Title: Commentaries on: Trust and Confidence in Criminal Justice
Author: Susan Herman, Scott C. Newman, Paul F. Evans, Deborah A.
Ramirez, Paul A. Logli, and Tracey Meares
Published: National Institute of Justice, August 2001
Subject: Other issues in criminal justice: criminal justice system
29 pages
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Commentaries on:
Trust and Confidence in Criminal Justice
Susan Herman
Scott C. Newman
Paul F. Evans
Deborah A. Ramirez
Paul A. Logli
Tracey Meares
------------------------------
Commentary by Susan Herman, Executive Director
National Center for Victims of Crime
Washington, D.C.
How can public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system be
strengthened?
To answer the question from a victim's perspective, one must critically
examine the predominant strategy of the victims' rights movement over the
past 30 years. That strategy has sought to create statutory and
constitutional rights to meaningful victims participation at all critical
stages of the criminal justice process. Viewed on its own terms, the
strategy has had mixed results.
Thirty-two of the 50 States have amended their constitutions to include
victims' rights, usually including the rights to be informed, present, and
heard at critical stages of the criminal justice process. Nearly every State
has also enacted statutes codifying other victims' rights. Half the States
give victims a general right to a speedy trial or require that courts consider
the victims' interests in ruling on motions for continuance, and many
jurisdictions are exploring automated systems of victim notification.
Even with this progress, victims are still dissatisfied with their actual
access to information and levels of participation. A recent National Center
for Victims of Crime study found that even in States with strong legal
rights for crime victims, nearly two-thirds of victims were not informed of
the pretrial release of the accused, half of all victims in cases resulting in
plea agreements were not given an opportunity to consult with the
prosecutor prior to the plea agreement, and nearly half of victims were
never notified of the sentencing hearing at all. And these are States with
strong legal rights for crime victims.
A More Victim-Oriented Process
One way to increase trust and confidence among victims, then, would be
to create and enforce in every jurisdiction comprehensive victims' rights
that guarantee meaningful participation by victims of crime. We must also
examine the experiences of victims in the criminal justice system. Victims
have no meaningful interaction with the offender, and the sentence may or
may not include restitution. We must also be more honest with victims
about what the criminal justice system can and cannot do. However, even
this answer would miss a larger, more profound point about crime
victimization nationwide: The vast majority of crime victims never see a
courtroom because there is no arrest of a perpetrator. There is no real
involvement with the criminal justice system. Thus, a more pertinent
question is how to develop ways to address the needs and concerns of all
crime victims and not merely those involved with the criminal justice
system.
If the process and the remedies were more victim oriented, justice system
responses would begin with the occurrence of a crime and would attend to
the needs of all victims, regardless of the perpetrator's status. The
community would be asked to help victims rebuild their lives--to help with
physical repair of the crime scene, to provide support and counseling for
victims, to help victims overcome isolation and fear, and to see that
victims are reintegrated into productive community life. If offenders are
apprehended and acknowledge responsibility for the crime or participate in
a restorative process, all the better. Offenders can contribute enormously--
and in a way nobody else can--to a sense of legitimacy for the criminal
justice system. They can apologize, make restitution, and show remorse.
Moreover, they can help victims understand what happened.
At present, our traditional criminal justice processes can occur with or
without the victim. That is appropriate for a perpetrator-centered process.
My hope is that someday we will also provide justice for victims, with or
without offenders: not merely compensation, but justice. Why are victims
eligible for justice only if their offender has been arrested? Our response to
victims of crime continues to be problematic and incomplete because we
have failed to ask a fundamental question: What should be society's
response to victims of crime? Stated differently, we have failed to ask,
what is justice for victims?
Offender Roles in Victim Justice
Traditionally, as we conceive of justice, we do not think of victims. Justice
is what happens to an offender. Victims often appreciate that the offender
has received justice if the criminal justice system seemed fair and
appropriate. However, what happens to offenders does not necessarily
address the needs of victims. To create a concept of justice for victims, our
thinking must evolve beyond arrest and adjudication of offenders to
include broad social responsibility for helping victims rebuild their lives.
Crimes are violations of communal norms. When offenders are brought to
justice, they are held accountable by the state for harms done to property
or suffered by individuals. There is a societal response to the offender that
says, "You violated the law, and we will hold you accountable and punish
you if it is appropriate, isolate you if needed, and offer you services to help
reintegrate you into the community."
The individuals who have been harmed--the victims of crime--have no
comparable experience. There is no societal response that says, "What
happened to you was wrong." There is no statement of communal
responsibility that says, "We will help you rebuild your life."
A crime produces both an offender and a victim. Yet, as a society, we have
created a path to justice only for offenders. We must ask whether the
pursuit of justice can be for both parties. For example, can we create a
forum for victims to be heard and to ask for help, either within or outside
of our current criminal justice system? Is it possible to create a distinct
path to justice for victims?
The Pursuit of "Parallel Justice"
In my view, the criminal justice system would have far greater legitimacy
if we decoupled the pursuit of justice for victims from the administration
of justice for offenders. I believe we can create two distinct visions of
justice, one for victims and one for offenders. Justice for victims requires
that, for all victims, we identify and address the harm caused by the crime.
Victims need not only comprehensive social services to help them rebuild
their lives but also a public forum in which to seek justice. One aspect of
justice is a public acknowledgment that what happened to the victim was
wrong and that every effort will be made to help them. At the National
Center for Victims of Crime, we call this the search for "parallel justice."
I have three summary recommendations:
 o Create and enforce victims' rights to participate meaningfully in the
criminal justice process.
 o Be honest with victims about what the criminal justice system can and
cannot deliver.
 o Develop a system of parallel justice for victims.
------------------------------
Commentary by Scott C. Newman, Prosecuting Attorney
Marion County
Indianapolis, Indiana
These thoughts represent the perspective of the district attorney of a
midsize city (population 850,000) on approaches to building public
confidence in the justice system.
Trustworthiness
Whenever issues of trust arise within or outside an organization, my first
step toward resolution is always one of self-examination. Simply put, the
most fundamental way to gain trust is to be trustworthy. The prosecutor's
perspective is that one must be willing before engaging in dialogue to
reflect critically on whether one is behaving in a trustworthy manner.
Self-Audit
Accordingly, hard questions must be asked. Are the operations of the
prosecutor's office allowing differential treatment based on wealth,
political prominence, or access? On the simplest level, do prosecutors
tolerate the "fixing" of traffic tickets? Special bail considerations based on
"connections"? More favorable plea agreements based on which attorney
is hired to represent the defendant? More or less aggressive prosecution of
certain kinds of charges at the behest of pressure groups? A prosecutor can
more comfortably and confidently enter into public dialogue on the subject
of trust when he or she can truthfully answer "no" to these and similar
questions.
