U.S. Department of Justice 

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 


JUNE 2003



Community Policing

IN

ACTION!

A Practitioners Eye View of Organizational Change 

JUNE 2003 

by 

Andrea Schneider, Project Director 
and Visiting Fellow 

Contributing Authors 

Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer, Seattle Police Department 
Chief Scott Seaman, Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department 
Joan Sweeney, Ph.D., Boston Police Department (Consultant) 

This project was supported by grant number 2000CKWXK112 awarded by the Office of Community 
Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions contained in this document 
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. 
Department of Justice. 


Expert Panel 

Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer, Seattle Police 
Department 

Chief Scott Seaman, Los Gatos-Monte Sereno 
Police Department 

Joan Sweeney, Ph.D., Boston Police Department 
(Consultant) 

Commander Catherine McNeilly, Pittsburgh Police 
Department 

Collaborators 

Special thanks to these departments for the 
countless hours spent writing, on the phone, and 
during site visits over the course of this project. 
Their candor, remarkable insights into community 
policing, and generous sharing of time are greatly 
appreciated. 

Boston Police Department 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department 

Longmont Police Department 

Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department 

Portland Police Department 

Rock Hill Police Department 

San Jose Police Department 

Savannah Police Department 

Windsor Police Department 


Authors Acknowledgements 

We would like to thank the following police and sheriffs departments for their time and special effort. 
Although not all of these agencies appear specifically in this report, their expertise in law enforcement and 
commitment to community policing added immeasurably to the success of this project. 

Albuquerque Police Department Oakland Police Department 
Bay St. Louis Police Department Pine Bluff Police Department 
Boulder Police Department Riverside Police Department 
Bowling Green Police Department Sacramento Police Department 
East Hartford Police Department Sacramento County Sheriffs Department 
Howard County Police Department Salinas Police Department 
Jacksonville Sheriffs Office Tempe Police Department 
Lowell Police Department Tucson Police Department 
Manchester Police Department University of California, Los Angeles 
Metropolitan Police Department 
Police Department 
New Haven Police Department 
Ventura Police Department 

Westminster Police 
Nassau Police Department 

This fellowship project was made possible by a grant from COPS. We are grateful for that support. We are 
especially grateful to project manager Robert Chapman, who contributed in innumerable ways to the writing 
of this report and tirelessly supported the project through its development. Special thanks also goes to the 
COPS team: Veh Bezdikian, Pam Cammarata, Margaret DElia, Tom Frazier, Sheryl Thomas, Theresa Mercer, 
and Ellen Scrivner, who provided countless suggestions, participated vigorously in the expert panel sessions, 
and provided their own expert advice along the way. Special thanks to Katherine McQuay for her editing 
assistance. Our appreciation is also extended to the COPS Communications Team: Maria Carolina Rozas, Kelly 
Tapp, and Noah Teates, who organized and edited this publication. 

This report represents the hard work and commitment to community policing of many people all over the 
country. We remain in your debt. 



TABLE OF 
CONTENTS 
FOREWORD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii 

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 
Synopsis of Results From Nine Law Enforcement Agencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 
Common Organizational Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 
Recommendations for Future Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 
About This Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 

CHAPTER 2. BOSTON: SAME COPS/SAME NEIGHBORHOOD 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 
Lessons Learned  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 

CHAPTER 3. CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG: A LIVING LAB 
FOR PROBLEM-SOLVING POLICING 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 

 
CHAPTER 4. LONGMONT: COMMUNITY POLICING STARTS WITH COMMUNICATION 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 



CHAPTER 5. LOS ANGELES COUNTY: A SHERIFFS VISION FOR COMMUNITY POLICING 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 

CHAPTER 6. PORTLAND: EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 

CHAPTER 7. ROCK HILL: EMBEDDING COMMUNITY POLICING IN NEIGHBORHOODS 
AND OFFICERS CAREERS 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 
Department Observations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 
Lessons Learned  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 

CHAPTER 8. SAN JOSE: CREATING A SHARED VISION THROUGH 
LEADERSHIP TRAINING 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 
Lessons Learned  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 

CHAPTER 9. SAVANNAH: TRANSFERRING OFFSITE LEARNING INTO 
NEIGHBORHOOD BEATS 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 

CHAPTER 10. WINDSOR: A NEW PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN 
LAW ENFORCEMENT AND CITIZENS 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 

CHAPTER 11. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 

APPENDIX A: THE FELLOWSHIP AND EXPERT PANEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 

APPENDIX C: ACP GRANTEES AND ORGANIZATIONAL 
CHANGE COMPONENTS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87 

APPENDIX D: ABOUT THE AUTHORS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 

APPENDIX B: PROJECT TYPES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 



FOREWORD 

Law enforcement agencies are traditionally reluctant to reexamine processes that have proven effective, but 
what if theres a better way? Have you ever wondered what it would take to reorient your agency around the 
principles of community policing? This report charts the progress of a group of law enforcement agencies 
determined to do precisely that. Some got farther than others, some started farther ahead, but they all 
learned valuable lessons about the process. The COPS Office has collected these lessons in this report, and 
they truly provide a practitioners eye view of the challenges and obstacles to implementing organizational 
changes in a 21st century law enforcement agency. Community policing is that better way, and the COPS 
Office helped these agencies embrace it. 
 

CHAPTER 1 
INTRODUCTION To The Advancing Community Policing Grant Program 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant Program . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 
Synopsis of Results From Nine Law Enforcement Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 
Common Organizational Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 
Recommendations for Future Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 
About This Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 



CHAPTER 1 

INTRODUCTION 

To The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant Program 


Community policing is based on the premise 
that partnerships between police and citizens 
will help increase public safety and reduce crime. 
A seemingly simple concept, community policing 
actually requires a complex and challenging mix of 
changes to a police departments organizational 
culture and structure. These changes are usually 
combined with innovative approaches to fighting 
or preventing crime that may call for extensive 
community cooperation, planning, and outreach. 

Change is complicated, and never more so than in 
a hierarchical, traditional organization such as a 
police department or sheriffs office. Aligning a law 
enforcement agencys resources, processes, and 
systems with the community policing philosophy 
can be a taxing undertaking. For a community 
policing change to last within a law enforcement 
organization, the nature of the organization itself 
must change. Thus, how effectively change is 
implemented will determine whether that organization 
sustains community policing as a new policing 
model or retrenches to a more traditional style 
of policing. 

The Office of Community Oriented Policing 
Services (the COPS Office) was created in 1994 
by the U.S. Department of Justice to help local 
law enforcement agencies develop or improve 
community policing in their jurisdictions. Since its 
creation, the COPS Office has awarded more than 
nine billion dollars in grants across the Nation to 
hire more officers, purchase new technology, and 
support local problem-solving approaches to fighting 
crime and disorder. This report examines the 
results of the Advancing Community Policing 
(ACP) Grant Program established by COPS in 1997 
to help law enforcement agencies overcome 



obstacles and build the necessary infrastructure to 
strengthen and institutionalize their community 
policing programs. 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant Program 

To help agencies garner the necessary resources 
and the flexibility to use them effectively, the 
COPS Office organized ACP grants according to 
Organizational Change and Demonstration Center 
components. In November 1997, COPS awarded 
$18 million under the Organizational Change 
component of ACP.1 Ninety-six law enforcement 
agencies were funded, each agency receiving up to 
$250,000 under a one-year grant. The ACP programs 
main goal was to help law enforcement 
agencies develop an infrastructure to support the 
community policing philosophy and corresponding 
program initiatives. This report collects the lessons 
learned by many of those 96 agencies and focuses 
specifically on nine programs that were examined 
in depth by COPS. 

ACP had five funding categories that encompass 
the wide range of organizational changes COPS 
believed most needed support: Leadership and 
Management, Modifying Organizational Structures, 
Organizational Culture, Re-engineering 
Other Components, and Research and Planning. 
Thus, through the ACP grant process the COPS 
Office could: 

- Foster progressive and creative leadership and 
management approaches 

- Help agencies modify organizational structures 
to support decentralized decision-making 
and responsibility, most often with geographic 
accountability 

- Help change the predominant organizational 
culture from a traditional, response-oriented 
ethos to one that uses partnerships and an 
analytical approach to identifying problems in 
order to develop tailored interventions 

- Help police administrators re-engineer other 
components of the organization to support 
community policing, such as training, crime 
analysis, 911 call management, department policies, 
procedures, performance measurement systems, 
officer evaluation tools, and documents 
that articulate strategy and vision 

- Support the advancement of internal research 
and planning, because public agencies often 
under-emphasize investments in such efforts 

-Improve systems and processes to facilitate 
communication and flow of information 

COPS relied on individual police agencies to set 
their program objectives and strategies. Those 
agencies were expected to seek out the necessary 
training, experts, and guidance to meet their 
goals. COPS attempted to generate ideas during 
the application process by suggesting allowable 
project costs that would cover the necessary tools 
to support the change efforts. Such costs included 
technology and equipment, hiring new employees, 
overtime for current employees to devote to the 
program, travel to other jurisdictions, and external 
sources of expertise (such as consultants, trainers, 
and conferences).2 

Innovation Through Process Change 

What made the ACP program innovative was its 
focus on the process 
of organizational change. The 
programs goal was to achieve long-term systemic 
change that would lead, in turn, to concrete results. 
Although emphasis on organizational issues might 
not generate dramatic or immediate program out
comes, changing organizational processes and 
related activities such as training can result in long-
term operational changes that support community 
policing. Although COPS sought definite long-term 
outcomes, the ultimate objective was to create the 
organizational capacity to support, advance, and 
sustain a philosophy and set of program activities 
that could run counter to traditional methods. 



COPS also encouraged applicants to articulate 
their organizational change strategy outside the 
scope of these grant efforts, then link their 
proposed strategies to further long-term change. The 
exercise of applying for funding may have allowed 
many agencies to reflect on both short-term 
needs and desired long-term changes. The goals 
were to become better police officers, run more 
effective organizations, and prevent and solve 
more crimes. Emphasizing process improvements 
supported the system changes needed to sustain 
community policing practices and integrate them 
into the daily work of the agency. 

Synopsis of Results From Nine 
Law Enforcement Agencies 

The ACP grants served as catalysts for a wide 
range of organizational change initiatives across 
the Nation. After the program was well under way, 
the COPS Office sponsored a research study to 
examine how representative grantees were imple-
menting their ACP-supported initiatives and to cull 
findings and lessons learned from the grantees 
experiences. Nine sites were selected for indepth 
examination by a visiting fellow and an expert 
panel.3 After reviewing numerous sites around 
the country, the expert panel recognized that 
each agency used its funding differently, custom-
izing its effort to the local communitys unique 


Exhibit 1. The Nine ACP Programs Evaluated 
AGENCY 
PROJECT TYPE 
GRANT FOCUS 
Boston Police Department, MA 
Modifying Organizational Structures 
Changed organizational processes to support a new patrol strategy 
and creation of Neighborhood Beat Teams as part of a larger 
organizational change management process, based on a citywide 
strategic planning effort 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, NC 
Organizational Culture 
Used outside expertise to combine greater use of technology with 
problem-solving methods to address community problems 

Longmont Police Department, CO 
Re-engineering Other Components 
Used a community strategic plan to improve communication with 
the community; utilized outside expertise to assist in organizational 
change practices; significantly reorganized the department to 
support community policing 

Los Angeles County Sheriffs Office, CA 
Organizational Culture 
Funded training in community policing leadership for 300 sergeants 
and 100 lieutenants as part of a plan to develop a community 
policing bureau 

Portland Police Bureau, OR 
Re-engineering Other Components 
Created an emergency information system that integrates with 
the existing technology infrastructure to address neighborhood 
communication 

Rock Hill Police Department, SC 
Organizational Culture 
Developed a multitiered career ladder program for officers below 
the rank of sergeant to enhance recruitment and retention; used 
funds to address an organizational crisis 

San Jose Police Department, CA 
Leadership and Management 
Developed strong community policing leadership simulation models 
for community members and police; involved community members 
in significant portions of grant activity 

Savannah Police Department, GA 
Leadership and Management 
Sent teams of sergeants and lieutenants to community policing 
agencies around the country to bring ideas back to Savannah and 
successfully adapted such models as Crime Free Housing for 
Savannah 

Windsor Police Department, CT 
Organizational Culture 
Catalyst for community policing in the department and the 
community; worked closely with union officials and community 
members to create an effective foundation for community policing 
programs 


organizational needs and goals. Exhibit 1 summarizes how 
the nine sites used their grants, by project type.4 

Law enforcement executives and their staffs 
brought energy, passion, creativity, and commitment 
to the ACP grant program. The participating 
agencies desired both to learn from their mistakes 
and to share their successes with others. Although 
change is inherently difficult, these agencies were 
happy to be involved in the process and proud to 
be identified with community policing strategies 
and activities. Even better, the departments saw 
tangible results: they became more efficient, solved 
community crime problems more effectively, and 
got more involved in their neighborhoods. 

