**Democratic and Community Policing**

**Glossary of Concepts and Terms**

**Academy Training.** Training for new recruits to become police
officers; likely to define the quality of an officer for the range of
her/his career.

**Accountability.** Formal civic oversight of police activities and
responsibility of the police to rule of law, to the communities being
policed, and the tax-payers they serve. Without accountability,
community policing programs may exacerbate existing corruption, fortify
tainted institutions, or strengthen local actors resistant to reform.

**Accountability Mechanisms.** Internal and external measures to control
and examine police activities. Such mechanisms include civilian review
boards, direct supervision of the police through legislative and
executive bodies such as mayors or city managers, reports,
investigations, and courts. Police must be accountable to the law,
rather than to the government.

**Alternative Dispute Resolution.** An option to the court system for
solving community problems.

**Anonymous Police Hotlines.** Phone lines used to report information
that may assist in police investigations. Protects witnesses by allowing
them to remain anonymous. These hotlines have been successful in
orienting police toward serving citizens.

**Area SLO (Senior Lead Officer) Summits.** Meetings between SLO's to
identify community needs and develop problem-solving strategies. (See
*Senior Lead Officer*).

**Basic Car.** Quadrants or areas in a neighborhood for patrolling. For
example, a neighborhood may consist of ten basic cars.

**Beat Books.** A community profile to facilitate solving problems
encountered on patrol. It identifies community groups, issues, and/or
advisory boards.

**Broken Windows Philosophy.** A theory first introduced by James Q.
Wilson and George Kelling. It states that a broken window left
un-repaired marks neglect and lack of concern for the neighborhood and
invites vandalism and property damage.

**Carabinieri.** Italian military police and internal security force who
are a branch of the armed forces and answer to the Ministry of Defense
for military matters and to the Ministry of the Interior for matters of
domestic public order such as crime and natural disasters.

**CAPRA.** A model for understanding the needs of **c**lients and
communities by **a**cquiring and analyzing information, forming
**p**artnerships for problem solving, **r**esponding to problems, and
**a**ssessing performance.

**Citizen Participation and Review.** A method of citizen oversight of
police practices that provides community access and input into police
policymaking.

**Citizen Police Academy.** Training for community members that focuses
on problem-solving and community engagement skills, how the police
department works, what police are doing for the community, and how to
effectively communicate with officers.

**Citizen Security.** A primary concept in community policing. Refers to
a fundamental human right that involves reducing levels of crime and
violence, thus creating a basic level of public security and national
stability that fosters socioeconomic development and poverty
alleviation. Security (especially from violence) is extremely important
to the poor and to improving the lives of the poor---who often view the
police as a source of insecurity.

**Civilian Management and Oversight.** Civilian control of security
forces. Focuses on the individual and institutional capacity to direct,
participate in, and monitor security policies and practice. Target
communities include civil servants, appointed officials,
parliamentarians, and civil society groups with watchdog or information
dissemination functions. Activities include: interagency coordination;
formation of local security councils; education and training for
journalists to enhance media coverage of security-related issues; and
capacity building activities with security-relevant associations,
interest groups, or think tanks.

**Code of Silence.** Keeping procedures and information secret from the
public. This practice reduces transparency, creates an 'us versus them'
mentality, and inhibits cooperation between community and police.

**Community Advocates.** A fundamental principle in community policing.
Refers to the role officers play in representing the needs of the
community.

**Community Contact.** Points when citizens and police officers
interact. The contact is meant to be respectful and meaningful and an
officer must have a specific reason for meeting with a citizen.

**Community Engagement.** Working with individual community members and
organizations to recognize, understand, and meet the diverse set of
community needs.

**Community Needs Assessment.** A fundamental tool for successful
community policing programming that helps identify needs, assures that
resources are available for community programs, and fosters future
evaluation.

**Community Partnership.** Core component of community policing.
Emphasizes building trust and cooperation between police and the
community to control and prevent crime and solve problems.