Policies and Strategies
The foregoing points suggest a kind of "self-audit" for what might be
termed "conventional forms of corruption." In addition, we should force
ourselves to examine more insidious forms of corruption that exist at the
policy level. For example, does the prosecutor still differentiate in plea or
sentencing policy on the basis of the possession of crack versus powder
cocaine? Given the almost universal use of crack among current cocaine
users (at least in our community), the person who possesses powder
cocaine is likely to be a higher level distributer of powder for crack
manufacture, so can harsher treatment of the person who possesses or sells
crack be defended? Is there truly a balance in drug enforcement strategies
between interdiction from external sources and street-corner dealers?
Among users, dealers, and financial facilitators? Between addicts and
those selling merely for profit? Between suburban and inner-city drug
criminals? Do the resources devoted to these strategies reflect the balance
claimed for them? Are the decisions regarding the level of resources to be
devoted to each element based on objective considerations of community
harm, or on such considerations as cases of detection and prosecution?
Legitimacy and Connection
These discussions are difficult for prosecutors to engage in without their
quickly becoming heated. After all, the feeling among prosecutors is,
"Haven't all those convicted committed crimes? On what grounds does any
criminal have to complain if the result in any given case is the justifiable
conviction of the guilty? Do we as prosecutors not stand on the moral high
ground of viewing crime policy from the perspective of the victim, or of
the law-abiding citizen forced to live next to the drug dealer--as opposed
to the perspective of the finger-pointing mouthpieces of drug traffickers
and gang members?" One should not underestimate the sincerity and ardor
of these feelings on the part of most prosecutors, who may feel chastened
and unappreciated. However, as prosecutors we must force ourselves to
open our minds to such discussions if for no other reason than the potential
to begin to forge a genuine sense of legitimacy in the community, a
legitimacy that may result in more and better witnesses, better prospective
jurors, and powerful combinations of neighborhood and authority figures
pressuring selfish or disconnected individuals toward prosocial behavior.
Data
Whatever attempts are made to address issues of trust and to forge links
between the criminal justice system and communities, they will be
strengthened by ready access to data--not merely case-centered justice
"operating system" data, but geographical and demographic data
integrated across multiple law enforcement and criminal justice agencies.
In the absence of easily accessible, quality data compilation and analysis,
debates about fairness will be driven largely by anecdotes and personal
preconceptions. Trust can be built by rendering the justice system more
transparent to the community. As the slogan of a midwestern restaurant
chain where the kitchens are open to public view says, "In sight, it must be
right."
Facilities and Capacity
Criminal justice outcomes should be just and should be driven by
defensible (though always debatable) notions of prevention, intervention,
accountability, and--in appropriate cases--incapacitation that shields the
community from the most dangerous among us. In locations where these
considerations are overshadowed by system capacity (e.g., the availability
of jail space) the system as a whole appears to be operated without regard
for legitimate considerations of public safety, quality of life, or indeed
justice. For example, where criminals are repeatedly allowed to commit
crimes while on pretrial release, without having bond revoked, citizens
may well feel abandoned and at the mercy of the midlevel recidivist.
When resource-based considerations mar outcomes that should be based
on notions of justice or protection, the results are cynicism, contempt, and
mistrust.
Community as Victim
Most prosecutors in major metropolitan areas today call on computer
operating systems and talented personnel to run fairly efficient "tough
processing" offices that show substantial sensitivity toward the rights of
crime victims, at least in the area of personal crimes. Yet whole
neighborhoods began to feel victimized as the rise of crack cocaine led to
rapidly increasing caseloads that "swarmed the system" and caused chaos
and disorder. The collateral effects of widespread open-air drug dealing
made large numbers of law-abiding citizens feel brutalized in their own
homes as they helplessly watched their stable neighborhoods erode past
the "tipping point." If the system fails to recognize these silent victims,
they conclude it doesn't care about them and therefore is impotent,
incompetent, or simply insensitive. Prosecutors and police must search for
ways to combat those perceptions; for example, by giving neighborhoods a
voice at sentencing in the form of "neighborhood impact statements" or
inviting neighborhood representatives to watch the court process. More
profoundly, law enforcement and criminal justice actors must be willing to
actively reorder their priorities along the lines indicated by those most
affected. It is not enough to "hear community concerns"; one must be
willing to shift limited resources toward addressing those concerns in
ways that create not only safety, but also persuasive and genuine
perceptions of order and security.
Ownership Experience
Though perhaps contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe most criminal
justice systems and prosecutors' offices today are operating better than in
past decades in efficiency, conventional criminal justice outcomes, and
fundamental humaneness toward victims in individual cases. The national
prevalence of sexual assault response teams, child advocacy centers, and
substantial staffs of victim advocates are but a few examples of this. Yet as
the executives at Saturn appear to have learned, it is not enough to sell a
"pretty darned good car." One can aim higher and differentiate oneself by
going for a genuine "ownership experience." People tend to value and trust
to a greater degree things they help create. Thus, community courts and
community-imposed and monitored sanctioning (such as community
sentencing panels or restorative justice conferencing) may prove to be
powerful tools in building trust. It is much more difficult, after all, to
distrust oneself, and much easier to prejudge what one does not know
well.
------------------------------
Commentary by Paul F. Evans
Police Commissioner
Boston, Massachusetts
A lesson that informs Professor Lawrence Sherman's analysis of public
trust and confidence in the criminal justice system, as well as that of many
other participants, is the relationship among fairness, respect, and trust in a
new social context. He makes many important points, two of which stood
out in my mind.
Police Actions Influence Perceptions of Criminal Justice
First, he argues persuasively that distrust has evolved less from the
substance of what police and the other system components do, and more
from how these practices are carried out. It is very rarely the speeding
ticket that offends the public; it is the perception of being demeaned in the
process of receiving the ticket. Consider what irritates the public. In the
public safety survey we conducted in Boston in 1999, we asked citizens,
"During the past year, have you had any negative experiences with an on-
duty Boston police officer?" I am gratified that nearly 88 percent of the
2,045 respondents answered in the negative. Among the 12 percent who
had a bad experience, more than half said they were treated rudely or
indifferently. A related question asked people to rate how serious a
problem the police use of excessive force was in their community. Only 6
percent thought it a "serious problem," down from 7 percent in our 1997
survey.