The experiences that proved most difficult 
occurred when leadership was insufficient, e.g., 
the grant was assigned to just one or two people 
without support from management. These difficulties 
demonstrated that widespread support 
throughout the department or agency is essential. 

Misunderstandings during collaboration also 
detracted from success. In some cases, when 
multiple agencies worked as partners, issues of 
power and control arose. The study found that in 
most cases, agencies need to know more about 
developing and maintaining collaborative 
relationships and how to anticipate problems, 
especially when sharing money or influence. 

The grantees were energetic about their ACP 
grant efforts and used their grants to explore 
better methods and processes. They took risks, as 
their projects often represented changes that ran 
counter to the prevailing organizational culture. 
Successful projects incorporated input and activity 
from many levels of the organization, including line 
officers, first-line supervisors, and managers. 

ACP grantees worked on changes with which law 
enforcement nationally has little practical experience. 
Therefore, they had few examples to follow. 
Nonetheless, the nine agencies featured in this 
report are excited about their accomplishments and 
committed to community policing as the next 
phase of law enforcement in the United States. 
They are looking for national leadership and ways to 
build on their successes. As people become more 
invested in and experienced with the problem-
solving process, the desire for continuing progress 
will grow. 

Common Organizational Issues 

Although each grantees experience was different, 
some shared characteristics of organizational 
change emerged during the study. New 
community policing responsibilities created new 
expectations from both the agencies and the public. 
Agencies needed to align their vision and goals 
for the organization with the day-to-day realities of 
policing. The following issues were identified by 
the expert panel study as critical elements of each 
grantees ACP project: 

- Accountability 
- Performance evaluations 
- Increased organizational capacity 
- Communication 
- Community oriented government 
- Customized services to fit the location 
- Engaging and investing in mid-level management 
- Leadership 
- Networking, connecting, and learning 
- Resources 
- Time for change 
- Unions 
- Vendor selection 




The broad range of problems and successes 
grantees experienced in each of these areas goes 
to the heart of why the ACP program was so 
important. Implementing a new community policing 
initiative is not enough; steps must be taken to 
institutionalize the initiative within the department. 
There are many facets, twists, and turns to be 
managed along the way so that community policing 
becomes rooted in the departments culture 
and practices.5 

Accountability 

Accountability was one of the first themes to 
emerge among the grantees. Changing organizational 
expectations led to changes in police 
responsibilities and increased police accountability to the 
community. At the same time an agency was 
changing its performance, it also had to change 
public expectations of that performance. Tensions 
often developed between traditional public expectations 
(reactivepolice come in and solve the communitys 
crime problems) and emerging community 
policing strategies (proactivethe community 
works with police as a partner to enhance public 
safety as well as to prevent and solve crimes). The 
newly implemented community policing strategies 
under ACP sought to share accountability with 
neighborhoods for increased public safety. 

In addition to responding to every community 
request, law enforcement professionals were 
expected to be actively involved in the daily life of 
the community. Officers and deputies could not 
give up what they had been doing, but they now 
had much more to do. Teaching members of the 
community to work with law enforcement as 
active partners and become accountable for the 
results was a shift for most officers. 

Crossing the barrier between law enforcement 
and the community often led to reductions in certain 
crimes. When residents and officers identified 
a drug trafficking hot spot in a Charlotte, North 
Carolina neighborhood, police pursued a partnership 
with the affected community. Although the 
process was not always easy or smooth, by working 
together, police and residents moved the drug 
traffic pattern out of the affected area. After the 
success of the community collaboration, a paradox 
emerged that found the police facing enhanced 
expectations about the level of service in the 
affected area, and the communitys fear about the 
loss of police presence. 

As law enforcement leaders initiated change, the 
support of mayors, city managers, city councils, 
and county boards helped legitimize the effort in 
the publics eyes. Over the course of these 
changes, the publics involvement and participation 
in the law enforcement process increased significantly. 
Many agencies found that once communities 
became aware that law enforcement 
professionals in their areas were beginning to 
implement community policing, they wanted it 
implemented in their own neighborhoods, regardless 
of the local governments ability to fund it. 
That demand created pressure on law enforcement 
leaders, who had to remain accountable 
both to the community and, fiscally, to the city. 
When asked how he believed the public would 
react if his agency abandoned its new community 
policing strategies, the Lowell, Massachusetts 
superintendent of police responded by predicting 
that citizens would bring complaints not only to 
him as the chief law enforcement executive, but 
to the city council as well. 

The ACP grant program was designed to provide 
law enforcement agencies a unique opportunity to 
change in ways that might otherwise have been 
very difficult. Law enforcement agencies are like 
any other established organizations: reluctant to 
abandon traditional methodologies and organizational 
structures. The support of the COPS Office 
combined with the support of law enforcement 
and government executives gave credibility to 
efforts to change these organizations, which, in 
turn, increased support for the projects among 
both line officers and community members. This 



widespread support helped participants move 
more quickly and hold themselves more accountable 
for meeting their goals. Many agencies were 
willing to take risks and experiment with ideas for 
which they might not have been able to raise 
support without the ACP program. 

Performance Evaluations 

As law enforcement agencies incorporated community 
policing ideas into their organizational values, 
performance evaluations were often revised 
to reflect the new practices and requirements. 
This helped institutionalize the change, by literally 
integrating it into personnel practices. 

In Longmont, Colorado police developed Partners 
in Performance, an evaluation system that reflected 
such basic tenets of community policing as 
partnership, ownership, personalization, relationships, 
permanence, and community oriented activity. New 
job descriptions were created to reflect 
these ideals. Administrators also developed action 
plans that incorporated community policing goals. 
Monthly performance evaluations were conducted 
in which supervisors had 51-percent input and 
the employees being evaluated had 49-percent 
input. Employees could contest the outcome 
and request further review if they felt it was 
necessary. These monthly assessments over the 
course of a year meant that annual assessments 
did not come as a surprise. 

In Rock Hill, South Carolina the police department 
built community policing practices and skills into 
its career ladder. An evaluation was part of each 
step up the ladder, and utilization of community 
policing strategies is now integral to a successful 
move upward. When active community policing 
involvement became part of the promotion process, 
it became more difficult for officers who 
opposed it to just "grin and bear it." Most began to 
truly consider community policing as a serious element 
of their jobs. This helped institutionalize and 
perpetuate community policing philosophies within 
the department. 

For many officers and deputies, this change was 
difficult. Some left their agencies rather than 
change. More frequently, however, law enforcement 
professionals who might have initially tolerated 
the change as an unpleasant passing phase 
changed their attitudes as they began to feel more 
effective at their jobs and watched support for 
community policing grow within the neighborhoods 
they were sworn to protect and serve. 

Increased Organizational Capacity 

Building an organizations capacity for change 
means exposing its leaders and personnel to new 
methods of training, technical assistance, and 
investing resourcesincluding time, talent, and 
moneyin the institutionalization of new practices. 
Achieving this requires a willingness to learn 
from outside of traditional policing frameworks, to 
bring in talent and expertise from other fields, and 
to use existing talent and expertise in the police 
community. 

Law enforcement leaders are not often formally 
trained in implementing organizational change. 
Although some agency leaders had both a strong 
vision for the future and the capability to make it a 
reality, others did not. Some led agencies with 
staff members who were willing and able to campaign 
for change; others looked outside their 
agencies for expertise in departmental reform. The 
desire to change sometimes outpaced the ability 
to do it. 

North Carolinas Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police 
Department (CMPD) is a good example of successful 
organizational change. The CMPD brought 
in outside experts to walk the department through 
each step of the problem-solving process to 
implement organizational change. These national 
experts taught teams of officers how to use the 
scanning, analysis, response, and assessment 
(SARA) model and increase the use of technology 
and data in all phases of the process. Although 
often tedious, this training built the organizations 



capacity to solve community problems by imparting 
the skills and knowledge to implement organizational 
change. 

In Massachusetts, the Boston Police Department 
(BPD) has benefited from a long-term working 
relationship with a change-management consultant 
who helped create and implement strategies. 
They have systematically crafted citywide strategic 
plans and change-management efforts that 
influence the basic operations of the department. 

The New Haven, Connecticut police department 
has made training in community policing a 
fundamental part of its academy and promotion system. 
After sergeants are promoted to lieutenants, they 
train other sergeants in community policing. New 
Haven also has developed a close working relationship 
with nearby universities to create a reservoir 
of expertise that can be used in academy 
training programs and community collaborations. 

In San Jose, California, the police department 
employed an active, situational role-playing system 
that taught officers and community members how 
to work together to solve mutual problems. 
Longmont police leaders applied the work of an 
organizational change professional to flatten the 
organizational structure and create the Partners in 
Performance evaluation system. 

Some agencies infrastructures lacked the capacity 
to handle the proposed grant activity. In Oakland, 
California, for example, the police department 
realized it did not have the organizational capacity to 
handle the accounting for a community-based 
mini-grant program. Many departments also 
reported that existing civil service job descriptions 
and salaries did not meet their needs to hire and 
pay highly skilled crime analysis or technology 
personnel. 

Communication 

To communicate effectively, both externally and 
internally, the agencies used many channels, from 
new methods such as websites to old-fashioned 
practices such as encouraging residents to know 
their neighbors. In Salinas, California, the police 
department developed a state-of-the-art intranet to 
update and share critical day-to-day information so 
that at the beginning of their shifts, officers could 
see who had been arrested, when the next community 
meeting would take place, or where to 
focus attention because of community concern. 

The goal in Portland, Oregon was to integrate all 
communication and technology systems, building 
each new phase on the last. The agency also created 
an emergency response system that not only 
alerts citizens to impending situations, but also 
notifies them of their successful resolution. 

Almost every department realized the importance 
of creating a website to serve as a community 
resource and a vehicle for interactive communication. 
Californias San Jose Police Department 
developed an intranet that acts as a repository of 
information and resources only for members of 
the department. 

Another crucial form of communication is day-to-day 
contact between law enforcement professionals 
and the neighborhoods they patrol. Building 
trust between the department and the community 
is a core part of community policing; officers and 
deputies learned that the only way to build and 
maintain relationships is through regular i
nteraction with residents. 

Organizational change can create tension, suspicion, 
and resistance among the rank and file. It is 
natural to want to know what is going on, how it 
will affect ones job, and whether the change is 
permanent or part of a short-lived trend. Successful 
change requires patience and communication 
both inside and outside the agency. That 
communication can come in many forms. In Windsor, 
Connecticut, the police departments union 



president created the agencys first website, 
which signaled support for the chief and 
community policing practices. 

Developing and sharing the strategic vision for 
community policing with key stakeholders, including 
community groups, elected officials, union 
officials, and department personnel is critical for 
success. In Los Angeles, the County Sheriffs 
Department tracks initiatives that are a source of 
pride for deputies and that produce concrete 
results. The department then informs elected 
officials and the community about those initiatives. 