**Community Policing (Community-Oriented Policing).** Partnership
between the police and the community to work on specific solutions to
specific problems. This approach focuses on service to the community and
views police as problem solvers and community advocates. This philosophy
and organizational strategy allows police and the community to work
together to solve problems of crime, illicit drugs, fear of crime,
physical and social disorder, neighborhood decay, and overall quality of
life in the community. Community policing emphasizes community
engagement, organizational transformation, and working with citizens to
solve problems which requires officers to think independently and to be
able to make decisions on their own in order to best serve the
community.

**Community-Police Advisory Boards (C-PABS).** Boards made up of
civilian volunteers and police who advise area commanding officers on
crime and quality-of-life issues.

**Constabulary Force.** Armed forces of the state that have both
military capabilities and police powers and can serve in either a
military or civilian capacity and operate independently or in
cooperation with other military or civilian police forces. Constabulary
forces characteristically seek viable international relations, are
committed to the minimal use of force, and are always prepared to act.
(For examples see *Carabinieri* and *Gendarmerie*).

**Crime Mapping.** A police practice that involves analyzing criminal
patterns by using information and technology, including DNA sampling and
fingerprint matching. Collecting this information often requires trust
and close collaboration between officers and citizens, reinforcing the
value of community-oriented policing.

**Crime Spirals.** A term that refers to continual criminal activity
that erodes social capital and breeds further crime.

**Culture of Crime.** When criminal activity, either violent or
non-violent, is considered the norm.

**Cultural Awareness Programs.** Programs that train officers to
recognize cultural and linguistic barriers which enables them to respond
effectively to people from all backgrounds within the community.

**Cultural Diversity Training.** Training for new recruits to recognize
and correct discriminatory behavior inside and outside the police
department. It raises officers' awareness regarding diversity issues
such as gender equity, sexual orientation, and needs of special
populations---including the poor, persons with physical disabilities,
hearing or vision impairments, and mental illnesses.

**Decentralized Authority.** A fundamental characteristic of community
policing programs. The transfer of financial and administrative power
and responsibilities to neighborhood and precinct departments to shorten
lines of communication and foster stronger relations between officers
and the communities they serve.

**Decentralized Policing.** Transfers power to neighborhoods and
precincts in order to cultivate rapport between community and police;
and enable police to maintain daily, face-to-face contact with the
people they serve.

**Democratic Policing.** Policing that protects democratic political
activity, and prioritizes service to citizens, accountably to rule of
law, protection of human rights, and transparency. This policing
practice is based on democratic principles, especially openness and
accountability to all members of society, including the poorest of the
poor and marginalized groups. These policing practices are designed to
protect citizens' democratic rights and to express democratic social
consensus.

**Democratization Perspective.** A perspective of police reform that
emphasizes rule of law and long-term justice and security, rather than
short-term order. This perspective draws on a holistic relationship
between security, development, and democracy; encompasses a human-rights
view; and incorporates a focus on institutional development.

**Demographic Changes.** Population changes may require officers to
recognize and respond to new and changing needs of the community.

**Department Leadership.** A factor in community policing programming,
this condition fosters successful community policing reforms. Direction
within the police department will determine the commitment to and
implementation of community policing reforms.

**Demobilization.** In post-conflict states, demobilization refers to
the point when military security forces retreat and police forces resume
responsibility for security.

**Disorder.** A relative concept that may or may not include dirty,
littered streets, broken or ill-repaired property, and behavioral
disorder such as being drunk in public or panhandling. Different
citizens/communities have different concepts of what may or may not
constitute order or disorder.

**Diversity Awareness.** Essential to community policing, diversity
awareness enhances the ability to respond to and communicate with people
of all backgrounds. Diversity awareness includes an understanding of the
diverse set of needs within a community based on race, religion, gender,
age, sexual orientation, and physical or mental disabilities.

**Diversity Awareness Training.** Training officers to be aware of and
understand the diversity of the communities they serve, which includes
minority groups, the disabled, and the poor. This enables officers to
serve and respond to people of all backgrounds.

**Domestic Violence.** A significant area of public safety. In order to
best serve the community, police officers and citizens alike must be
aware of how to address issues of domestic violence in ways that promote
security and foster democratic participation and development.