In the memo he prepared for this meeting, Tom Tyler, Professor of
psychology at New York University, wrote, "My research shows that the
most important factor shaping public trust in police officers and judges is
fairness." Our experience in Boston bears out his point. In fact, our
surveys measure progress on this point. In both the 1999 and 1997 surveys
(the question was not asked in 1995), nearly 90 percent of respondents
also believed the Boston police were excellent, good, or fair at "being fair
and respectful to all people." Ratings of excellent and good constituted
about 65 percent of that total. However, we also found a significant
difference in the responses of members of minority groups and whites:
About 50 percent of minority respondents and 75 percent of white
respondents reported believing that police are excellent, good, or fair at
being fair and respectful to all. Although we believe we have made
progress in moving from conflict to conversation with Boston's African-
American and other minority communities, we have still have a long way
to go.
In that regard, our task in Boston is affected by the second of what I saw
as Professor Sherman's key points. The sharp decline in America's trust in
government since 1975 has been accompanied by citizens' higher
expectations of recognition, respect, and the feeling of status. Citizens'
frequent contact with the criminal justice system in particular--about 1 in 5
individuals each year have at least one contact--makes the system a
flashpoint where the hierarchical design of criminal justice institutions
conflicts with the egalitarian demands of the public. Isolated experiments
with more egalitarian forms of justice have yielded substantial
improvements in the public's level of trust in and belief in the legitimacy
of the criminal justice system, including increased compliance with the
law.
Improving Perceptions in Boston
If citizens in past eras did not like gruff treatment from the police,
Americans over the past 25 years have made it clear they will not stand for
it. People want to be perceived as equals worthy of respect and dignity in
the eyes of police, judges, prosecutors, and others. In Boston, this has been
an underpinning of our commitment to collaboration throughout all
aspects of our neighborhood policing strategy. An example is the
decentralized Strategic Planning and Community Mobilization projects
undertaken in 1995-96 and 1999-2000.
In each project, we brought 400 participants--roughly half police officers
and half citizen stakeholders--together as moral and professional equals.
We did this on a highly decentralized basis, with individual teams in each
of our 11 police districts representing themselves and 6 teams representing
such key central functions as criminal investigations and internal affairs.
At the outset of the 1995 process, we engaged a broad cross-section of
police personnel to create an explicit mission statement for our work. The
statement that emerged has guided the planning process: "We dedicate
ourselves to work in partnership with the community to fight crime,
reduce fear, and improve the quality of life in our communities." After
formulating the statement, we asked each team to think about how it could
fulfill the mission in its particular setting.
The language of the mission statement has significance. For example, we
refer to "our" communities, not "the" communities. This reflects one of
our larger goals: to change the relationship and orientation of police to
community and vice versa. We sought to change the police role as remote
and anonymous outsiders who rush into the community to respond only to
emergencies and 911 calls. Research--and common sense--told us that
officers have the most respectful, trusting, and effective relationships with
people they see day and night. They are much less likely to be distant,
dismissive, or brusque with people they know they will see the next day.
We declared loudly and clearly that the police are to be part of the fabric
of community life, in all its aspects.
Our belief in a decentralized planning model flowed from this
commitment. We conducted planning and implementation on a highly
decentralized basis to deepen the sense of ownership and accountability at
the local level. I believe that this is a key to the issue of trust. Mutual
accountability requires that people set aside old assumptions and abandon
past battles. The issue became not who was right or wrong in a
controversy 20 years ago, but how we work together from here to make
our communities safer. The goal was to have those closest to the problems
set priorities and develop shared expectations. They reached a rough
consensus on what was to be accomplished and, at least equally
importantly, how it was to be accomplished. This collaboration provided
our neighborhood policing strategy with a strong foundation of legitimacy
and authenticity.
Professor Sherman and many other participants have addressed the
question of authorization because it is such a central ingredient in the
formula for trust. Our experience in Boston provides an example. In 1988-
90, a group of dedicated Boston police officers worked very hard to
understand the problem of youth gang violence that was raging in our
inner-city, largely African-American neighborhoods. Part of their assertive
strategy was broad and vigorous use of Terry stops[1] and field
interrogation observations. The ineffectiveness of this approach was only
part of what was wrong with it. It not only failed to target the tiny
proportion of truly dangerous offenders, it offended the broader
community. Residents questioned the intent of these officers. Would they
use these tactics in other neighborhoods? Because the officers are so
general in their approach, are they really interested in preventing violence,
or are they just interested in making arrests and throwing their weight
around? To answer these questions, the vast majority of law-abiding
residents could only make assumptions because no one was involved in
the authorization process, which took place in the upper echelons of a city
agency in which they had no voice. And based on historical experience,
residents assumed the worst.
Today, the Boston Police Department leads a multifaceted, comprehensive
strategy that involves prevention, intervention, and enforcement. The
enforcement component is much tougher than that of the late 1980s and
early 1990s because we now have agreement among a broad array of
stakeholders about which offenders represent the greatest threat and,
therefore, have to be dealt with in the most serious way. We now have
greater credibility because community residents, through their leaders,
have a voice in the authorization process. The police learned from the
community that you have to be credible on prevention if you want to be
credible on enforcement, and vice versa. Community leaders, such as
clergy members who organized themselves into the Ten Point Coalition,
learned the same lesson. They had to take a chance on trusting the police.
One of the founders of Ten Point, Rev. Dr. Raymond Hammond, said,
"There is a ministry for every youth, but for some it's a prison ministry."
We reached the point at which an African-American religious leader could
make this statement only through trust built case by case.
Boston residents feel better about their police department and their
neighborhoods. In 1995, about 60 percent of those participating in the
public safety survey indicated confidence in the ability of the Boston
police to prevent crime. In 1999, that proportion rose to about 84 percent.
More importantly, however, respondents feel significantly better about
their neighborhoods. In 1995, 1997, and 1999, we asked: "How do you
feel out alone in your neighborhood at night?" In 1995, about 55 percent
reported feeling safe. By 1997, that figure was approximately 76 percent;
in 1999, the number was 78 percent.
Shared Expectations Contribute to Success
It seems more likely that the public's distrust of the police in high-crime
areas is driven more by crime than by police practices. If distrust is, in
fact, a product of police practices, it may be the result of the failure of
such practices to prevent crime, rather than excessive police presence.
It may be that we are at the threshold of a formula for building safe and
civil communities. Building on Sherman's analysis, we can suggest that
police and community first must come together as equals and agree to
hammer out shared expectations for both outcomes and methods. As I
believe we learned in Boston during the past 8 years, shared ownership
and accountability make for a much more effective policing process. As
we move forward, trust, effectiveness, and fairness gain strength from each
other.
