and examine processes before placing blame on people. 9. Avoid "top-down," power-oriented decisionmaking whenever possible. 10. Encourage creativity through risk taking, and be tolerant of honest mistakes. 11. Be a facilitator and coach. Develop an open atmosphere that encourages providing and accepting feedback. 12. With teamwork, develop agreed-upon goals with employees and a plan to achieve them. Adapted from David C. Couper and Sabine H. Lobitz, Quality Policing: The Madison Experience, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1991:48. ----------------------- Appendix F Problem Solving: Guide to Collaboration General Background 1. Develop personal networks with members of other agencies who can give you information and help you with problems you may be working on. 2. Become familiar with the workings of your local government, private businesses, citizen organizations, and other groups and institutions that you may need to call upon for help in the future. 3. Develop skills as a negotiator. Getting Other Agencies To Help 1. Identify agencies that have a role (or could have a role) in addressing the problem early in the problem-solving process. 2. Determine whether these other agencies perceive that there is a problem. a. Which agency members perceive the problem and which do not? b. Why is it (or isn't it) a problem for them? c. How are police perceptions of the problem similar to and different from the perceptions of members of other agencies? 3. Determine if there is a legal or political mandate for collaboration. a. To which agencies does this legal mandate apply? b. What are the requirements needed to demonstrate collaboration? c. Who is checking to determine if collaboration is taking place? 4. Look for difficulties that these other agencies face that can be redressed through collaboration on this problem. a. Are there internal difficulties that provide an incentive to collaborate? b. Are there external crises affecting agencies that collaboration may help redress? 5. Determine how much these other agencies use police services. 6. Assess the resource capabilities of these agencies to help. a. Do they have the money? b. Do they have the staff expertise? c. Do they have the enthusiasm? 7. Assess the legal authority of these other agencies. a. Do they have special enforcement powers? b. Do they control critical resources? 8. Determine the administrative capacity of these agencies to collaborate. a. Do they have the legal authority to intervene in the problem? b. What are the internal procedures and policies of the stakeholders that help or hinder collaboration? Working With Other Agencies 1. Include representatives from all affected agencies possible in the problem-solving process. 2. Look for responses to the problem that maximize the gains to all agencies and distribute costs equitably. 3. Reinforce awareness of the interdependence of all agencies. 4. Be prepared to mediate among agencies that have a history of conflict. 5. Develop problem information-sharing mechanisms and promote discussion over the meaning and interpretation of this information. 6. Share problem-solving decisions among stakeholders and do not surprise others with already made decisions. 7. Develop a clear explanation as to why collaboration is needed. 8. Foster external support for collaborative efforts but do not rely on mandates to further collaboration. 9. Be prepared to negotiate with all involved agencies as to their roles, responsibilities, and resource commitments. 10. When collaborating with agencies located far away, plan to spend much more time in developing a working relationship. 11. Try to create support in the larger community for collaborative problem solving. When Collaboration Does Not Work 1. Always be prepared for collaboration to fail. 2. Have alternative plans. 3. Assess the costs and benefits of unilateral action. 4. Be very patient. Adapted from John E. Eck, "Implementing a Problem-Oriented Approach: A Management Guide," Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, draft 1990:69-70. ------------------------- Appendix G Problem Solving: Problem Analysis Guide (Topic Headings) I. Actors A. Victims 1. life-style 2. security measures taken 3. victimization history B. Offenders 1. identity and physical description 2. lifestyle, education, employment history 3. criminal history C. Third parties 1. personal data 2. connection to victimization II. Incidents A. Sequence of events 1. events preceding act 2. event itself 3. events following criminal act B. Physical context 1. time 2. location 3. access control and surveillance C. Social context 1. likelihood and probable actions of witnesses 