**Economic Development Perspective.** A perspective of police reform
that emphasizes enhancing the environment for economic development, such
as removing obstacles to foreign investment and reducing the costs of
crime and violence. May also include anticorruption initiatives and
reforms in other sectors.

**Effective Training.** In order for community policing programs to be
successful, training for police officers and community members needs to
occur in order to foster new attitudes, knowledge, skills, and
perceptions.

**Fair and Equitable Treatment of Citizens.** This is a fundamental,
guiding principle for democratic policing and should be coupled with
rule of law principles including due process.

**Field Training Officer (FTO).** Competent officer who trains new
recruits on policing practices in the field. Community policing training
prepares new recruits in the field and has long term impact on new
officers' abilities to implement community policing practices; it is
imperative that field training officers be competent themselves before
conducting training of new officers.

**Gendarmerie.** Example of constabulary force. French national police
force that answers to the Minister of Defense. During peacetime, this
force is engaged in routine police work including administrative
policing, traffic control, and public security. (See *constabulary
force*).

**Grass-Roots Creativity and Support.** A main principle of community
policing which involves community members and police officers working
together to achieve new, creative approaches to current community
concerns.

**Gun Amnesties and Buyback Programs.** These have been successful in
reducing violent crime. One example is encouraging citizens to trade
firearms for vocational training or agricultural credits.

**High-Impact Policing Projects/Saturation Exercises.** Directing all
police resources to one problem area in a short term effort to sterilize
the problem. This practice is impossible to sustain without a massive
and unaffordable increase in resources.

**Human Rights Perspective.** Police reform that focuses on the
protection of human rights, including freedom from torture,
mistreatment, and threats to life.

**Human Rights Standards.** International human rights norms defined and
set forth in legal instruments including laws, treaties, conventions,
agreements, and protocols.

**Institutional Partnerships.** Cooperation between the police
department and other local institutions and organizations, such as
museums and schools, to foster teamwork and trust between the police and
the community.

**Integration.** Actively integrating women, minorities, and other
under-represented groups into the police force to truly reflect the
community it serves.

**Justice and Public Safety.** Describes activities that help foster a
safe environment so that citizens can live with freedom from fear. A
subset of the larger rule of law domain, this category of activities
focuses primarily on judicial and police reform. Illustrative activities
include human rights training, community policing programs, and
constitutional reform.

**Maintenance Policing.** Short-term, zero tolerance policing practices
that may exacerbate problems of poverty and social exclusion and
ultimately offer no solution to these complex long-term social problems.

**Military vs. Civilian Police.** In post-conflict environments,
civilian police are not prepared to deal with every challenge and
military and civilian police will have different roles. Training
programs should highlight the different roles the military and civilian
police play in maintaining peace and stability.

**Multi-Dimensional Causes of Crime.** Causes of crime that cannot be
addressed simply by policing. Community policing can only address
certain causes of crime. Other problems like income inequality,
urbanization, and rapid population growth cannot be addressed through
community policing alone.

**Neighborhood Council.** Councils designed to promote community input
into city government. An effective method to promote communication
between citizens and police.

**Neighborhood Portfolios.** See *'Beat Book'.*

**Neighborhood Prosecutor Program.** Programs that create a link between
police departments and courts, including establishing teams consisting
of city prosecutors who work with police forces.

**Neighborhood Watch Committees.** Committees of citizens who engage in
crime prevention efforts that are a proven method for reducing crime.

**Officer Competence.** Community police officers are considered
competent when they have the qualities of self-control, high ethical
behavior, and the abilities to communicate with diverse members of the
community, and skills to best serve the community.

**Openness.** A cornerstone of democratic policing; in order for
policing to be democratic, police departments must be open and
accessible to all members of society, including poor and marginalized
groups.

**Order.** A nominal and relative concept that varies from community to
community, but would include a sense of security, safety, and rule of
law.

**Order Maintenance Policing.** A practice that involves strict,
concentrated policing of a small, localized area (e.g., one
neighborhood) with special crime problems. This practice may result in
arresting more people for minor offences and overburdening department
staff, and resources.

**Organizational Culture.** A successful program requires a policing
culture that is oriented to meet the needs of the community.