------------------------------
Note
1. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. (1968). The case held that an anonymous tip
that a person is carrying a gun is not sufficient cause to justify a police
officer stopping and frisking that person. However, an officer, for the
protection of himself and others, may conduct a carefully limited search
for weapons in the outer clothing of persons engaged in unusual conduct
where, inter alia, the officer reasonably concludes in light of his
experience that criminal activity may be occurring and that the persons in
question may be armed and presently dangerous.
------------------------------
Commentary by Deborah A. Ramirez, Professor of Law
Northeastern University School of Law
Boston, Massachusetts
The once soaring rates of violent crime in the United States are now in
dramatic decline. To the disinterested observer, it would seem that police
agencies are doing their jobs and doing them exceedingly well. Indeed,
most citizens will readily acknowledge that the streets are safer and their
communities and households are more secure. Public officials,
policymakers, and the press in large measure have attributed these
successes to the advent of community policing.
As we enter the new millennium, the challenge that confronts American
police organizations is to sustain the historic decline in rates of criminal
activity while enhancing perceptions of police legitimacy in the
communities they serve. If police are the face of democracy on the street,
then within a representative democracy the primary goals of police
organizations should be to effectively combat crime and to facilitate
accountability by striving to develop community legitimacy and respect.
As Professor Lawrence Sherman's paper on trust and confidence in the
criminal justice system indicates, in general, public confidence in the
police has steadily increased. However, communities of color continue to
express fear and distrust of the police.[1] They remain critical of the
manner in which law enforcement activities are carried out in their
communities and they wonder whether the success in reducing crime has
been due in part to overly aggressive police officers who ignore the civil
liberties of people of color. The tragic shooting death of Amadou Diallo in
New York lent greater credence to this belief. Suffice it to say that this
community distrust of police practices is perceived as so pervasive that
Attorney General Janet Reno recently spoke out on the issue of police
misconduct and has even gone so far as to convene a national conference
on police integrity.[2] In commenting on the problem of continuing
distrust of police in communities of color, Reno said:
[T]he issue is not just one city. The issue is national in scope and reaches
people all across this country. For too many people, especially in minority
communities, the trust that is so essential to effective policing does not
exist because residents believe that police have used excessive force, that
law enforcement is too aggressive, that law enforcement is biased,
disrespectful, and unfair.[3]
President Bill Clinton echoed Reno's concerns a few months later, saying:
While public confidence in the police has been growing steadily overall,
people of color continue to have less confidence and less trust, and believe
that they are targeted for actions by the police not because of their illegal
conduct but because of the color of their skin.[4]
With these public comments, Reno and Clinton effectively redefined the
notion of what constitutes police success to include broad measures of
legitimacy and integrity as indicated by police courtesy, respect, excessive
use of force, use of racial profiling, and perceived issues of racial
inequality. It is the thesis of this short response that, in fact, effectiveness
and legitimacy are intimately interrelated and that truly effective policing
will be achieved only when police both protect all neighborhoods from
crime and respect the civil liberties of all residents. When law enforcement
practices are perceived to be biased, unfair, or disrespectful, community
members are less willing to trust and confide in police officers, to report
crimes, to participate in problem-solving activities, to be witnesses at
trials, or to serve on juries.
Police Use Data, Research, and Technology to More Proactively Address
Crime
Historically, police organizations have defined their mission as regulatory:
ensuring the greatest possible order. Their task was reactive and involved
responding to obvious signs of disorder, such as emergency calls.
Realizing the profound limits of this model, the community policing
strategy began to use information, technology, research, and data to
engage in more effective and better managed policing by anticipating and
disrupting the causes of disorder, rather than merely reacting to it.
One example is "hot spot" mapping, a strategy whereby police measure
violent crime by mapping its locations, identifying crime clusters, and
designing strategies to intervene and disrupt violent crime before it occurs.
The Federal role in this transformation has been to provide technology
grants, research on promising and best practices, training, and funding for
demonstration projects.
Police Must Begin to Measure and Manage Legitimacy in Order to
Improve It
As any management consultant will say, you cannot manage what you do
not measure. If police organizations truly want to begin to improve and
manage legitimacy, they need to begin by measuring it. Listed below are
the kinds of data collection systems and measurements that every police
organization, in collaboration with community groups, should design,
implement, and publicly disseminate.
 o Each police organization should conduct an annual community justice
audit. The purpose of the audit would be to obtain a quantitative and
qualitative measure of police performance through a city-level survey of
community perceptions of and satisfaction with local police. The audit
would provide detailed information about how the community of color
perceives and is affected by both crime and police activities to combat
crime. From the community's perspective, the audit would be a means of
making the police accountable to the community by facilitating
community monitoring and assessment of police programs. From the
police perspective, the results of the audit would function as an early-
warning system to help officers identify problem areas and fine-tune and
focus police training.
 o Each police organization, working with community groups, should
design and implement a racial profiling data collection system. By
providing information about the nature, character, and racial and ethnic
demographics of traffic and pedestrian stops, data collection has the
potential to shift the rhetoric surrounding racial profiling from accusations,
anecdotal stories, and stereotypes to a more rational discussion about the
appropriate allocation of police resources.
 o Each police organization, working with community groups, should
design and implement a system to collect data on use of excessive force.
Police should provide information about the nature, character, and racial
and ethnic demographics of any use of force on civilians. Community
members should be able to learn: What type of force was used? How much
force was used? What was the outcome of the contact? How often are
individual officers using force?
The New Federal Role: Conditioning Federal Funding and Participation in
Federal Training Programs on Legitimacy Reporting Requirements
The Federal Government now mandates the collection of information
about police performance with respect to crime control through the
Uniform Crime Reporting system and a hate crimes reporting system. In
the same way, Federal funding of police organizations and participation by
police organizations in Federal training programs ought to be contingent
on the design and implementation of yearly community justice audits, a
racial profiling data collection system, and an excessive use of force
reporting system.
------------------------------
Notes
1. Smith, S.K., G.W. Steadman, T.D. Minton, and M. Townsend, Criminal
Victimization and Perceptions of Community Safety in 12 Cities, 1998,
monograph, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of
Justice Statistics and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services,
May 1999, NCJ 173940, 25.
2. Johnson, K., "'Too Many' Believe They Can't Trust Police, Reno Says,"
USA Today, April 16, 1999, 8A.
3. Attorney General's remarks to the National Press Club on April 15,
1999, transcript by Federal News Service, 1. Retrieved December 7, 2000,
from the World Wide Web:
http://www.usdoj.gov:80/ag/speeches/1999/npc.htm.
4. Remarks by President Bill Clinton at the U.S. Department of Justice
conference on Strengthening Police-Community Relations, Marriott
Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, D.C., June 9, 1999, transcript by
Federal News Service. Retrieved December 7, 2000, from the World Wide
Web: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/19990609.html.