2. apparent attitude of residents toward neighborhood D. Immediate results of incidents 1. harm done to victim 2. gain to offender 3. legal issues III. Responses A. Community 1. neighborhood affected by problem 2. city as a whole 3. people outside the city B. Institutional 1. criminal justice system 2. other public agencies 3. mass media 4. business sector C. Seriousness 1. public perceptions 2. perception of others Adapted from John E. Eck and William Spelman, Problem Solving:Problem-Oriented Policing in Neport News, Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum, 1987. ------------------------- Appendix H Problem Solving: The Range of Possible Alternatives A. Concentrating Attention on Those Individuals Who Account for a Disproportionate Share of a Problem A relatively small number of individuals usually account for a disproportionate share of practically any problem the police handle (by causing it, facilitating it, or suffering from it). B. Connecting With Other Government and Private Services Indepth exploration of the problems that police commonly confront frequently leads to a recognition of the need for (1) more effective referrals to existing government and private services; (2) improved coordination with agencies that exert control over some of the problems or individuals for which the police are held responsible; and (3) police initiative in pressing for correction of inadequacies in municipal services and for development of new services. C. Using Mediation and Negotiation Skills Police are expected to handle many types of conflicts, and often find the mediation/negotiation approach most effective. D. Conveying Information Conveying sound, accurate information is currently one of the least used, but potentially most effective, means the police have for responding to a wide range of problems. Conveying information can help to (1) reduce anxiety and fear; (2) enable citizens to solve their own problems; (3) elicit conformity with laws and regulations that are not known or understood; (4) warn potential victims about their vulnerability and advise them of ways to protect themselves; (5) demonstrate to individuals how they unwittingly contribute to problems; (6) develop support for addressing a problem; and (7) acquaint the community with the limitations on the police and to define realistically what can be expected of the police. E. Mobilizing the Community Mobilizing a specific segment of the community to help implement a specific response to a specific problem for as long as it takes to deal with the problem. F. Making Use of Existing Forms of Social Control in Addition to the Community Solving problems by mobilizing specific forms of social control inherent in existing relationships-- e.g., the influence of a parent over a child, a teacher over a student, or an employer over an employee. G. Altering the Physical Environment To Reduce Opportunities for Problems To Recur Adapting the principles of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Situational Crime Prevention to the complete range of police problems. H. Increased Regulation, Through Statutes or Ordinances, of Conditions That Contribute to Problems Studies of a specific problem will often draw attention to factors contributing to the problem that can be controlled by regulation through statutes or ordinances. I. Developing New Forms of Limited Authority To Intervene and Detain Analysis of specific problems often leads to the conclusion that satisfactory resolution requires some limited authority (e.g., to order a person to leave) but does not require labeling the conduct criminal so that it can be dealt with through a citation or a physical arrest followed by a criminal prosecution. J. More Discriminate Use of the Criminal Justice System Use of the criminal justice system should be much more discrete than in the past, reserved for those problems for which the system seems especially appropriate, and employed with much greater precision. This could include (1) straightforward investigation, arrest, and prosecution; (2) selective enforcement with articulated criteria; (3) enforcing criminal laws that, by tradition, are enforced by another agency; (4) defining with greater specificity that behavior which should be subject to criminal prosecution or control through local ordinances; (5) intervention without making an arrest; (6) use of arrest without the intention to prosecute; and (7) attaching new conditions to probation or parole. K. Using Civil Law To Control Public Nuisances, Offensive Behavior, and Conditions Contributing to Crime Because most of what the police do in the use of the law involves arrest and prosecution, we tend to forget that the police and local government can initiate a number of other legal proceedings, including those related to (1) licensing, (2) zoning, (3) property confiscation, (4) nuisance abatement, and (5) injunctive relief. Adapted from Herman Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing, New York: McGraw-Hill, 104-141. ------------------------ Appendix I Problem Solving: Situational Crime Prevention Techniques A. Increasing the Effort 1. Target Hardening--Obstructing the vandal or thief by physical barriers such as locks and safes. 