In many cases, police personnel learned how to 
listen, present their ideas in front of their peers, 
and participate in community and neighborhood 
meetings. A lack of communication, however, 
sometimes led to misunderstandings and resistance. 
In Sacramento, California, an organizational 
struggle developed between the officers currently 
patrolling neighborhoods and the officers the city 
council wanted to appoint to those neighborhoods. 
This resulted in confused lines of authority, 
difficulties with command and supervision, and a 
communication problem between the city council and 
the police department. Resolving the problem took 
time and patience. 

Communication through newspapers, websites, 
email, fliers, focus groups, foot patrols, 
and direct engagement with the community helped 
sell community policing practices. Making the 
most of these available communication channels 
strengthened relationships, increased trust 
between law enforcement and citizens, and 
pulled together critical information to help 
agencies and their communities work together 
to increase public safety. 

Community Oriented Government 

Community policing must share strategies and the 
skills, expertise, and resources of other community 
and government agencies to be effective. Each 
agency participating in ACP developed working 
links to other community and city/county agencies. 
These links often helped resolve mutual problems. 
For example, officers in Charlotte-Mecklenburgs 
Police Department worked with the city planning 
department, local businesses, the city council, and 
others to solve an auto larceny problem. Police 
identified solutions, and cooperation with other 
agencies made those solutions possible (in this 
case, improving lighting and adding fences). 

Fundamental causes and conditions that create 
community problems are many and complex; often, 
local problems can only be solved through cooperation 
among agencies. A problem with domestic violence, 
for instance, may involve the police 
department, the health department, mental health 
services, the faith community, and family services. 

The challenge in many agencies is local politics. 
A sheriff, for example, may need to work closely 
with a board of supervisors who can access 
county services on behalf of the department. In 
other cases, the citys department of parks and 
recreation or public works may be called on to 
provide such services as after-school recreation 
centers for area youths. 

Many grantees needed help with the civil service 
system. In changing an agency, new jobs often 
must be created and other job descriptions (and 
salaries) changed to accurately reflect the work 
needed. Accomplishing this may be cumbersome 
and require the support of the city council or 
another such group.6 In one case, city accounting 
system operators lacked the experience or 
resources to handle the demands of a federal 
grant. Sometimes departments had a hard time 
accessing their grant funds.7 

It was rare to see a community-based law 
enforcement problem for which the solution did 
not involve working with many different sectors, 
including politicians, policy-makers, community 
service groups, neighborhood associations, local 
businesses, parks and recreation departments, 
and transportation, health, and housing organizations. 
The law enforcement agency may have 
been the originator, but it was rarely the only 
organization needed to get things done. When 



communication across agency lines was well 
established, limited resources were more likely 
to be well applied, with minimum redundancy. 

Customized Services to Fit the Location 

Each grant had to reflect the communitys needs 
and the agencys priorities for community policing. 
Because each city and town had its own ethnic 
population, economy, and political structure, a 
cookie-cutter approach would not work. Law 
enforcement agencies developed individual 
approaches in applying their grants and were free 
to pursue what worked best. In spite of the 
differences between agencies, each wanted to gather 
information and ideas from colleagues across the 
Nation and use the lessons to do a better job in its 
own community. 

Some departments (including Boston and 
Longmont) had already made great strides in 
creating organizational change before the ACP 
program began. Others, such as Windsor, were just 
starting the process. Many agencies, including 
Portland and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, used 
sophisticated data technology. Others had problems 
developing multiple collaborations on technology 
projects. Some agencies, such as the Los Angeles 
Sheriffs Department, had an entire community 
policing bureau. In others, such as Albuquerque, 
New Mexico, grant activities were the domain of a 
small research and planning department. 

Agencies had to address local conditions in 
developing ACP projects. Many involved the community 
throughout the process; others kept the process 
more internal. Each agency described in this 
report achieved outcomes that helped its 
organization advance community policing and 
work better in its community. 

Engaging and Investing in Mid-Level 
Management 

One important theme that emerged from ACP 
programs was the need for leadership investment up 
and down the line. Although the chief must be 
the ultimate champion, a lack of support among 
mid-level managers almost guarantees that community 
policing efforts will ultimately break down. 
Agencies found that investing in people who were 
in charge of day-to-day activities resulted in more 
creativity, accountability, and ownership within the 
organization. 

For example, the Savannah Police Department 
sent mid-level managers to other police departments 
to gather ideas and build new relationships. 
This decision was an act of confidence and 
insight. Not only did it help the department as a 
whole, but it validated mid-level managers, gave 
them exposure outside of Savannah, and created 
links with other departments. In Boston, mid-level 
managers were asked to make problem-solving 
presentations before the command staff. In New 
Haven, newly promoted lieutenants served as 
mentors and teachers to sergeants. 

The support of sergeants, lieutenants, and captains 
ensures effective implementation of community 
policing. These frontline supervisors and mid-level 
managers are the leaders who must make changes 
happen and hold others accountable. 

Leadership 

The leaders in the grantee agencies had to impart 
their vision of community policing. They needed to 
lead their organizations through a trial and error 
transition period to create new cultural norms and 
behaviors. The change process required their constant 
attention and persistence. However, when 
agency executives were passively supportive, 
ideas often came from the field. It was compelling 
to find captains, lieutenants, sergeants, deputies, 
and line officers as agents of change. 

Many law enforcement leaders observed that 
community policing practices built stronger 
relationships with their diverse communities, building 



trust and communication where little had existed 
before. In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, police wanted 
to reduce drug trafficking in a neighborhood 
plagued by the problem. To accomplish this, they 
had to listen to and engage the community, then 
apply with confidence new approaches based on 
community input. This led to great success. 

In Longmont, the chief of police has integrated 
community policing into every facet of the department. 
He continues to initiate innovative ways 
to involve the community and work through difficult 
relationships. He has a clear vision of what community
policing means, what it should look like, why it 
is important, and how it will improve the police 
department and the communities it serves. 

Networking, Connecting, and Learning 

ACP grantees noted the need to network, connect, 
and learn about innovation both within and outside 
of the law enforcement community. Agencies 
wanted to hear about successful practices, adapt 
proven responses to their local problems, and create 
a vision for successful community policing practices 
in the future. They requested opportunities to 
form networks and wanted to know more about 
outside resources to help with training, technical 
assistance, and expert consultation regarding methods 
of organizational change. 

Most law enforcement agencies saw their learning 
processes as cyclical rather than linear, with no 
beginning, middle, or end. They were invested, 
not because they had federal grants, but because 
they knew community policing made them better 
at fighting and preventing crime and increasing 
public safety. 

Resources 

Although the grant money made more of a difference 
in smaller than in larger agencies, the 
amount of the grant was not the determining factor 
in successful change. Almost every agency 
believed that its grant was a catalyst for internal 
change. 

Grants were more effective when agencies had 
some experience in implementing community 
policing, launched strong initial efforts, and 
maintained a strategic plan. Agencies that were 
already positioned to be responsive to the community 
were in a stronger position to further advance 
community policing. 

The ACP program supported a variety of initiatives 
that otherwise could not have been pursued or 
could not have been pursued so comprehensively. 
Agencies that used funds to begin new initiatives 
found that they could develop more support from 
their city by demonstrating the value of the activity, 
which they might not have been able to do before. 
Because of the success of the ACP program, many 
agencies positions or programs continued after the 
grant ended. 

Even with different organizational structures, 
community demographics, and community issues, all 
of the grantee agencies found the process of 
responding to a grant opportunityparticularly one 
such as ACP, which demanded creativityto be a 
healthy and helpful experience. 

Time for Change 

Time is always an issue, and change takes time. 
Institutionalization of organizational change and 
community policing practices does not happen 
overnight. Taking and making the time to work 
on change was a vital ingredient of successful 
efforts. Many grantees reported that even the 
simplest things took more time then they expected 
sometimes a lot more time. Although the ACP 
grant program was intended for only one year, 
most grantees required no-cost extensions. 

Unions 

Whether a department was unionized (e.g., 
Boston, Lowell, Windsor, and New Haven), 



semi-unionized (San Jose), or non-unionized (Rock 
Hill) affected the degree of difficulty of the change 
process. Unions can make organizational change 
easier (as in Windsor) or more challenging and 
complex (as in Boston). 

Vendor Selection 

Selecting a vendor was a challenge for most 
grantees. Many departments simply did not have 
the expertise to evaluate or choose the right vendors.
 Some had difficulty finding qualified vendors, 
some chose vendors that did not include the agency 
in the development of their product, and some 
received inferior or outdated work products. 

Portland and Charlotte-Mecklenburg chose vendors 
well. They knew their own needs, understood the 
vendor selection process, and had 
well-defined expectations. 

Recommendations for 
Future Policy 

More and more, those involved in public policy and 
law enforcement are coming to understand the 
importance of supporting collaborative efforts 
among law enforcement, other municipal agencies, 
and social service providers. Officers and deputies 
are not the only critical stakeholders in responding 
to crime and disorder within communities. Community 
policing relies upon the involvement of citizens, 
local government, and other outside partners in 
developing and sustaining innovative problem-
solving initiatives to address seemingly intractable 
local crime or disorder. 

Following the short-term successes of ACP 
grantees, the question remains as to whether the 
projects will sustain continued transformation to 
community policing. The challenges are that these 
changes are time consuming and require a process 
orientation (as opposed to an action or outcome 
orientation). Also, no grant exists to 
encourage the commitment. It will be interesting 
to see whether the organizations involved in ACP 
continue incorporating community policing into 
their traditional culture and practices. 

Community policing represents a change from traditional 
policing that not only affects the relationship of 
the police to the broader community, but 
also requires complex internal changes. It requires 
endurance and a willingness to build bridges. If 
these changes are integrated into day-to-day practices 
and sustained, community policing activities 
will no longer be viewed as special programs that 
require special support. 

Flexible support must be available to devote to 
change efforts, because they are typically long-term 
efforts with outcomes that are unique to federal 
programs. The lack of structured support for 
change efforts is precisely why departments need 
additional support and outside expertise. 

Agencies can recognize and promote strategic and 
systems planning through a special set of skills 
that can either be fostered and developed internally 
or supported through external consultants. 
Departments that have invested in developing 
skills within a cadre of their own employees have 
experienced strong results. But, agencies also can 
recognize the value provided by consultants with 
expertise in change management. Private sector 
organizations frequently use consultants with such 
specialized skills; law enforcement may benefit by 
experimenting with this same approach. 

Conclusion 

As the following chapters will show, organizational 
change in a law enforcement environment can be a 



challenging endeavor. Law enforcement agencies 
are complex organizations with critical missions. 
Adapting processes, modifying systems, and allocating 
resources in order to reorient such an 
organization to community policing takes time, 
careful attention, commitment, and strong leadership 
with a clear vision. The lessons derived from 
ACP-funded agencies experiences can serve as 
references for other agencies attempting to 
implement and advance community policing. 

Perhaps the most powerful lesson from the ACP 
program is that one of the most important elements 
of successful organizational change is careful 
attention to the process of change, as opposed 
to focusing solely on its intended results. Because 
these agencies embarked on changes that often 
ran counter to prevailing methods, they often 
found it necessary to first create the capacity for 
these changes in order for them to succeed. 

Many successful ACP-funded efforts involved personnel 
from all ranks that brought energy, passion, 
creativity, and commitment to process. Although 
very few projects achieved complete success, a 
desire to learn from the processespecially 
where that process achieved unexpected goals 
resulted in greater benefits over the long term. 

These change efforts also frequently changed 
expectations of what law enforcement is and how 
it worksin officers and deputies as well as the 
communities they serve. Tensions often developed 
between more traditional public expectations 
and the new expectations produced by the move 
to community policing. Working with the community, 
as well as other private and public partners, 
created a sense of shared ownership of community 
crime and disorder problems. 

Active support from elected officials helped build 
public support, just as strong leadership and vision 
from the chief and senior command staff helped 
build support among the agencies rank and file. 
Just the determination to change was not always 
enough. Some organizations found their desire for 
change was much stronger than their actual ability 
to change within what were nearly universally very 
mature and complex organizations. Agencies that 
found themselves in this situation often benefited 
greatly from external consultants. Some of the 
most successful projects harnessed agents of 
change across all levels of the organization, each 
of which made important contributions. 