------------------------------
Commentary by Paul A. Logli, State's Attorney
Winnebago County
Rockford, Illinois
If we are to improve public trust and confidence in the criminal justice
system, we first must determine what the public perceives as the
weaknesses or, in some cases, the excesses of the system. Contrary to
portrayals in popular media, the perception of the criminal justice system,
by at least some accounts, is still favorable. The American Bar Association
(ABA) conducted a study of the criminal justice system that was released
in February 1999.[1] Among the study's key findings was that people still
believe strongly in the American justice system although they can also
identify areas that need improvement.
The ABA data indicate that 80 percent of all respondents either "strongly
agree" or "agree" that "in spite of its problems, the American justice
system is still the best in the world." Certain components of the justice
system were the objects of more confidence than others. For instance,
respondents had the most confidence, surprisingly enough, in the U.S.
Supreme Court, with 50 percent showing strong confidence in that
institution and only 15 percent having slight or no confidence in it.
Confidence in other Federal courts and judges and in the justice system
overall was not as strong, with about one-third of respondents saying they
felt "extremely" or "very confident" about each institution. Compare that,
however, with the same survey's finding of confidence in the U.S.
Congress among only 18 percent of respondents, and strong confidence in
lawyers shown by only 14 percent of respondents. The media fared the
worst, with a strong confidence rating from only 8 percent of respondents
and a low or no confidence rating from 60 percent of respondents.
When the results of this 1999 study were compared with a similar study
conducted in 1978, the ABA found that confidence in some key
components of the justice system showed significant increases.
Confidence levels in all kinds of courts have risen. Confidence in the local
police has also increased significantly. On the other hand, confidence in
doctors, organized religion, public schools, the U.S. Congress and, most
notably, the media has decreased.
Quality of Experience Influences Confidence
Generally speaking, the survey showed that people with greater knowledge
of the American justice system have significantly more confidence in it
than do those with less knowledge. Further, people who have had positive
court experiences were also more likely to have greater confidence in the
justice system than those who have had negative court experiences. The
problem identified by the survey, however, is that other data from the
study indicate that people's knowledge of the justice system is quite
uneven. For example, 99 percent of respondents knew that a person
accused of a crime has the right to be represented in court by a lawyer. At
the same time, only 66 percent knew that a criminal defendant is innocent
until proven guilty.
The executive summary of the ABA study of the criminal justice system
concludes as follows:
This study clearly shows that there is strong support for and a firm belief
in the justice system. Additionally, it identifies several ways of increasing
confidence in the system; through education, to improve people's current
uneven knowledge of the system; through actual court experiences; and
through focusing on key attitudes that drive confidence among targeted
demographic groups.
Media Raise Questions About Effectiveness of Criminal Justice System
In contrast to the rather positive findings of the ABA study, the public is
constantly given a negative slant on that criminal justice system by the
conventional media. An informal survey of recent articles reveals that the
media have concentrated on the following concerns as indicative of the
problems in the criminal justice system:
 o Serious questions about the wisdom of the current "War on Drugs."
 o Severe problems with the death penalty in this country, many of which
have been spurred by the release of death row inmates in the past 2 years
and a moratorium on executions imposed by Illinois Governor George
Ryan.
 o Articles in the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers that create
the impression prosecutors are engaging in widespread misconduct by
convicting innocent people of serious crimes.
 o Projections that the U.S. prison population will reach 2 million in the
year 2000. That figure is followed by assertions that many of those
inmates are nonviolent drug offenders and that, in many States, more
money is being spent on prison construction than on construction at State
institutions of higher learning.
At the same time that the media create numerous negative portrayals of the
system, other facts would seem to support the point of view that the
system is quite successful. It certainly could be viewed as favorable that
more offenders are behind bars, regardless of the costs, and less able to
victimize other citizens. Crime figures for 1999 show an extension of the
7-year trend of declining crime rates. In the first 6 months of 1999, the
number of serious crimes reported to police plunged 10 percent. A recent
survey by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America shows that teenage
drug use is leveling off and, in some cases, declining.[2]
Another cause of this divergence between the facts as we know them and
the system as portrayed by the media might be found in a recent study by
the Center for Media and Public Affairs.[3] According to the Center,
although the U.S. homicide rate dropped by 20 percent from 1992 to 1996,
the coverage of homicide in evening news reports during the same period
went up by 721 percent. Although a majority of Americans believe
juvenile crime has been rising, the fact is that the juvenile crime rate has
been dropping even faster than the adult crime rate. The mistaken
impression of most Americans may result from the fact that teens make
the news almost exclusively in connection with violent crime.
Recommendations for Improvement
As a prosecutor, and especially as a prosecutor from the state of Illinois, I
am not asserting that all is well and that there are no problems in the
criminal justice system. There have obviously been major problems in our
State with the cases of death row inmates who have been released and, in
some cases, fully exonerated of the crime. There certainly are problems in
the criminal justice system, and those problems must be addressed. At the
same time, the problems are not as severe or as widespread as the media
would have everyone believe. I believe that our efforts to improve the
public perception of the criminal justice system must be concentrated in
two major areas:
 o To the extent there are problems in the system, the problems must be
fixed. Prosecutors, judges, and legislators must take a comprehensive look
at the parts of the system that are clearly not working all the time.
Although a batting average of .300 will land somebody in the Baseball
Hall of Fame, the criminal justice system is expected to operate at 100-
percent efficiency--literally, batting 1.000. Although we may be batting
.900 or better, we must still make every effort to close the gap. The
American people will not be satisfied with any system that in 1,000 cases
may successfully prosecute 999 guilty people but improperly convicts 1
innocent person.
Some things that might be done to improve the system include restricting
the number of cases eligible for the death penalty; extending the use of
DNA as a postconviction tool for proving or disproving guilt, especially in
capital cases; and improving financial support for certain parts of the
criminal justice system, including the recruitment and retention of
prosecutors and defenders. Much of the high turnover problem in these
positions is due to a lack of economic return for a person who wishes to
make a long-term commitment as a prosecutor or defender. Federal
support through unrestricted block grants could help in this area.
 o The justice system simply has to gain the upper hand in promoting its
story through conventional media. Whether an organization or system
makes automobiles, builds homes, or moves people through the criminal
justice process, the negative story will always get top billing. Favorable
press will make the inside pages, but it will never come to the forefront as
much as news pieces that reveal a flawed, ineffective, or corrupt process.
Although I am not suggesting that the criminal justice system buy 60-
second commercials during the Super Bowl, it is important that our story
gets out. Every component of the system must undertake efforts to smooth
out the uneven gaps in knowledge about how the system works and why it
is still the best system in the world.