**Organizational Integrity.** An organization's capacity to fulfill its
mission, uphold its values, and avoid corruption.

**Organizational Transformation.** Focusing on an organization's
leadership, systemic issues, and structure.

**Para Police.** Officers with minor responsibilities limited to routine
tasks, such as taking accident reports. Modeled after paralegals or
paramedics.

**Peace-Building and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.** A possible point of
introduction for democratic policing programs. Removing the structural
and social causes of war/armed conflict and addressing the legacies of
past conflict (such as the proliferation of arms and armed fighters) as
well as transnational threats that affect the safety and well-being of
citizens everywhere, particularly in countries emerging from conflict.
Areas of intervention include countering insurgency movements that
employ terrorist tactics, community reintegration programs, or
transitional justice. Pertinent police activities may include confidence
building measures, neighborhood watch programs for terrorist activities,
or post conflict reconciliation programs.

**Peacekeeping/Military Perspective.** Police reform that focuses almost
exclusively on reform in post-conflict settings emphasizing order and
stability after armed conflicts.

**Persons With Disabilities.** Persons who may be physically or mentally
disabled, blind, or deaf. This group possesses special needs
vulnerabilities of which police officers should be aware.

**Personal Integrity.** An officer's ability to uphold duty based on the
principles of community-oriented policing, democratic principles, and
rule of law.

**Police and Community Collaborative Teams (PACCTs)**. Teams that
include at least 2 senior lead officers, one or more community group
representatives, and a representative from local/city government. These
teams meet regularly to address problem areas.

**Police Conduct.** How officers carry out their duties and uphold human
rights. Internal and external accountability mechanisms should exist to
monitor police activities and hold police accountable to human rights
standards and rule of law.

**Population Density.** A component that impacts on public safety
concerns. Departments and officers should be aware of how population
will affect policing, e.g., high population density can be contributing
factor to high crime rates. (See *demographic changes*.)

**Poverty Awareness Programs.** Like cultural and diversity awareness
programs, these programs enable officers to communicate with and
effectively respond to the needs of the poor.

**Prevention vs. Deterrence.** Different crime reduction strategies that
involve either preventing crime, or deterring it.

**Privatization of Justice.** Hiring private security firms to police
which results in blurring the functions of the public and private
sectors and impedes service to the public and representation of the
community in the police force.

**Private Security Firms.** Private companies hired by businesses to
protect private sector interests from criminal, or perceived criminal
activities. Hiring these firms diverts private sector resources from
endeavors like worker training or capital investment, ultimately slowing
economic development.

**Problem-Based Curriculum.** In community police training, this
curriculum enables officers to effectively analyze problems and promotes
decision-making abilities.

**Problem-Based Scenarios and Case Studies.** In community policing
training, using scenarios and case studies cultivates officers' problem
solving and decision making skills.

**Problem Identification and Analysis.** In a problem-solving policing
approach, these are essential steps where officers and citizens work
together to define and examine problems.

**Problem Solving/Problem Solving Skills.** This key component refers to
the practical application of community policing shared by the police and
community. Problem-solving requires skills to answer the needs of a
diverse community by analyzing a problem using various forms of
information to best respond and assess the response.

**Problem Solvers.** In community policing, this refers to police
working with the community to solve problems, rather than simply using
tactical maneuvers.

**Professionalism.** A former trend in police reform that concentrated
on tactical and technical proficiency by focusing on techniques of
policing rather than outcomes of policing. The trend failed to make
police better communicators and caused officers to be isolated from the
community.

**Purge.** This term refers to ridding the police force of all human
rights violators, particularly those from a previous regime.

**Quality of Life Offenders.** Criminal offenders who may commit minor
offenses that degrade a community's quality of life such as vandalism or
pick-pocketing.

**Recruit Academy.** The police officer training course where officers
first develop skills and knowledge abount community-oriented policing.
This early stage of police training shapes an officer's ability to
perform police tasks throughout their career.

**Recruitment.** A crucial stage in developing an effective community
police force. Recruitment should emphasize background checks, or vetting
of police recruits, even in countries where databases are not available.
Certain standards should be adhered to in the process; e.g., former
criminals should not be hired as police officers. Hiring the right
people is critical to maintaining the stability and longevity of a
police force, and will help control turnover and corruption.