Many ACP grantees found that once communities 
gained exposure to community policing, they 
became active stakeholders and supporters, 
thus resulting in grassroots support for the 
philosophys full implementation within the agency. 
Day-to-day contact with the community in a 
community policing context seemed to invariably 
forge better relationships and stronger trust 
between law enforcement professionals and the 
members of their communities. 

Some agencies found that embracing community 
policing required specific changes to policies and 
procedures, communications vehicles, project 
tracking systems, and personnel tools. Solutions 
ranged from developing new tools, such as 
problem-solving tracking and reporting systems 
and websites, to modifying performance evaluations 
and recruitment tools that had been in use 
for years. 

These changes were rarely easy and sometimes 
created uneasiness and distrust within the agency. 
There were both creative and traditional approaches 
for overcoming these understandable reactions 
to change, but ignoring them in the hope that they 
would ultimately go away didnt seem to be a 
viable option for most. Successful change required 
both patience and communication. 

Finally, many agencies recognized the range of 
expertise that can be brought to bear by involving 



other government and social service agencies in 
the resolution of community problems. Beyond 
the more traditional community partnerships, 
some agencies also partnered with such public 
and private entities as social service providers, 
planning departments, local businesses, and parks and 
recreation departments. This recognized that the 
list of potential interventions to crime and quality 
of life issues has greatly expanded, resulting in a 
greater likelihood of success. This is the underlying 
premise of what many view to be the next 
logical phase of community policing: community 
government. 


13
Law enforcement agencies participating in the ACP 
program addressed organizational change in support 
of community policing from different perspectives 
and starting points. Although this impacted 
their approaches and how far they were able to go, 
they wanted to gather and share information and 
ideas from colleagues across the Nation and use 
these lessons to improve their work. Many see 
these processes as cyclical rather than linear, 
crediting innovation not to a grant but to the law 
enforcement professionals who believe that community 
policing helps them serve their communities 
more effectively. The ACP programand this 
reportare meant to help these practitioners share 
their experiences. Hopefully, the lessons they 
learned will help other agencies beyond the range 
of the ACP program. 


About This Report 

Each of the nine chapters that follow closely 
examines one of the ACP grantee sites. The 
chapters are organized alike to help readers compare 
and revisit areas of interest. The report is 
intended to serve as a useful, working resource 
for agencies implementing or considering implementing 
community policing initiatives. 

Chapter 11 briefly sums up the report and 
provides COPS contact information. 

The four appendixes focus on the nitty gritty 
details of methodology, typology, and identity. 
Appendix A discusses the fellowship and expert 
panel that visited sites, interviewed participants, 
made observations, and derived conclusions and 
lessons learned. Appendix B gives more details 
about the five priority areas identified at the 
beginning of this chapter as encompassing the many 
projects developed under the ACP grant program. 
Appendix C is the complete list of ACP projects by 
state and project focus. Appendix D provides short 
biographies of the authors. 

Notes 

1. The ACP grant period was 1998 to 2001. 

2. The COPS Office acknowledged that the 
change process would be challenging and 
viewed it as a multiyear effort, even though 
ACP funding was provided for only one year. 

3. More information about the ACP Grant 
Program, the fellowship, and expert panel that 
evaluated grantee sites appears in Appendix A. 

4. Descriptions of the project types appear in 
Appendix B. 

5. Some examples cited in this chapter are taken 
from grantee sites that are not discussed at 
length in this report. For a list of all 96 
grantees, please see Appendix C. 

6. Dealing with outdated civil service codes was a 
big problem as agencies tried to hire civilians to 
meet their needs, particularly in technology-
related jobs and crime analyst positions. 

7. Although the grant money went to local agencies, 
the agencies did not always have direct 
access to the money. Sometimes the processing 
took a long time, or, as in Oakland, 
California, the agencies were not set up 
to handle this type of grant. 



CHAPTER 2
BOSTON 
Same COPS/Same Neighborhood 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 
Lessons Learned. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 



CHAPTER 2 
BOSTON 
Same Cops/Same Neighborhood 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

The departments full-scale commitment to the 
philosophy of community policing dates back 
to 1992 with the development of its initial 
Neighborhood Policing Plan of Action. That plan sought 
to align and integrate both the service delivery 
and management models of the organization with 
the community policing philosophy being adopted 
by the total organization. In 1995, a BPD citywide 
strategic planning initiative paved the way for 
more extensive implementation of its neighborhood 
policing efforts. The commitment to 
community/neighborhood policing was a shift for 
the whole organization, not the creation of a 
special unit or program. 

BPD has created a strong, ongoing professional 
relationship with an organizational change psychologist. 
This rather unusual situation has had great 
influence on the projects and processes undertaken 
by the department in community policing and 
organizational transformation in recent years. 

External organizational change consultants worked 
with BPD leaders to design and implement the 
strategic planning process, which involved more 
than 350 individuals. For more than six months, 
police officers, citizens, community leaders, 
politicians, clergy, and key municipal officials worked 
together on 16 teams, each of which focused 
on a set of community problems. The police 
commissioner chaired a planning team of police 



personnel and community leaders that addressed 
broader organizational and citywide issues. A 
different eight-person core team composed of BPD 
personnel and external consultants managed the 
design, training, and implementation of the 
strategic planning effort. 

The strategic planning teams at the district 
and citywide levels identified having the same 
police officer in the same beat as an important 
change needed to support neighborhood-level 
problem solving and the fuller implementation of 
community/neighborhood policing in Boston. This 
goal came to be known as Same Cops/Same 
Neighborhood (SC/SN). The intent was to have 
police officers know the geography and inhabitants 
of their beats and take ownership of the 
problems on those beats. The officers were 
expected to work with community partners to 
deal with the public safety issues identified by 
the police and the community. 

In the course of planning for SC/SN, the departments 
mission statement was revised to state, 
We dedicate ourselves to work in partnership 
with the community to fight crime, reduce fear 
and improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods. 
Our mission is Neighborhood Policing. 

Grant funding under the Comprehensive Communities 
Program of the U.S. Department of 
Justice supported this stage of strategic planning 
and community mobilization in Boston. 

As the focus of its Advancing Community Policing 
(ACP) organizational change grant, BPD undertook 
the challenge of moving to SC/SN and shifting 
structures and strategies to implement beat 
teams. The ACP grant funding provided needed 
resources for training, production of beat plans, 
assistance from outside consultants, and overtime 
to enable personnel to participate consistently in 
implementation efforts. 

Because of collective bargaining agreements and 
staffing level issues, overtime was necessary to 
replace superior officers on shifts to enable beat 
team supervisors and commanders to participate 
in meetings on a change of shift. Thus, overtime 
enabled their participation in the multirank Beat 
Team Implementation Group and training. Civilian 
union contracts also necessitated overtime funding 
for key civilian employees who were involved 
in certain efforts. 

The Project 

Although the police and the community set the 
goal of SC/SN, changing organizational processes 
and practices was another matter. Major impediments 
to implementing neighborhood policing 
were administrative and other practices that 
created barriers to problem solving by beat 
officers. Working to change them meant systematically 
identifying and modifying layers of organizational 
processes, functions, and mechanisms. 

Discussions began regarding ramifications of the 
beat team concept. Issues included organizational 
implications of changes in assignments, 
changes in use of officers time, changes in the 
expected outcomes, and training and supervision 
issues. It became increasingly apparent that the 
initial success of the program depended on individual 
officers being consistently assigned to and 
kept in the same beats. 

To strengthen their efforts, a SC/SN Working 
Group was formed and activated. They linked 
their efforts to work that was already being done 
on one of the police commissioners six Priority 
Change Initiatives, which related to building 
department competency models based on high 
performers in each rank and/or role. These models 
would be used to articulate the core competencies 
necessary for the department to evolve its 
neighborhood policing strategies, act on its 
mission, and shape the content of future training. 

Realizing that such a wide-ranging organizational 
change would affect a broad cross section of 
ranks and roles in the organization, the SC/SN 
Working Group conducted a one-day offsite 
working session. It used a modified version 
of a whole systems change strategy called 



a search conference. More than 200 personnel, 
who represented each rank that would be affected 
by the change, took part in working groups to 
recommend to members of other ranks what they 
would need to do differently for beat teams to 
succeed. 

Applying the input from the search conference to 
the implementation of beat teams was the next 
challenge. One specific challenge in the next 
phase of the change effort was to balance the 
more localized authority and responsibility with 
the organizational need for coherence, coordination, 
and consistency. The SC/SN Working Group 
set the parameters for core elements for the beat 
plans, and district captains and members of their 
local planning teams developed plans for their 
districts implementation efforts. 

Each districts implementation plan had to specify: 

. Name/neighborhood designation of each beat team. 

. Rationale for composition of teams (some 
teams included detectives and other personnel). 

. Names/functions of officers and the assigned 
beat team leader on each beat team. 

. Communication protocols to be used concerning 
problems on the beat (among team members over 
shifts and timelines, among teams within districts, 
and with adjacent districts teams). 

. Specific planning processes for determining priorities of each beat team. 

. Strategic planning goals to be implemented 
through the beat teams. 

. Training needs. 


The next implementation step called for beat team 
leaders to take part in an orientation and training 
session that focused on: 


. Data on community perceptions about police services. 

. Data on public safety from a citywide public safety survey. 

. Underlying assumptions and success factors related to beat teams. 

BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
CHIEF: PAUL EVANS 
CONTACT: WWW.CI.BOSTON.MA.US/ POLICE 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: MODIFYING 
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $245,200 
SITE VISIT: FEBRUARY 5, 2001 

Founded in 1630, Boston is the state cap-
ital of Massachusetts and the largest 
municipality in New England. The citys 
48.9 square miles are currently home to 
a resident population of slightly over 
589,000, which increases to 2 million 
people during the day. The population is 
49.5 percent white, 14.4 percent Hispanic, 
23.8 percent black, 7.5 percent Asian, 
and 4.8 percent other.* 
The oldest metropolitan police force 
in the Nation, the Boston Police 
Department (BPD) was formally char-
tered in 1854. It has a current force of 
2,169 sworn officers and 850 civilian 
employees. Boston is divided into 11 
police districts, each of which is served 
by officers who work out of a local dis-
trict station under the command of a 
captain. BPD operates 26 facilities 
throughout the city. 
BPD is both a civil service and a highly 
unionized work environment with four 
bargaining units that represent different 
groups of sworn personnel. Each union 
negotiates a separate contract for its 
members. Five distinct bargaining units 
represent civilian personnel. Overall, 
approximately 99 percent of BPD 
employees are members of a bargaining 
unit. This circumstance creates a chal-
lenging environment in which to under-
take any significant organizational 
change efforts. 
DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000.



As part of the orientation, each team leader was 
required to create a profile of the beat. To create 
this profile, team leaders used the array of data 
that the organization had available and the more 
local knowledge of district officers. For clarity of 
expectations and content, the SC/SN Working 
Group provided templates for the profiles both in 
hard copy and on disks. 

Challenges, Needs, and Solutions 

As implementation progressed, several challenges, 
needs, and solutions emerged. One was 
holding sergeants (the beat team leaders) accountable 
for doing their jobs differently. Conventionally, 
paperwork sent to headquarters was seen as 
something that simply went into a file or pile 
unless it related to a violent crime or other critical 
incident. To change that, the chief of patrol and 
others in the SC/SN Working Group read, commented on, 
and questioned each beat profile they 
received. Sergeants quickly got the message that 
beat profiles were important. 

Defining the nature of beat teams was another 
challenge. It became clear that police districts 
were using somewhat different definitions. Although 
individual efforts at decentralization were 
to be honored, consistency was needed. Officers 
had to have a clear understanding of what was 
expected of them in their day-to-day work as part 
of beat teams. Beat Team Implementation Group 
members developed a definition: 

A beat team is a designated group of 
sworn and/or civilian personnel assigned 
to a geographic area within a police dis
trict whose function is to address criminal 
and quality-of-life issues by sharing infor
mation and utilizing all BPD and communi
ty resources. 