------------------------------
Notes
1. Perceptions of the U.S. Justice System, Washington, DC: American Bar
Association, 1999. Retrieved December 7, 2000, from the World Wide
Web: http://www.abanet.org/media/perception/home.html.
2. Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, New York: Partnership for a
Drug-Free America, 1999, Retrieved December 7, 2000, from the World
Wide Web: http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/research/pats1999T.asp.
3. Overholser, Geneva, Op-ed column, Washington Post, December 24,
1999.
------------------------------
Commentary by Tracey Meares, Professor
University of Chicago Law School
Chicago, Illinois
The theory behind a policy opportunity I have designated "law
enforcement for law abiders" was presented earlier. (See appendix.) The
concept of law enforcement for law abiders is that perceptions of
government legitimacy--or public confidence--are intimately related to
achieving compliance with the law. Here I will explore three ideas related
to this concept.
Public Trust as a Function of Perception Rather Than Outcome
My notion of law enforcement for law abiders is premised on achieving
compliance through promoting the attachment of individuals to
governmental authority. As Tom Tyler and Allan Lind have explained,
"[T]he use of procedures regarded as fair by all parties facilitates the
maintenance of positive relations among group members, preserving the
fabric of society, even in the face of the conflict of interest that exists in
any group whose members have different preference structures and
different beliefs concerning how the group should manage its affairs."[1]
Thus, relational procedural justice provides individuals with indicators of
how the authority in question views the group to which an individual
perceives himself or herself belonging. To make such an assessment,
individuals focus on three factors: standing, neutrality, and trust.[2] By
"standing," researchers are referring to indications that the authority
recognizes an individual's status and membership in a valued group and
affords him or her dignified and respectful treatment. "Neutrality" refers to
indications that the individual is not made to feel less worthy than others
in the decisionmaking process. "Trust" refers to the extent to which an
individual believes that the authority in question can be trusted to behave
fairly. Each factor affects the relationship between the individual and the
authorities using the procedure.[3] The procedures themselves inform the
individual about his or her value to the group. The assessments individuals
make about their value to the group in turn influence their assessment of
the legitimacy of authority, which influence their inclination to voluntarily
comply with the law.
Perceptions are critically important, not outcomes. What matters is
whether people believe authorities think they count, as manifested in the
way authorities behave. What authorities actually think is largely
irrelevant. The management of perceptions, then, has great potential for
influencing compliance in the new millennium. At the same time, the lack
of a necessary connection between perceptions and actual beliefs
potentially suggests a dark side to this approach.
The Generality of Perception Matters
One limitation of Tyler's work on the link between legitimacy and
compliance is that it treats primarily people who have specific experiences
with police, courts, or some other institution. However, the vast majority
of those who form and express opinions about governmental entities (as
documented by the surveys discussed in Professor Lawrence Sherman's
paper on public trust in the criminal justice system) do not have such
experiences. Rather, those individuals' experiences are indirect--through
their social milieu--instead of through direct encounters. There is a need
for research that addresses how perceptions (and subsequent dispositions
to obey the law) are affected by indirect encounters.
One study by psychologist Janice Nadler explores this indirect
connection.[4] Nadler's experiment empirically tested the theoretical link
between perceptions of the justice system and compliance with the law by
exposing participants to unjust legal outcomes.[5] Her hypothesis was that
those exposed to unjust outcomes would exhibit decreased legal
compliance. Interestingly, there was an overall effect of increased
compliance (preferences for guilty verdicts 63.8 percent of the time among
those primed with an unjust outcome, compared with 50 percent among
those primed with the just outcome). However, subgroups of African-
Americans and Hispanics reacted as hypothesized: When primed with
unjust outcomes, those subjects uniformly refused to comply with the law.
Other subjects were either apparently unaffected by the "prime" or
displayed higher rates of compliance after witnessing an unjust result (e.g.,
whites and males).
This study suggests the possibility that when minorities are exposed to
very egregious examples of injustice--whether or not they themselves
experience it--that exposure may affect both perceptions of the system's
legitimacy and compliance with the law.
Accountability Matters
The previous points underscore the importance of creating accountability
structures in the implementation of criminal justice. Accountability can be
achieved in many ways. Citizen review of police is one common method.
Victim participation in criminal justice decisionmaking is another. One
largely untapped method is to encourage citizen participation in
enforcement of the law. I have promoted one such method in Chicago by
drafting language in the city's revised antigang loitering law that creates a
partnership between community members and police by requiring police
to consult with community groups before designating areas of enforcement
as the ordinance requires. As far as I am aware, this legislation is unique.
Increase Legitimacy of Authorities to Increase Confidence
I have addressed the link between legitimacy and compliance because it is
clear that by addressing issues of legitimacy and accountability at a
general level, outcomes can also be affected. Carrots and sticks do work in
producing outcomes, but often the benefits of instrumental programs are
costly because they depend on limited resources. These programs can be
fleeting and time consuming. Rather than attempting to achieve
compliance through instrumental carrot-and-stick means that are
inherently unstable and costly, it may be preferable to attempt to achieve
voluntary compliance by increasing the store of legitimacy held by
authorities--a store that may be changed simply by changing the
procedures and methods that authorities use when dealing with citizens.
------------------------------
Notes
1. Tyler, T.R., and E.A. Lind, "A Relational Model of Authority in
Groups," in Advances In Experimental Social Psychology, ed. M. Zanna,
San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1992: 134.
2. See Tyler, T.R., "The Psychology of Procedural Justice: A Test of the
Group Value Model," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57
(1989): 833.
3. See Tyler and Lind, "A Relational Model of Authority in Groups."
4. Nadler, J., "The Effects of Perceived Injustice on Deference to the
Law," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Law and Society
Association, 1999.
5. The subjects were first exposed to a "prime," a videotaped news story
about David Cash, the 18-year-old who watched his friend abduct a 7-
year-old in a Las Vegas casino, and who did nothing when the friend raped
and murdered the girl. Some of the subjects then received an unjust
outcome story (nothing happens to David Cash in the criminal justice
system--[the truth]), and others received a just outcome story (Cash is
convicted of accessory to murder and receives a prison sentence of 1 year).
The second part of the experiment tested compliance with the law by
asking the subjects to sit as jurors in a case of a homeless defendant with
two prior felony convictions charged with the felony of stealing a
shopping cart in which he kept his belongings. The materials made clear
that the jurisdiction's "three strikes" rule would result in life imprisonment
for the defendant if he was found guilty, and they also made clear that
there was no doubt about the outcome if the jurors faithfully applied the
law to the facts at hand. Those who rendered a not guilty verdict were
nullifying the law.