**Reform. (a)** In the human rights view of police reform, refers to
purging human-rights violators from the police and military and
redesigning police doctrines and training to emphasize human rights
standards and establish internal and external accountability mechanisms.
**(b)** In terms of *professionalism*, a movement in police training
that emphasized tactics over community service.

**Residency Requirements.** Requiring a portion of officers to reside in
the neighborhoods they patrol to help ensure that the police reflect the
community and its interests.

**Restructuring and Reorganization.** Police restructuring and
reorganization connotes reform with a greater emphasis on the interests
and experiences of international actors; rather than on the performance,
effectiveness, conduct of, and popular support for national/local police
organizations.

**SARA.** A problem solving model for community policing that generally
requires community involvement and focuses on **s**canning,
**a**nalyzing, **r**esponding, and **a**ssessing.

**Senior Lead Officer (SLO).** Police officer who has the main
responsibility of establishing and maintaining police-community
partnerships.

**SLO Mentor Programs.** A mentoring program that facilitates incoming
and outgoing SLOs in a neighborhood or community.

**Special Populations.** Minority groups and members of the community
who are most vulnerable, including the elderly, juveniles, minorities,
the poor, the disabled, and the homeless. These populations'
vulnerabilities, interests, or needs may be different than those of the
majority population. To effectively serve such populations, officers
must be cognizant of these vulnerabilities.

**Special Recruitment Programs**. Programs designed to recruit police
officers from groups that are often under-represented in the police
force, for example, setting hiring goals for women. Issues of gender,
race, and sexual orientation are often best addressed by actively
recruiting officers from under-represented groups in the community.

**Social Capital.** The accumulated result of social networks, norms,
contacts, associations, and memberships in organizations. Social capital
refers to civic engagement and community involvement. Countries with
higher social capital tend to have higher levels of political awareness
and interpersonal trust.

**Street Crime.** Crime committed in the street, as opposed to political
crime, or white-collar crime.

**Strengthened Law-Enforcement Organizations.** A controversial reform
process that, in post-conflict situations, involves retaining officers
from the former regime based on their experience, even if they committed
human rights abuses.

**State Sponsored Violence.** When military officers or off-duty
policemen use their formal positions to access weapons and sensitive
information to support and conceal their involvement in criminal
activities.

**Transparency.** A fundamental principle in community policing, this
requires that officers' procedures are as clear and public as possible
based on the premise that police departments must be open to the entire
community to foster trust and improved relations between the police and
the community. A "code of silence" undermines community policing and
breeds an "end justifies the means" mentality.

**Urban Design.** Urban planning and design can contribute to crime
reduction. Examples include: installing door locks, shatterproof
windows, and close-circuit television, and limiting points of entry to
encourage facial recognition.

**Urbanization.** Urbanization is a common factor in crime rates as
rapid inflows into cities change policing conditions as communities
change. (See *demographic changes*.)

**Use of Force.** Conduct which invades a person's interests of
personality and thus is a battery, assault, or false imprisonment,
unless privileged. Force should be used only strictly when necessary and
to the extent required for an officer's duty, must governed by rule of
law, and keeping with the protection of human rights.

**Values.** They represent the beliefs and goals carried out by a
partnership between the community and the police force with an
orientation of officers' prime responsibilities to serve the community
through an awareness of the community's culture and an understanding of
its short- and long-term needs and demands.

**Youth Bulges.** A factor in crime rates, this refers to rapid
population increases that result in a disproportionate number of young
people in a population as illustrated on a population pyramid. There
tends to be a strong correlation between youth bulges and high urban
crime rates. (See *demographic changes*.)

**Zero Tolerance.** Politically viable rhetoric that is difficult to
achieve since it requires a level of policing, arrests, and detainment
stretching beyond the resources of any police force.

**911.** Call-in system where citizens can telephone police for rapid
responses in cases of emergency. The 911 system has reoriented police to
better serve and respond to citizen requests and has been effective in
USAID community policing programs.