Throughout the implementation process, the Beat 
Team Implementation Group met monthly with 
the chief of patrol and the rest of the SC/SN 
Working Group and worked continuously on how 
to implement the beat team concept most effectively. 
The discussion focused both on what was 
working and what was not. Because they were living 
with the ground-level realities of the implementation 
effort, the group took on a vital role in 
the change efforts. As they grew confident that 
speaking the truth would not result in punishment 
by the chief of patrol, they grew increasingly 
forthright in sharing their views. This proved 
invaluable in the organizational change effort. 

During this time, the emphasis shifted to reconsidering 
some of the organizational structures that 
affect patrol strategies. The existing patrol 
strategies, structures, deployment plans, and schedules 
were based on supporting rapid response. The 
group began to work on how to integrate problem 
solving and technology into a new patrol model 
based on geographic accountability rather than 
911-driven responses. Beat teams needed additional 
training to perform all the required tasks. 
More than 100 mid-level managersbeat team 
leaders on all shifts and other district sergeants 
participated in a three-day training course on the 
scanning, analysis, response, and assessment 
(SARA) problem-solving method. In addition, 
senior managers held a retreat. For SC/SN and 
beat team efforts, the following key issues and 
action steps were identified: 

. Ensure that beat team leaders and members 
have all necessary technology training and 
skills. 

. Enforce and implement the plans that the district 
commanders presented. 

. Review and evaluate call scheduling and stacking efforts. 

. Learn how to best facilitate cross-shift communication 
among beat team leaders. 

. Handle challenges that result from contractual 
and overtime issues. 

. 
Determine the most effective methods to foster beat team 
leaders accountability for challenges on their beats. 




. Devise effective methods and strategies 
for sharing best practices and solutions to 
problems. 

. Update mobile data terminal software and 
begin using laptops, beginning with beat team 
leaders. 

In 1999, beat team leaders took part in presenta-
tions on crime issues by district commanders at 
biweekly crime analysis meetings (CAMs), which 
drove accountability for addressing crime and 
quality-of-life issues down to lower ranking offi-
cers. It was also a way to integrate beat team 
activities with other changes in the department. 
Linking the problem-solving efforts of beat team 
leaders to the reporting and analysis of crime 
statistics signaled a new level of seriousness 
about district-based problem solving. 

Because such presentations represented an unfa-
miliar form of accountability and responsibility for 
beat team leaders, the Beat Team Implementation 
Group offered training in presentation skills and 
the preparation of visual presentations. 

A CAM newsletter also began to include examples 
of best practices devised by the beat teams. A 
section related to each districts beat teams was 
included on the BPD intranet. 

Building momentum and maintaining morale is 
always a challenge for any change effort. The Beat 
Team Implementation Group suggested sending 
specific beat team leaders (sergeants) to the annu-
al Problem Oriented Policing Conference in San 
Diego, California, to recognize them for their work. 
This suggestion was approved with the stipulation 
that, when they returned, those who attended 
would make a presentation to the group about 
what BPD could do differently based on what they 
had learned. 

In January 2000, other organizational changes in 
BPD affected this change initiative. At that time, 
the police commissioner made a number of 
changes in his senior command staff. Approx-
imately one-third of the executive leadership of 
the department changed. As in any police organi-
zation, such changes led to intensive scrutiny, dis-
cussion, speculation, and reaction. 
One member characterized the ACP effort as 
a Rubiks cube, where if you change one thing, 
you find out it then doesnt work with how 
other things are positioned. 

During these staff changes, the chief of patrol 
who had led the SC/SN and beat team effort was 
transferred, which interrupted the momentum of 
that change effort. While the new chief of patrol 
became acquainted with his new role and responsibilities, 
the SC/SN Working Group and Beat 
Team Implementation Group were placed on hold. 

Almost concurrent with the senior command 
changes, external circumstances necessitated a 
new focus. Priority had to be given to department-
wide preparation, mobilization, and development 
of tactical plans for the upcoming International 
Bio-Technology Conference and demonstrations 
that were expected to follow protests in Seattle. 
Cross-bureau cooperation, planning, and coordination 
and updating the tactical skills of all sworn 
personnel became critical for the new senior 
command staff and the entire department. 

Department Observations 

The ACP process in Boston was seen as overcoming 
organizational barriers and changing the 
organizational paradigm regarding doing business. 
After initially thinking that making these 
changes would be simple, many of those involved 
realized the process would be complicated. One 
member characterized the ACP effort as a 



Rubiks cube, where if you change one thing, you 
find out it then doesnt work with how other 
things are positioned. 
 
Decentralization presented challenges. Chief of 
Patrol James Claiborne saw his role and responsibility 
as changing to be one where I responded 
to the needs of those working under my command, 
facilitated change, and attended to process, 
as well as giving people room to make mistakes. 

A further challenge was that, as in many departments 
trying to work with a decentralized model, 
tension between the field and headquarters could 
make systemic and systematic change difficult. 
This challenge was exacerbated by the lack of 
enthusiasm some district commanders felt for 
the changes that would be required to implement 
SC/SN; some were even apathetic. 

Sergeants were not used to keeping the same 
officers working in the same neighborhood for 
extended periods. Assignments were to cars, not 
to beats. Neighborhood assignments had been a 
way sergeants could informally reward or punish 
officers. Further, the internal organizational systems 
provided little broader accountability regarding 
the system of assignments. However, as part 
of the SC/SN initiative, new beats were developed 
and monthly compliance audits were conducted 
by the chief of patrols office. 

The biweekly Change Management Working 
Group meetings provided consistent command-
level focus on SC/SN and the other Commissioners 
Priority Change Initiatives. At a 
minimum, these sessions provided a forum 
where the top 25 leaders of the department came 
together and built in follow up and accountability 
related to their collective work on the change 
initiatives. Chief of Patrol Claiborne, a member of the 
Change Management Working Group, said, No 
other community policing effort received the 
extent and range of persistent change planning 
and attention to learning from what we were 
doing as this. 

Like departments elsewhere, Boston faced challenges 
in making such changesthese challenges 
were a mix of prior police practices and public 
expectations. The reform model of policing, driven 
by rapid 911 response and random patrol, continued 
to exert pressure in certain directions long 
after a commitment to the philosophy of community 
policing and efforts toward problem solving 
had begun. Most patrol structures and practices, 
including contractually negotiated shift schedules, 
staffing levels, and overtime assignments, were 
designed to support rapid response as the core 
function of patrol officers. 

A common complaint heard from officers was that 
they were too busy handling radio calls and did 
not have time to devote to problem solving. But 
the teaching team was equipped with the facts 
and data to dispel such notions. The chief of patrol 
himself cotaught the class to send a message that 
the BPD was serious about the change and 
to respond to questions and resistance. 

Other issues included reaching agreement on key 
concepts and definitions, the question of staffing 
levels (for the agency overall, for districts/sectors, 
and for beats), and the sectoring of the citys 
police districts. It became apparent that a solid 
foundation would be needed and that this fundamental 
shift in patrol strategies would need to 
occur in stages over a period of years. It also 
became increasingly evident that some of the 
biggest challenges would involve dealing with 
the ingrained human behaviors and mindsets that 
maintain an organizations structures and systems. 

Lessons Learned 

The ACP program in Boston produced the following 
challenges and taught the following lessons: 

. It was important to pay attention to process, 
listen to those who were working to implement 
changes, and be willing to change tactics to 
achieve the intended outcome. 



. Resistance to ACP diminished over time, and 
members remained fluid, flexible, agile, and 
adaptable. 

. A shared definition of SC/SN was needed. 
Defining the system required agreement on 
what the implications of SC/SN would be. For 
example, if such definitional issues and 
implications had not been clear, the new Computer 
Aided Dispatch (CAD) setup and operations 
could not have effectively supported the SC/SN 
and beat teams effort. 

. Both the organization and the police leaders 
needed to commit to change and the effort 
involved. 

. Additional training was needed. During the 
annual inservice training at the Boston Police 
Academy, a half-day session was conducted to 
orient and educate all patrol officers, detectives, 
and superior officers up through the rank of 
lieutenant about the intended shift of the BPD 
patrol strategy to SC/SN and beat teams. The 
department also had to address the change in 
philosophy and practice of how we do business 
by 911 call takers and dispatchers in the 
Operations Division. 

. Overlapping players (some of the same personnel 
working on a variety of aspects of different 
change efforts in multiple settings) provided 
checks and balances that supported a consistent 
message. 

. Union-related challenges emerged. Part of the 
plan had called for patrol officers to attend 
community meetings related to problems on the 
beat. Overtime was available to enable officers 
to attend if the meetings occurred during a 
different shift. The department was unable to 
implement this part of the plan, however, because 
the patrol officers union contract specifies that 
overtime moneys must be made available on 
the lowest man principle. 
Other challenges noted by those who worked on 
the SC/SN and beat team initiatives included: 

. The impact of losing high-ranking officers who 
were committed to ACPs changes due to the 
changes in the command staff. 

. The importance of thinking systemically, 
because these changes affected the whole 
organization. 

. The importance of having a clear vision of the 
intended changes, and a clear understanding of 
what impact those efforts would have. 


Other lessons learned included the need for: 

. A face to go with changeor a champion. 

. Explicit processes and mechanisms to maintain 
coordination. 

. Time to compose teams to work on various 
aspects of change efforts. 

. Winning over the working cops level of the 
departmentinforming them of the intended 
change, giving them a role in crafting the 
design, and welcoming their input into how it 
will occur and their feedback on the process. 

. Custom-designed technology applications that 
support specific change efforts, not just  
off-the-shelf products. The effort should be 
end-user oriented, and any technology must 
support officers real needs. Ideally, there 
should be killer applications that are so 
powerful and effective that police officers 
will not want to work without them. 


Panel Commentary 

As the nations oldest municipal police department, 
Boston has distinguished itself by approaching 
community policing and organizational change 



in a progressive, comprehensive manner. Integration 
of the ACP grant into the departments 
strategic plan helped them implement the grant 
successfully. 

Boston knew the strategic direction it wanted to 
pursue, and approached the implementation of its 
goal through a series of strategically developed 
steps. The personal involvement of the commissioner 
and the chief of patrol in key committees and 
initiatives was critical to the overall 
successes of the change effort. All agency personnel 
were viewed as critical to the success of the 
plan; thus, their involvement was planned throughout 
the change process. However, the panel notes 
that initiatives slowed upon the transfer of command 
of the chief of patrol. 

The panel applauds the work done to ensure consistency 
of terminology and effort across the 
department and individual stations. This level of 
coordination is critical to demonstrating fairness 
between stations, creating accountability, and 
ensuring an even field against which all activities 
can be compared. 

Bostons commitment to comprehensive organizational 
change was also evident in its use of outside 
expertise to guide the department through 
an extremely complex and long-term process. The 
panel noted the value of the chief of patrols 
creation of a safe environment within the Beat Team 
Implementation Group to enable them to share 
their views of what was working and what was 
not. This action by a top administrator is of incalculable 
value in fostering long-term support and 
participation. History is replete with examples of 
worthwhile change efforts thwarted by a clear 
message that unpopular views are discouraged. 
Boston faced significant organizational obstacles 
to change from the structure of its many and varied 
labor organizations. This structure naturally 
resisted some of the flexibility that a changing 
organization demands. That the department was 
able to integrate the varied interests and mitigate 
this resistance is impressive. 

The panel notes the challenges Boston faced with 
the structure and rules of established collective 
bargaining units, particularly as they relate to the 
requirement that paid overtime be given to senior 
officers first, who may be less accepting of 
change. The challenge that this rule places on an 
organization that desires to become more agile 
can be significant. These agreements reflect the 
many individual cultures of the organization, the 
result of hundreds of years of experience. Few 
departments seeking change will ever face such a 
high degree of established tradition and culture. 