------------------------------
Appendix
I'd like to promote a single policy opportunity, "law enforcement for law
abiders," and discuss the policy components that must be implemented to
achieve it. My focus is on what I have sometimes referred to as the
"normative" conception of law enforcement. I want to demonstrate that
the normative conception of law enforcement offers a vision of law
enforcement and policing that is very different from the popular "get
tough" approach. I also want to demonstrate that the alternative vision of
normative law enforcement ultimately will be more effective than our
current approach in both reducing crime and doing less harm to
community structures. I use the term "normative law enforcement" in
contrast to a conception of law enforcement that is instrumental.
As Tom Tyler explains in his excellent book, Why People Obey the Law,
they do so for at least three categories of reasons. The first category
includes instrumental reasons. That is, people obey the law because they
fear the consequences if they do not. The instrumental view of compliance
fuels our current get-tough deterrent strategies. These strategies focus on
lawbreakers, and they attempt to control criminal behavior by convincing
the lawbreaker on the margin that the costs of breaking laws are higher
than the benefits.
Tyler offers two additional categories of reasons for compliance, which he
refers to as "normative." Morality is one: People obey the law because the
articulated law comports with their own moral schedules. Legitimacy is
another: People obey the law because they believe that government has the
right to dictate proper behavior. Tyler also empirically demonstrates that
the normative categories are more important to compliance than the
instrumental category.
Legitimacy as a basis for normative compliance is the engine driving my
position. I believe the concept is especially interesting and useful for
thinking about innovative criminal law policy because of the way it links
with a community-level explanation for criminal offending. The
community-level explanation for criminal offending is grounded in the
classic sociological work by Shaw and McKay. Their thesis is that
community characteristics themselves, as distinct from mere aggregations
of demographic factors, such as poverty, joblessness, and family
disruption, contribute to crime in a neighborhood.
Community-Level Structural Factors Weigh Heavily in Compliance With
the Law
Indeed, the empirical work in this area suggests that when we are able to
control for such community-level structural factors as the prevalence of
friendship networks, participation in formal and informal organizations
such as churches and PTAs, and the level of communitywide supervision
of teen peer groups, then the impact on crime of a factor such as economic
disadvantage diminishes significantly.
In addition to factors that influence community structural cohesion, the
level of cultural organization in a community is important to determining
the ability of that community to control crime. Cohesive communities
exert social control by realizing common values centered on obeying the
law. These common values are reinforced among a community's residents
through daily conduct and discourse. A community that has wide-ranging,
diverse, and fragmented values and norms can be considered to have low
levels of cultural organization.
Fragmented and diverse values that lead to lawbreaking flow predictably
from weak community organizational structures, such as infrequent
participation in formal organizations and low levels of teen peer group
supervision. Thus, because of the connection between social structure in a
neighborhood and cultural cohesiveness, we might say that community
organization structures operate like "norm highways," along which
cultural values that have crime control as their goal travel. Urban
ethnography helps to make this point.
"Street Values" Versus "Decent Values"
In Streetwise, sociologist Elijah Anderson describes the clash between the
"decent" values (norms associated with hard work, family life, the church,
and law-abiding behavior) held by some families in an urban community
he calls "Northton," and the "streetwise" values (norms associated with
drug culture, unemployment, little family responsibility, and crime) held
by others. Anderson explains that the diffusion of norms in Northton was
correlated with a weakening in the community-level structures that could
function as norm highways in the community.
The critical aspect of Anderson's research is his demonstration that in the
highest crime community studied, neither streetwise values nor decent
values predominated. Although many of the community's residents
continued to adhere to decent values even as the structural components
indicative of community cohesion began to weaken, they did so in a world
where they were forced simultaneously to negotiate a significant and rival
set of values--the streetwise code of conduct--in their daily lives.
Competition between streetwise and decent values made it more difficult
for law-abiding Northton residents to achieve and reinforce a common set
of values--one directed toward obeying the law--among all residents in
their community.
Current Policy Works Against Itself
To this condition in the inner city, we apply contemporary law
enforcement policy. But our policy too often does not reflect familiarity
with the lessons of social organization theory. Contemporary law
enforcement policy is obsessed with the lawbreaker; much of it is
dominated by an instrumental view of compliance with the law. As I have
outlined in some of my work, we can expect this approach to have
negative consequences.
Consider drug law enforcement. First, we have ratcheted up the penalties
for drug offenders-- large and, especially, small--at the State and Federal
levels. Second, we have trained our sights on low-level drug dealers
because people tend to think that dealing is worse than possession and
dealers are, in a sense, a more cost-efficient target: They are fewer, more
concentrated and, in some ways, easier to catch.
Our current policy attempts to reduce crime by raising its price for the
potential criminal offender by lengthening sentences and increasing the
number of police officers on the street. We might think there could be an
associated benefit for social organization (see exhibit). That is, reduction
of crime (on the right side of the exhibit) could lead to stronger
community social structures, which in turn will amplify the outcomes of a
get-tough strategy. Thus, we might be able to purchase improvement in
social organization through the business-as-usual plan. However, the
diagram also demonstrates that there are negative consequences of this
approach, even if crime is reduced.
Again consider drug offending. Drug dealers are not randomly distributed
throughout society. They are geographically concentrated in communities
that are poorly structured for crime reduction. High incarceration rates
mean high rates of removal of individuals from the neighborhoods where
they live. When we remove these people (usually men) from the
community, we can predict family disruption, an unemployment base with
low potential for social capital creation, and geographic mobility. In short,
we can predict the precursors of disruption of social organization. Our
current policy, then, is at loggerheads with itself.
Additionally, the normative conception of compliance with the law
demonstrates that there is another important reason to be skeptical that law
enforcement-as-usual will get the job done. Racial asymmetry in law
enforcement outcomes can diminish the commitment of law abiders to
government authorities, thereby undermining the third category of
normative law enforcement: perceptions of legitimacy.
The level of commitment to government among law abiders will
determine in part the norms they pass on to their children. My concern is
that a weak attachment to government predicts even weaker attachment on
the part of their children and predictably higher levels of offending.
Success Is Linked to Law Abiders, Not Lawbreakers
According to the normative view of compliance, our goal is not to
manipulate the cost of crime for lawbreakers; rather, our primary goal is to
manipulate the perceptions of government legitimacy held by law abiders.
In this way, we can hope to embed norms of voluntary compliance--
intergenerationally--to achieve crime reduction.