2. Access Control--Denying access to offenders through such methods as gates and reception desks. 3. Deflecting Offenders--Channeling offensive behavior in more acceptable directions, such as by providing litter bins or moving bus stops. 4. Controlling Facilitators--Controlling such crime facilitators as spray-paint cans and digital (push-button) public telephones. B. Increasing the Risks 5. Entry/Exit Screening--Increasing the risk of detection for those not in conformity with entry or exit requirements (e.g., border searches and merchandise tags). 6. Formal Surveillance--Deterrence through official inperson (e.g., police) and technological (e.g., cameras) surveillance. 7. Surveillance by Employees--Using employees to increase deterrence (e.g., hotel doormen and groundskeepers). 8. Natural Surveillance--Capitalizing on natural surveillance provided by people going about their everyday business (e.g., by pruning hedges or by organizing Neighborhood Watch groups). C. Reducing the Rewards 9. Target Removal--Removing the targets of crime by such means as cash reduction measures to reduce robbery and hotel safes for guests' valuables. 10. Identifying Property--Marking property to improve chances of recovery, such as automobile VIN's and Operation Identification. 11. Removing Inducements--Removing inducements to crime, such as by publishing gender-neutral phone lists and by immediately cleaning graffiti. 12. Rule Setting--Regulating employee and customer/clientele behavior through rule setting that removes any ambiguity between acceptable and unacceptable conduct and that encourages conformity with rules. Adapted from Ronald V. Clarke, ed., "Introduction" to Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies, New York: Harrow and Heston, 1992:12-21. ________________________ Appendix J For more information on the Rural INOP Program, contact: Bureau of Justice Assistance 633 Indiana Avenue NW. Washington, DC 20531 202-514-5947 Bureau of Justice Assistance Clearinghouse Box 6000 Rockville, MD 20850 800-688-4252 For more information on neighborhood-oriented policing, contact: The Community Policing Consortium 515 North Washington Street Alexandria, VA 22314 703-836-6767 Institute for Law and Justice 1018 Duke Street Alexandria, VA 22314 703-684-5300 International Association of Chiefs of Police 515 North Washington Street Alexandria, VA 22314 703-836-6767 National Center for Community Policing 560 Baker Hall, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 800-892-9051 National Crime Prevention Council 1700 K Street NW., Second Floor Washington, DC 20006 202-466-NCPC National Institute of Justice 633 Indiana Avenue NW. Washington, DC 20531 202-307-2942 National Institute of Justice/NCJRS Box 6000 Rockville, MD 20850 800-851-3420 National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives 908 Pennsylvania Avenue SE. Washington, DC 20003 202-546-8811 National Sheriffs' Association 1450 Duke Street Alexandria, VA 22314 703-836-7827 For more information on documents referenced in this monograph, contact: Police Executive Research Forum 2300 M Street NW., Suite 910 Washington, DC 20037 202-466-7820 Police Foundation 1001 22d Street NW., Suite 200 Washington, DC 20037 202-833-1460 Appendix K References and Suggested Reading Bayley, David H. (1992). "The Best Defense." Fresh Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Brown, Lee P. (1989). "Community Policing: A Practical Guide for Police Officials." Perspectives on Policing 12. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Harvard University. Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993). A Police Guide to Surveying Citizens and Their Environment. Washington, D.C.: BJA Monograph. ------ (1993). Problem-Oriented Drug Enforcement: A Community-Based Approach for Effective Policing. Washington, D.C.: BJA Monograph. ------ (1993). The Systems Approach to Crime and Drug Prevention: A Path to Community Policing. Washington, D.C.: BJA Bulletin. Carter, David L., and Allen D. Sapp (1992). Program Evaluation Package: Community Policing. Austin, Texas: Law Enforcement Management Institute, State of Texas. Clarke, Ronald V., ed. (1992). Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies. New York: Harrow and Heston. Cordner, Gary W. (1988). "A Problem-Oriented Approach to Community-Oriented Policing." In Jack R. Greene and Stephen D. Mastrofski, eds., Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality. New York: Praeger, pp. 135-152. Cordner, Gary W., and Donna C. Hale, eds. (1992). What Works in Policing? Operations and Administration Examined. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson. Cordner, Gary W., and Dennis Jay Kenney (1992). Program Evaluation Package: Tactical Patrol. Austin, Texas: Law Enforcement Management Institute, State of Texas. Couper, David C., and Sabine H. Lobitz (1991). Quality Policing: The Madison Experience. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Eck, John E., and William Spelman (1987). Problem Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Felson, Marcus (1986). "Linking Criminal Choices, Routine Activities, Informal Control, and Criminal Outcomes." In Derek B. Cornish and Ronald V. Clarke, eds., The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending. New York: Springer-Verlag. ------ (1987). "Routine Activities and Crime Prevention in the Developing Metropolis." Criminology 25(4) February:911-947. Gaines, Larry K., Mittie D. Southerland, and John E. Angell (1991). Police Administration. New York: McGraw-Hill. Geller, William A., ed. (1991). Local Government Police Management, 3d ed. Washington, D.C.: International City Management Association. Goldstein, Herman (1977). Policing a Free Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger. (Now available from the University of Wisconsin Press.) ------ (1990). Problem-Oriented Policing. New York: McGraw-Hill. Greene, Jack R., and Stephen D. Mastrofski, eds. (1988). Community Policing: Rhetoric or Reality. New York: Praeger. Hartmann, Francis X., ed. (1988). "Debating the Evolution of American Policing"; an edited transcript to accompany "The Evolving Strategy of Policing." Perspectives on Policing 5. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Harvard University. Hoover, Larry T., ed. (1992). Police Management: Issues & Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Houston Police Department (1988). Developing Neighborhood Oriented Policing. Arlington, Virginia: International Association of Chiefs of Police. Karchmer, Clifford L., and John E. Eck (1992). Program Evaluation Package: Proactive Investigation Management. Austin, Texas: Law Enforcement Management Institute, State of Texas. Kelling, George L. (1988). "Police and Communities: The Quiet Revolution." Perspectives on Policing 1. 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Spelman, William, and John E. Eck (1989). "Sitting Ducks, Ravenous Wolves, and Helping Hands: New Approaches to Urban Policing." Public Affairs Comment. Austin, Texas: School of Public Affairs, University of Texas. Taft, Philip B., Jr. (1986). Fighting Fear: The Baltimore County COPE Project. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Trojanowicz, Robert, and Bonnie Bucqueroux (1990). Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson. ------ (1994). Community Policing: How to Get Started. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson. Wassermann, Robert, and Mark H. Moore (1988). "Values in Policing." Perspectives on Policing 8. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Harvard University. Weisel, Deborah Lamm (1990). Tackling Drug Problems in Public Housing: A Guide for Police. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Weiss, Carol (1972). Evaluation Research: Methods of Assessing Program Effectiveness. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Williams, Hubert, and Patrick V. Murphy (1990). "The Evolving Strategy of Police: A Minority View." Perspectives on Policing 13. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Harvard University. Williams, Jerry, and Ron Sloan (1990). Turning Concept Into Practice: The Aurora, Colorado Story. East Lansing, Michigan: National Center for Community Policing, Michigan State University. Wilson, James Q., and George L. Kelling (1982). "Police and Neighborhood Safety: Broken Windows." Atlantic Monthly (March):29-38. ------ (1989). "Making Neighborhoods Safe." Atlantic Monthly (February):46-52. Witham, Donald C. (1985). The American Law Enforcement Chief Executive: A Management Profile. Washington, D.C.: Police Executive Research Forum. Worden, Robert E., and Stephen D. Mastrofski (1992). Program Evaluation Package: Differential Police Response. Austin, Texas: Law Enforcement Management Institute, State of Texas.