Bostons use of competency models based on 
high performers in each rank/role is a smart 
approach to establishing a credible standard that 
raises the expectation for all personnel within the 
organization and demonstrates clearly that higher 
and different performance can be expected. This 
component of the overall process demonstrates a 
high level of sophistication in the change process. 
Boston took risks with creative organizational 
change methods and demonstrated the qualities 
of a learning organization. It adapted to new needs 
to address making all members of the team 
stronger and more accountable. There was logic 
and depth in Bostons strategic planning, training, 
and implementation, always circling back to integrate 
needs and improvements. 

Also interesting is how a change in the environment 
or a change in leadership can have dramatic 
impacts on the success of the effort. In Bostons 
case, changes to the senior command team, and 
an impending biotechnology conference, which 
promised to drain resources, impacted the 
progress of the change effort. Despite their careful 
planning, circumstances emerged that were 
either beyond their control or were unanticipated. 

The panel notes that like other departments, one 
of the most challenging steps for the BPD 
involved changing the predominant police practices 
and public expectations that center around 
911 response and random patrol. Despite their 
planning, this remained one of the biggest challenges 
and merits careful consideration from 
other agencies attempting to make organizational 
changes. 



CHAPTER 3 
CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG: 
A Living Lab For 
ProblemSolving Policing 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 


CHAPTER 3 CHARLOTTE-
MECKLENBURG 
A Living Lab For Problem-Solving Policing 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

Charlotte used its Advancing Community 
Policing (ACP) grant to bring Herman Goldstein, 
who is considered the father of problem-
oriented policing, to the department as a scholar 
in residence. Goldstein visited Charlotte for week-
long visits over a period of one year. He performed 
an audit of the department to see how consistently 
community policing and problem-solving models 
were being applied. Goldstein was also available 
to work with individual officers and help departmental 
units define their roles in a community 
policing environment. 

The Project 

Goldstein identified the need to strengthen police 
officers problem-solving skills and efforts. Most 
officers did a quick scan of the problem and then 
moved immediately to the response phase, said 
Darrellyn Kiser, Assistant to the Chief. Goldstein 
felt that officers were missing an opportunity to 
use the power of available data to understand 



the true nature of a problem, who was affected, 
what were the consequences, and how to tailor a 
response based on the results of data analysis. 

CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA 
CHIEF: DARREL STEPHENS 
CONTACT: WWW.CHARMECK.NC.US/ CIPOLICE 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $153,588 
SITE VISIT: FEBRUARY 20, 2001 

Charlotte, North Carolina is a mid-sized 
sunbelt city with a jurisdiction population 
of 540,828. The population is 55.1 percent 
white, 32.5 percent black, 3.4 percent 
Asian/Pacific Islander, and 7.4 percent 
Hispanic.* Charlotte is experiencing a 
period of rapid growth. It is headquarters 
to two of the 10 largest banks in the Na-
tion, making it the second-largest banking 
center in America. Charlotte is the center 
of the Nations fifth-largest urban region 
and covers 530 square miles. 
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police 
Department (CMPD) is a consolidated 
metropolitan police agency that serves 
both the city of Charlotte and all of the 
unincorporated area in Mecklenburg 
County. CMPD has 1,533 sworn person-
nel and 456 civilian members. It has four 
divisionsAdministrative, Field Opera-
tions (patrol), Investigative Services, 
and Special Servicesand 12 patrol 
districts. CMPD recently established an 
International Relations Unit, staffed by 
a sergeant and six bilingual officers, 
whose goal is to develop initiatives that 
reduce crime, enhance quality of life, 
and foster mutual trust and 
respect with members of Charlottes 
increasingly diverse community. 
CMPD has used federal grants to 
strengthen its efforts in community polic-
ing, problem solving, and the use of 
technology. The department hired 211 
officers under the COPS program and 
has used COPS Making Officer 
Redeployment Effective (MORE) grants 
to put laptop computers in all of its vehi-
cles, develop a records management 
system with a problem-solving compo-
nent, and design a new Computer Aided 
Dispatch (CAD) system. 
DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 
Goldstein suggested that, under his guidance, the 
department should identify several difficult crime 
problems and apply a fuller problem-solving 
model. Given the need to emphasize the data 
collection and analysis phase, Goldstein suggested 
using a portion of the grant funds to bring in Ron 
Clarke, a member of the faculty at Rutgers 
University. Consequently, CMPD used the department 
as a living lab for linking the use of data 
and computer capacity to problem solving. 


Four problems were identified for intensive 
analysis: 

. Appliance burglary from single-family homes 
under construction 

. Vehicle larceny in central city parking lots 

. Drug-related violence in the Belmont community 

. Pawnshops and their possible connection 
to burglaries 


Appliance Burglary From Single-Family Homes 
Under Construction. A police captain and two 

officers developed a plan to reduce thefts from 
construction sites. The plan targeted the three 
elements that make up a crime: suspect, victim, and 
opportunity. The idea was to work with burglary 
detectives to identify suspects. Once a suspect 
was arrested, officers would petition the courts to 
get the maximum prison sentence on conviction. 
Officers would get after-hours contact numbers 
for the builders who were victimized, in case 
suspects were apprehended in their neighborhoods. 
Officers also would exchange crime prevention 
ideas with the builders to improve and increase 
the builders use of crime prevention techniques. 



To reduce opportunities for theft, officers altered 
their method of patrolling the neighborhoods 
under construction. They staked out neighbor-
hoods using marked and unmarked patrol cars and 
altered the days and times of their patrols. 

The problem was that after six months, the plan 
was barely intact. Site managers who had been 
contacted either were reassigned or had left the 
construction company. This made the after-hours 
contact list and distribution of crime prevention 
information worthless. No suspects were identi-
fied and the directed patrols did not reduce the 
reported crimes. One major aspect of the initial 
plan had been left out: analyzing the problem. 

With the help of Goldstein and Clarke, Captain 
Johnson and Officers Cunius and Rost started 
again from scratch. First, the scope of the project 
was narrowed, because the category of construc-
tion site theft was too large. Instead, the plan 
focused on reducing the theft of appliances in bur-
glaries from single-family homes that were under 
construction. This plan had a greater chance of 
success because serial numbers could be located 
for stolen appliances, the appliances could be 
secured, and this type of crime was responsible 
for a high percentage of the commercial burglaries 
in the district. 

The next step was to investigate why these 
thefts were occurring. The neighborhoods 
were surveyed to learn the location of new 
construction and how many houses would be 
built during the next few years. Builders were 
surveyed on their methods and practices while 
on the construction site. Building inspectors were 
asked about building regulations for installing 
appliances. 

The questioning yielded several important pieces 
of information: 

. Homebuilding in the district was increasing and 
would continue to do so for the next few years. 

. Most homebuilders were installing plug-in 
appliances approximately 2128 days before 
houses were sold. 

. Before the house was issued a certificate of 
occupancy, the only appliances required to be 
installed were those that were hardwired directly 
into the house. 

An analysis of crime at construction sites led to 
the discovery of a data problem, so officers had to 
look through hard copies of two years of police 
reports and locate each burglary report for thefts 
of construction appliances. Although time consuming, 
this process ensured accurate data. Next, 
officers created an appliance profile, noting the 
types and makes of the appliances stolen, the 
builders involved, days of the week, incidents per 
month, and cost per incident. In reviewing the risk 
rates and the appliance profiles, officers discovered 
that nearly 75 percent of the appliances 
stolen were plug-in appliances that did not need to 
be installed before the sale. The next step was to 
formulate a response. 

The data were presented to the homebuilders in a 
PowerPoint presentation. The goal was to get 
them to delay the installation of appliances from 
the normal 2128 days in advance to the day of 
closing. A six-month test period was proposed. 
Ten of the 15 builders who viewed the presentation 
agreed to participate in the test. 

During the test period, all houses under construction 
within the district were checked 15 times; 
more than 11,000 field checks were conducted. 




The data collected during these checks proved 
invaluable later when the project was assessed. 

After the trial period ended and the data were analyzed,
officers found a reduction in the number of 
appliance burglaries (from 76 in 1999 to 45 in 
2000) and in the rate of burglaries (from 5.3 per 
1,000 in 1999 to 2.5 per 1,000 in 2000). 

Using a geographic information system (GIS), officers 
mapped the areas that had high concentrations of
appliances that were installed early. These 
same areas had most of the appliance burglaries. 
The results were shared with the builders, most of 
whom agreed to continue to delay the installation 
of appliances even after the trial period ended. If 
all builders participated in the project, officers 
believe the problem of appliance theft could be 
virtually eliminated. 

Vehicle Larceny in Center City Parking Lots. 

Larcenies from autos (LFAs) were increasing each 
month, having grown from 428 offenses in 1998 
to 700 in 1999, according to Sergeant Harold 
Medlock. Analysis revealed that 73 percent of 
those were from surface parking lots, 15 percent 
were on the street or on the property of single-
family residences, and 12 percent were on parking 
decks. 

Captain Jerry Sennett assembled a problem-
solving team that included Goldstein and Clarke. 

The team decided to conduct a survey of Center 
City parking lots. They collected information on 
lighting, vehicle and pedestrian access, night and 
day parking, presence or absence of an attendant, 
cost of parking, number of parking spaces, number 
of floors, geographic location, dimensions, and 
perimeter fencing. The team ultimately decided to 
focus the problem-solving initiative on surface 
parking lots. Analysis confirmed that unsecured 
surface lots that were adjacent to railway lines/former 
rail lines, were close to highway overpasses, 
had poor lighting and inadequate fencing, lacked 
attendants, and were close to the Center City 
nightlife district were disproportionately prone to 
higher numbers and densities of incidents. 

During the analysis phase, Captain Sennett sent 
team members to Portland, Oregon to learn about 
their success in combating a similar problem. The 
team gathered valuable information that helped 
them develop their own strategy. 

Based on the information gathered during 18 
months of research and analysis, the problem-
solving team proposed and implemented the following 
strategies: 

. Captain Sennett proposed forming a partnership 
with the parking lot owners and managers to 
develop strategies for improving safety. The 
parking lot owners agreed that a grading system 
for parking lots would produce positive results. 

The owners also provided letters of support for 
an amended fence ordinance that CMPD proposed to
the city planning department. 

. Officers implemented a radio system that linked 
private security firms and security units for 
major institutions to provide everyone with 
immediate information in the event of a crime. 
A side benefit was that the private security 
firms began to feel like legitimate partners with 
the police department. 

. The problem-solving team recommended creating a 
specialized, proactive, nonpolice LFA bicycle 
patrol unit with direct radio links to the police 
department. The Center City Crime Prevention 
Council is trying to find a cost-effective way to 
implement this proposal. 

. Detailed Crime Prevention Through 
Environmental Design (CPTED) surveys of six 
surface parking lots in Center City provided 
valuable information on how the physical environment 
affects criminal activity. Based on 
these surveys, team members began to educate 
parking lot owners/managers informally 
about changes and improvements that could 
be implemented at minimal expense. 

. The team recommended implementing a grading 
system to encourage parking lot owners 
to improve environmental design and/or 



increase active security throughout their properties. 
Each lot or deck would be graded (A, B, C, 
or D) based on a CPTED survey. The grades 
would be posted prominently at several locations 
in each parking lot. 

. Captain Sennett helped obtain a portion of the 
police departments block grant funds to purchase 
and install a closed-circuit television system in 
Center City, with cameras placed in close 
proximity to the surface parking lots. Nearly all 
of the private partners allowed and paid for the 
installation of the cameras on their buildings at 
no cost to CMPD. 

. Team members identified a major obstacle to 
parking lot safety/security in a current city 
ordinance that mandates opaque wooden fences 
surrounding every surface parking lot, which 
blocks sightlines. Captain Sennett and the team 
members have begun working with the city 
planning department to amend the city fence 
ordinance. 

. The project team is beginning to provide LFA 
education to the homeless population in the 
center city. The team agreed that, although the 
homeless are not solely responsible for LFA, 
they have a right to know about the increased 
attention to this problem. Officers will go to 
soup kitchens and homeless shelters to provide 
more information. 