What would a law enforcement policy that focused on law abiders look
like? Let me start with policing. I have explored various police practices
and law enforcement policies that I think are conducive to improving
social organization. Many of these policies, such as curfews, loitering
laws, and reverse drug stings, look much like regular policing retooled to
improve social organization. To fully realize the potential of law
enforcement to improve social organization, however, we must make our
"target" not crime, but rather the social structure of communities. We
know from empirical work that positive social norms are already prevalent
in communities. It is just that they are losing the norm competition
because the infrastructure is damaged.
Law enforcement for law abiders focuses on ways to bring individuals to
community-level social processes and promote methods of integrating
institutions particularly suited to the task of crime reduction through the
promulgation of law-abiding norms. The targeting of institutional
integration is particularly important, as the work of Northwestern
University sociologist Albert Hunter shows. Hunter demonstrates that
there are three levels of social order that we should be concerned about.
The first is the private level, which is essentially family, friends, and
sometimes neighborhoods to whom an individual is closely connected.
The second is the parochial level, which is the melange of community-
level institutions such as churches, community groups, local business, and
so forth. The third level is the public level, which is composed of formal
bureaucratic agencies. The police would be part of the third level, as
would other agencies of local government.
Hunter explains that the public level of social order relies on the state's
legitimate monopoly of the use of coercion and force to maintain order,
while the other two levels cannot sustain such use. The problem is that
while the public level's use of coercion is sometimes necessary, its use
alone is never enough to counteract the disorder that supports fear and
feeds crime.
The social organization thesis also suggests that the breakdown of the
parochial level of social order--the withdrawal of individuals from
parochial-level institutions--feeds crime in crime-plagued neighborhoods.
In such areas, we see tightly knit groups of family and friends relying on
each other, but not on a wider group of neighbors, to prevent crime. Such a
"barricade" approach is inconsistent with collective efficacy and leads to a
fragmentation of social networks that makes promoting the parochial level
of social order difficult.
At the same time, these close-knit groups at the private level continue
demanding more of the public level of social order--demanding higher and
higher levels of use of force and other public-level resources. These
demands ultimately undermine the legitimacy of this use of force, leading
to lower levels of trust in the state and lower levels of voluntary
compliance. The way out of this situation is to reinforce the parochial level
of social order. How can this be done? One strategy is to look at the ways
in which the public level of social order might reinforce the parochial
level.
The Expanded Role of Law Enforcement
Law enforcement agencies are uniquely situated to provide resources and
direction for the organizational efforts of private individuals and groups.
Participation by residents in community policing programs is itself an
aspect of local community solidarity. Such activity, moreover, not only
reinforces the community social processes that prevent crime, but also
constructs and transmits law-abiding norms. The key is to locate and unite
the right institutions. In my most recent work, I have focused on
institutional cooperation between the church and the police. The black
church today is one of the few stable social institutions in low-income
inner-city neighborhoods. The police are another stable presence. In many
urban areas, however, predominantly black churches have little contact
with the police and, where there is contact, it is too often adversarial.
Black churches and church leaders have traditionally played a role in
faulting the police for their abusive behavior toward inner-city residents
and their lack of response to crime in low-income communities.
Consequently, it is very difficult for church leaders, who serve at the
pleasure of their congregants, to assume what might otherwise be their
natural roles as trusted intermediaries between congregation members and
police. The reluctance or refusal of church leaders to vouch for the police
sustains an institutional resource mismatch in many urban low-income
communities.
Social organization theory, however, suggests the possibility of
considerable crime reduction benefits to communities that are able to
bridge the gap between the church and the police. For example, in West
Garfield Park, a community all but devastated by violent crime, the
commander of Chicago's highest crime police district led approximately
1,000 Chicagoans in a 30-minute prayer vigil. In groups of 10, the
participants stood on designated corners--the same corners where lookouts
often hawked their wares by calling out, "rocks and blows!"--and prayed.
Following the prayer vigil, the whole group and more than 7,000 more
community residents went to a large park for a "praise celebration," where
music was provided by a 400-member gospel choir, as well as food and
inspirational speeches.
It is easy to dismiss this event as a publicity stunt, and more than a few of
the law enforcement officials involved were uncomfortable about the
explicit association of religion with policing. But attention to norms
suggests that such an assessment is misguided, as the link had an
important police purpose. Although it was not stated as such, a central
potential outcome of the prayer vigil was behavioral change on the part of
the law-abiding residents of West Garfield Park that will lead to improved
social organization and eventually greater normative compliance with the
law.
Police-facilitated prayer vigils are just one aspect of a new vision for law
enforcement that is focused on law abiders. The full potential of this
approach can be realized only by thinking about ways to bring individuals
to community-level processes as well as ways to promote methods of
integrating institutions particularly suited to the task of crime reduction.
Additionally, greater strides must be taken to prevent law-abiding
residents of the most crime-plagued communities from being further
alienated from government institutions.
Strategies for Improvement
Preventing further alienation
 o Pay greater attention to racial asymmetry in punishment.
 o Provide alternatives to prison for low-level drug offenders.
 o Track the racial demographics of arrest more efficiently.
 o Ensure that serious offenders receive just punishment.
Promoting community policing strategies that are consistent with
parochial institutional integration
 o Place the focus of community policing at the parochial level, not the
individual level; the key actor is the local police commander, not the beat
cop.
 o Promote a vision of policing that sees beat meetings as opportunities for
deliberative democracy.
 o Promote bottom-up programming rather than top-down, expert-based
programming.
Enhancing legitimacy
 o Understand that law abiders are essential to law enforcement.
 o Understand that advertising is as important as traditional crime policy.
 o Emphasize that local police need to understand their communities and
cooperate with institutions that are an accepted part of the community.
------------------------------
Notes
1. See Meares, T.L., "Place and Crime," Chicago-Kent Law Review 73
(1998): 679-80.
2. See Tyler, T.R., Why People Obey the Law, New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1990.
3. See Shaw, C.R., and H.D. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban
Areas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
4. See Sampson, R.J., and W.B. Groves, "Community Structure and
Crime: Testing Social Disorganization Theory," American Journal of
Sociology 94 (1989): 774; R.J. Sampson, S.W. Raudenbush, and F. Earls,
"Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective
Efficacy," Science 277 (August 15, 1997): 918.
5. See Anderson, E., Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban
Community, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990; see also
Anderson, E., "The Code of the Streets," Atlantic Monthly 273 (5) (May
1994): 80-94.
6. See Meares, T.L., "Social Organization and Drug Law Enforcement,"
American Criminal Law Review 35 (1998): 191.
7. See Hunter, A., "Private, Parochial and Public Social Orders: The
Problem of Crime and Incivility in Urban Communities," in The
Challenge of Social Control, eds. G. Suttles and M. Zald, Norwood, NJ:
Ablex Publishing, 1985.