. Early on, the project team learned that many 
victims of LFA were not sure where the incidents 
occurred because most of the surface parking 
lots did not have street addresses posted. 
When parking lot owners began to post 
addresses, LFA incidents began to decrease. 

. The project teams identified repeat offenders. 
Officers began to work with the district attorneys 
office to ensure that repeat offenders 
were properly prosecuted. Officers now ask the 
presiding judge to issue territorial exclusions as 
part of an LFA suspects sentence. 


Captain Sennett presented the entire LFA project 
during a Center City Crime Prevention Council 
meeting, further strengthening the partnership 
between the police and the business community. 

An additional benefit of this project was that 
officers became more aware of suspicious activity in 
surface parking lots as they traveled throughout 
the district. Officers began to stop and talk with 
suspicious people who were in parking lots. This 
increase in officer interest and activity, along with 
all the other remedies implemented, has 
decreased the larceny from auto rate, with the 
number of reports during 2001 expected to be 
less than half of the 700 incidents reported in 
1998. 

Drug Violence in the Belmont Community. The 
Belmont Drug Violence Reduction Project began 
as a response to a series of homicides and serious 
assaults in which firearms were used. During one 
9-month period, 5 homicides and more than 100 
aggravated assaults occurred in the neighborhood. 
On initial scanning of the problem, officers learned 
that victims did not live in or near the Belmont 
community. The majority of these incidents 
appeared to involve people coming from outside 
the neighborhood to buy drugs, a theory that 
preliminary analysis supported. 

A GIS analytical capacity was employed to analyze 
problems and trends based on a number of variables. 
Data included U.S. Department of Housing 
and Urban Development Section 8 public assistance 
properties, Habitat Homes, rental and 
owner-occupied properties, businesses, and levels 
of streetlight illumination. To increase analytical 
accuracy, crimes were mapped to property building 
footprints rather than estimated along street 
centerlines. Crimes and other violations could then 
be assessed house by house. The result has 
allowed police to view crime trends more accurately 
than ever before in the departments history. 
Police can now compare and associate patterns, 
changes, and trends with numerous variables 
relating to the community, such as rates of crime 
between types of housing. One outcome of the 
analysis was that Habitat Homes in this area were 
found to be high in violence. Officers investigated 
and found that many of the Habitat Homes were 
secretly being rented. Habitat for Humanity was 


informed of this finding; the organization is now 
working to eliminate the rental violations via 
contractual adjustments. 

With an analysis of the data confirming that 60 
percent of the arrests in northeast Belmont were 
for drug offenses committed by people from outside 
the area, officers knew the areas easy accessibility 
by automobile was a problem. Further 
analysis pointed out two of the most prominent 
routes, so officers suggested installing barricades 
on these two streets. The hypothesis was that the 
barricades would create sufficient insecurity 
among drug buyers and thus reduce their frequency 
of visits, and by extension reduce their risk of 
victimization. With mixed support from the community, 
a single solid-concrete highway barricade 
was installed at the popular intersection, effectively 
turning the roads into dead-end streets. The 
community agreed to allow the barricade on a 
temporary basis and to remove it if it proved ineffective. 
To create a relatively sound test environment for 
analyzing the impact of the barriers, no other 
intervention strategies were applied at that time. 

An analysis of the crimes committed on the same 
date one year before and one year after the barricades 
were installed found a 54-percent decrease 
in violent offenses. When there was no relationship 
between offender and victim (typically 
assumed to be buyers and sellers), violent offenses 
decreased by 78 percent. Arrests were also 
down by 43 percent. The highest rates of 
decrease for all statistics came specifically on 
those streets that were barricaded. Other area 
streets showed less substantial decreases. 

During the course of this study, many community 
residents objected to the use of the barricades. 
The community leadership lent cautious support, 
requesting periodic evaluations of their effectiveness. 
Ironically, a year after installation, the residents 
most strongly supported the continued use 
of the barricades, while the community leaders 
objected. Supporters said drug activity in the study 
area, although not eliminated, was noticeably less 
prevalent, and they were positively impressed 
with the reduction in violence. Neighborhood leaders 
were now opposed to the barricades because 
they feared the city was imposing them as a permanent 
solution, which they viewed as inadequate. 
Everyone involved agreed that the unsightly 
appearance of the concrete barricades was a problem. 
As a result, the barriers have been replaced 
with a post-and-chain divider surrounded by a 
garden, which pleases area residents. 

More than a year after the installation of the 
barricades, a seven-member Street Drug Interdiction 
Team was created. Individuals known to be drug 
dealers were targeted for investigation, arrest, and 
prioritized prosecution in a joint effort between 
police and prosecutors. Between November 2000 
and February 2001, violent offenses in the area 
dropped by 30 percent. 

Pawnshops and Their Possible Connection to 
Burglaries. The study of pawnshops in Charlotte-
Mecklenburg was designed to examine the activities 
and behavior of individuals who frequently 
pawn multiple items, according to Crime Analyst 
Kristen Knight. Police believe the study was vital 
both to the recovery of stolen merchandise and to 
the investigation of crimes such as burglary, robbery, 
and larceny. 

Prior examination of data suggested that people 
who pawned items occasionally accounted for 
approximately 90 percent of business, while the 
remaining 10 percent pawned items quite often. 
The study examined nine components of the 
behavior of frequent pawners: 

. Whether the transaction involved a loan or a sale 

. The type of property pawned (e.g., firearms, 
electronics, tools) 

. The addresses and frequency of pawnshops visited for GIS analysis 

. The number of items pawned per visit and 
the average value of these items 


. Each customers criminal record, if any 

. The average value of items 

. The point at which a pawnshop owner or manager 
became involved in the transaction, based 
on the value of the item 

. The average distance from home the customer 
travels to pawn items 

. A comparison of the above factors for frequent 
pawners and a random sample of less frequent 
customers 


One of the most interesting aspects of this project 
was its application of the problem-solving 
philosophy and the scanning, analysis, response, and 
assessment (SARA) model to an investigative 
issue. The Investigative Services Division has 
sought ways to involve detectives in problem-
solving activities so they can more closely apply 
these concepts to their work. This project took an 
investigative issue and used extensive data analysis 
to test the theories. The project gave detectives a 
chance to see the benefits of more extensive data 
analysis, which the department hopes will be an 
impetus for similar projects in the future. 

Officers often described the SARA process as 
tedious and slow; however, this project helped 
them see that their efforts had concrete results. 

This ACP project is a good model for the integration 
of problem solving with data. This particular 
project did not demonstrate the expected correlation. 
It was a good example of using SARA to 
check and overturn an assumption of the relationship 
between pawnshops and burglary. 

Panel Commentary 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg used its ACP grant to 
demonstrate the power of bringing an outside 
expert with international prominence to a 
department. Goldsteins and Clarkes involvement 
caused officers to take this project seriously. 
Having an expert onsite for a week at a time created 
many informal opportunities for spontaneous 
interaction, including the flexibility to pursue ideas 
as they came up. As a result of working with 
Goldstein, people from the department accepted 
the concept of community policing more powerfully 
and effectively than they would have through 
training in another location. 

The immediate question that arises, however, is 
the degree to which this process could be replicated 
elsewhere. How many agencies can afford 
such an investment, and how many scholars have 
the cachet and immediate credibility of Goldstein? 
Perhaps the larger lesson is that community 
policing programs benefit from having access to 
continuous feedback from an independent, critical 
source. This function, which should be embedded 
in implementation programs whenever possible, 
can be fulfilled by a variety of sources: police 
personnel, community members, business leaders, 
and/or retirees. The point is that the inclusion of a 
credible touchstone in the process of program 
implementation is worth considering, and 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg clearly benefited from 
novel and creative use of the ACP grant. 

The summary of the appliance burglary project is 
a classic case study and worthy of extended analysis. 
The panel hopes that Charlotte-Mecklenburg 
will work up a detailed paper on this project and 
focus on the process of redefining a program that 
initially failed. It is rare for police agencies to 
provide indepth analysis of programs that do not work, 
and to explain how they redesigned their approach 
to achieve ultimate success. Charlotte-Mecklenburg 
learned a profound lesson in its initial attempt to 
address a specific crime problem without first 
undertaking rigorous analysis of data and causalities. 
The point is that failures should be examined 
and triumphs should be celebrated with equal interest. 
Although false starts and failed initiatives are 
plentiful in the law enforcement profession, they 
are seldom reported. 



It is tempting to minimize several of the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg initiatives as rather mundane and 
uninteresting. But there is a profound message in 
the departments experience: Choose battles that 
can be won. A police agency at the early stages of 
organizational transformation would do well to 
focus on perfecting the SARA process by using it 
to address some basic problems, which in turn 
would allow them to demonstrate substantive success 
by dramatically reducing a solvable crime and 
disorder problem. Once a record of accomplishments 
has been established and the process has 
been tested in a real-world laboratory, the chances 
of acceptance of organizational change and 
institutionalization of the problem-solving model 
will be greatly improved. 

The pawnshop study is noteworthy in part because 
of the involvement of the investigations bureau in a 
SARA project. Much has been said about the rarity 
of SARA applications in detective bureaus around 
the country. For all the rhetoric about how the 
integration of problem-solving methodologies into 
investigations is the next frontier, few case studies 
indicate progress in this area. 

Together, the four varied projects provided the 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department with a 
rich framework in which to address future issues. 
Personnel who worked on these projects are now 
armed with immensely valuable institutional 
knowledge that will allow them to teach others 
and pass along their successes, trials, and failures. 
Although the process often seemed tedious and 
overly time consuming, the organizational wisdom 
and experience that were gained were invaluable. 



CHAPTER 4 LONGMONT: 
Community Policing Starts 
With Communication

The Advancing Community Policing Grant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 
Department Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 
Panel Commentary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 


CHAPTER 4 

LONGMONT
Community Policing Starts 
With Communication 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

In 1993, the Longmont Police Department (LPD) 
was typical of most police departments in the 
United States. It consisted of men and women 
working in a top-down, command-and-control 
environment. Personnel were managed with 
excessive policies and procedures. Employees 
depended on their superiors for inspiration and 
for sustaining morale. Policing in Longmont was 
done by the rules, in a cookbook fashion. It was 
almost entirely budget-driven and restrictive, leaving 
little room for ingenuity or creative problem 
solving. 

The Advancing Community Policing (ACP) grant 
was awarded to LPD approximately two years 
after the departments long-range strategic plan 
was completed. That plan called for several initiatives 
to build better communication and discussion 
links with the community. Although the city council 
had agreed to help fund the initiative outlined in 
the strategic plan, the plan required the police 
department to use multiple budget years over an 
extended period of time, which created a time 
delay in the implementation of some strategies. 
Projects would be funded over four years. 

Police Chief Michael Butler says there was another 
concern: It seemed that unless the police initiated 
and continued to maintain the community 
policing efforts, there was a good chance that 
viable options for dealing with issues would just 


wither away for lack of interest. Butler went on 
to say that the information and communication 
links between police and citizens had traditionally 
been one-way and not frequent or substantive 
enough to develop partnerships. 


Other challenges for LPD included the following: 

. Police were isolated within the community, with 
little cooperation from businesses and other 
entities. 

. There was an us-versus-them mentality 
between police and the community. 

. There was no planning process. 

. There was no cooperation between police and 
other city departments. 

. The department had poor media relations. 

. Citizens depended on police to solve all crime 
and social problems. 

. There was no data and trend analysis (the 
department lacked personnel and equipment). 

. There were too many internal affairs complaints. 


Because of the historical lack of communication 
between police and citizens, the grant was submitted 
with the request that the COPS Office help 
LPD fund the necessary communication links to 
increase the departments capacity to develop true 
partnerships with the community. 

LPD had two positive attributes that indicated fertile 
ground for community policing: good, dedicated 
employees and a community that seemed 
open to participating in a partnership with the 
police. 

It seemed that unless the police initiated and 
continued to maintain the community policing 
efforts, there was a good chance that viable 
options for dealing with issues would just wither 
away for lack of interest. 
Police Chief Michael Butler 

The real challenge within LPD was creating a 
place where people believed they owned their 
work and that what they did had meaning and purpose. 
Creating an environment where employees 
worked as partners was also a significant challenge. 
LPDs main objective with community policing 
was to build true partnerships with the 
community that included the elements of joint 
accountability and absolute honesty between 
partners, equal responsibility for determining the 
future, and giving each partner the right to 
say no. 

The Project 

Chief Butler says he knew that only an integrated 
approach to organizational development would 
work. All of the management systems, leadership 
practices, and architecture, says Butler, had 
to be on the same page. We had to change not 
only the systems and the architecture to support 
the internal partnership-based philosophy, but also 
the relationships we had with our community. 

The management systems that needed overhauling 
were: 

. Recruitment and selection 

. Training 

. Performance management 

. Budget 

. Directives (rules and regulations) 

. Beats (from quadrants to beat and staff development 
system) 

. Communication (not dispatch, but how to talk 
with each other) 



. Recognition and rewards 

. Behavior modification 

. Planning (strategic plan) 

LONGMONT POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: LONGMONT, COLORADO 
CHIEF: MICHAEL BUTLER 
CONTACT: WWW.CI.LONGMONT.CO.US/POLICE 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: RE-ENGINEERING OTHER COMPONENTS 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $249,791 
SITE VISIT: JANUARY 16, 2001 

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND
Longmont, Colorado is a fast-growing 
city located 30 miles north of Denver. It 
lies just east of and parallel to the Rocky 
Mountains. From its agricultural beginning 
in 1870, Longmont has grown into a 
community that supports service businesses, 
light industry, and high-tech and 
manufacturing businesses. Longmonts 
population of 71,093 is 76.8 percent white 
and 19.1 percent Hispanic, 1.7 percent 
Asian, and 2.4 percent other.* The 
Longmont Police Department (LPD) is 
composed of 107 commissioned and 35 
civilian personnel. The majority of complaints 
made to police are about traffic 
and disorder. 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000.

Recruitment and Selection. Chief Butler began 
by changing the profile of the police officers hired 
in Longmont. The department began looking for 
life-experienced, educated people with good interpersonal 
and other communication skills and the 
capacity to work in partnership and diversity. The 
recruiting philosophy was also changed to find 
people more interested in the spirit of service than 
in the spirit of adventure. 

Training. Several courses on problem solving, 
communication skills, and utilizing community 
resources were added to the police training curriculum. 
The objectives were to teach employees 
the concepts of partnership and how to work in 
partnership with citizens and each other. 

Performance Management. The performance 
appraisal system was changed from a top-down 
methodology to a partnership format. Employees 
and supervisors began to work together closely to 
develop and clarify expectations for the upcoming 
year. A career development program that included 
an increase in salaries for police officers was 
developed. 

Budget. Butler says, We redesigned our budgeting 
process to give more ownership to smaller 
units within the police department. The change 
allowed more people to be involved with the purchasing 
and procurement of equipment and capital, 
as well as spending some discretionary 
money. 

Directives. The departments directive system 
was condensed from several large manuals into 
one and redesigned to look less like a tool for 
management and more like a resource guide for 
employees. In the past, such changes occurred 
via managers recommendations; now, every 
employee had the opportunity to recommend 
such changes. 

Beats. The former beat system consisted of dividing 
the city of Longmont into quadrants, with officers 
assigned randomly on any given shift to any 
part of the city. In the new system, the city is segmented 
into districts defined by neighborhoods. 
Officers are assigned to a district for a full year 
and often renew their beat assignment during the 
annual shift/beat bid. Butler says this has been 
an invaluable tool in supporting our officers into 



taking more ownership for their areas and helping 
them to work successfully in partnership with our 
citizens. 

Communication. All meetings are now open to 
any employee to attend. Agendas, to which 
employees can contribute, are published in 
advance. Monthly staff meetings, called departmentwide 
conversations, are now held. 

Recognition and Rewards. The annual awards 
banquet and ceremony has dramatically increased 
the number of citizens who receive recognition by 
including new awards such as the Community 
Policing Award. 

Behavior Modification. The entire discipline system 
was modified to reflect management working 
in partnership with employees. The responsibility 
for evolving behavior was pushed away from the 
chiefs office to first-line supervisors. Prior to the 
changes that moved the department toward both 
partnership and community policing, formal citizen 
complaints averaged 100 per year. Since 1995, the 
average has been only two formal complaints per 
year. 

Planning. Perhaps the most comprehensive strategy 
to help initiate community policing was the 
development of a long-range strategic plan. To 
develop that plan, teams of employees were sent 
on fact-finding missions to seven police departments 
across North America. Each department 
was recognized as a leader in community policing, 
and some had already developed strategic plans. 
Each team of employees prepared and presented 
comprehensive reports on their site visits to the 
department and community members. Chief 
Butler says the result was an increased understanding 
of community policing and a significantly 
better grasp of the importance of creating and 
implementing a long-range strategic plan. 

One of the main objectives of the planning process 
was to identify the responsibilities of the 
police department and the communities. As the 
discussions evolved and the police became more 
comfortable talking about their true capacity, it 
became more apparent that the police were merely 
partners in improving the quality of life in the 
community. 

The resulting strategic plan now includes more 
than 200 initiatives. It is modified every other year 
and reviewed monthly in staff meetings. Over 
time, says Chief Butler, we have turned the corner. 
In fact, the other departments in our city have 
converted many of their systems to work more in 
partnership with their employees. 

The Advancing Community Policing grant opportunity 
could not have come at a better time for 
us, says Chief Butler. We believed we had 
already done all the groundwork in preparing for 
a grant, not knowing the ACP grant would be 
available. We wanted the decision-makers for the 
distribution of grant money to understand and 
appreciate that we were not developing a new 
idea because grant money was available, but that 
all of our planning and preparation would increase 
our likelihood of obtaining the grant. It worked. In 
fact, our strategic plan was the goose that laid the 
golden egg for many grant opportunities; truly an 
unintended, but very successful consequence. 

The ACP grant funded several initiatives that 
greatly enhanced the departments capacity to 
create and maintain ongoing communication, 
which led to sustained partnerships within the 
community. The grant was paramount to the 
departments process of building and maintaining 
true community partnerships, and it significantly 
accelerated the departments timetable for implementing 
the partnerships. 

Since being awarded the ACP grant, Longmont 
has funded other key initiatives with grant money. 
The catalyst for that funding, however, was the 
valuable experience the entire communitypolice 
and citizensreceived by implementing the initiatives 
funded by the ACP grant: 

. Community services coordinator 
. Website information and homepage 
. Spanish immersion training 



. Problem-oriented policing (POP) conference 
. Crime analysis and software mapping program 
. Quarterly newspaper inserts 
. Crime prevention through television 
. Community survey 
. Flattening organizational structure 
. A local conference 


The following sections describe the initiatives that 
were funded by Longmonts ACP grant and summarize 
the effect of each on the community. 

Community Services Coordinator. Funding for 
the community services coordinator position 
allowed the department to coordinate and centralize 
all communications between LPD and the 
community. The coordinator facilitated meetings 
and the exchange of information between police 
and citizens. This position coordinates the volunteer 
program that saves the taxpayers approximately 
$150,000 annually. Citizens enforce 
handicapped parking restrictions, removal of 
junked vehicles, and ordinances in the parks. 

The coordinator developed such programs as Play-
It-Safe, a program that focuses on elementary 
school student safety, and the Police Intern 
Program, which partners with local colleges. In 
this program, college students who want to be 
police officers are trained and then patrol the 
streets of the community, handling mostly disorder-
related issues. This has become a significant 
recruiting tool for the department. 

The coordinator position assists with and coordinates 
much of the marketing for the department 
on a local level. The positive impact of having the 
coordinator on board was recognized immediately 
by police personnel, citizens, schools, businesses, 
and other organizations, including the city council, 
which has funded this position permanently. 

Website Information and Homepage. Grant 
funding helped LPD develop its first homepage 
and, subsequently, its capacity to communicate 
with the community through the Internet. The 
components of the website include a recruitment 
section, a crime map, crime prevention information, 
police/community programs, an interactive 
question-and-answer section, links to other sites, 
and a tour of the police department. According to 
LPD, the website has become a good recruiting 
tool for the department, and it has enabled 
employees to answer many questions from 
citizens about police-related issues. 

Teleminder System. The Teleminder is a 
community messaging system. Through multiple 
phone lines, the department can send out prerecorded 
notices of neighborhood meetings, crime 
alerts, special interest information, and more. Five 
hundred messages can be sent in an hour; recipients 
can be targeted geographically. At first the 
department believed that information sent out 
should be law enforcement-related, which limited 
the systems use. When the grant period ended, 
however, the department made the Teleminder 
available to other city departments; for example, 
the fire department uses it for severe weather 
warnings. One of the most frequent users is the 
neighborhood group coordinator, who is closely 
aligned with the police department on quality-oflife 
issues and neighborhood revitalization. 

Spanish Immersion Training. Because LPD is 
concerned with maintaining a positive relationship 
with the Hispanic population, efforts have been 
made to train officers to speak Spanish. Since the 
ACP grant expired, the department has continued 
to pay for the language training, which has 
become a high priority on the annual training 
schedule. As the population that speaks only 
Spanish continues to grow, police personnel fluent 
in Spanish are an essential resource. 

Problem-Oriented Policing Conference. Held 
annually in San Diego, California, the POP conference 
has been a destination for Longmont police 
personnel for several years. ACP funds enabled 
the department to send not only police personnel 
but also 10 citizens from local businesses, neighborhood 
groups, and youth groups to the 1999 


POP conference. The conference offered many 
ideas and projects to the civilians who attended, 
and it gave them the opportunity to spend time 
with police officers in an environment that was 
educational and social, rather than official. This 
particular form of partnering has continued to provide 
positive connections between officers and citizens. 
The neighborhood group leaders, with 
whom the police department works closely, benefit 
from this experience. They have taken a significant 
leadership role in organizing the communitys 
neighborhoods. 

Crime Analysis and Software Mapping 
Program. The ACP grant allowed the department 
to move ahead with updated software and crime 
mapping. Through these upgrades, the crime analyst 
was able to provide operations personnel, citizens, 
and neighborhood groups with current crime 
trends and patterns and to address those trends 
more effectively. The mapping is also used in the 
departments weekly cable television show (see 
Crime Prevention Through Television). 

Quarterly Newspaper Inserts. One of the departments 
most successful communication tools, 
these custom-sized inserts in the local newspaper 
disseminate information about such topics as 
crime prevention, school and workplace violence, 
and safe gun storage. Feedback is excellentthe 
community has consistently found these inserts 
quite helpful and informative. A recent insert 
focused on disorder in the city and featured the 
most frequently cited code violations, along with 
appropriate citizen responses. Because of its value 
to citizens, this particular insert was translated into 
Spanish and distributed to Spanish-speaking 
households. The department continues to fund the 
publication of these inserts. 

Crime Prevention Through Television. 

Longmonts weekly cable television show devoted 
to the local police is called Behind the Badge. 
According to LPD, the show has a loyal following, 
and viewership has increased over the past three 
and a half years. The format includes a crime map, 
discussion of traffic hot spots, crime prevention 
tips, and guests who discuss the shows featured 
topic, along with calls from viewers. A popular 
segment on Behind the Badge is Longmonts 
Most Wanted. Viewers have called in information 
that has led to numerous arrests. The show has 
had continued funding from the department and 
city following the ACP grant. 

Community Survey. In 1996, the police department 
conducted a professional and scientific community 
survey that proved useful. The Strategic 
Plan 2000 called for the survey to be conducted 
biannually, and the ACP grant was used to conduct 
a new survey in 1998. This second survey 
was also conducted scientifically by a professional 
company. The new survey was expanded in scope 
to include not only the resident survey but also 
youth and business components. The expanded 
survey was designed to be a baseline for future 
surveys conducted by police staff. Part of the survey 
applied to citizens who had prior personal 
experiences with the police and included questions 
about what those experiences entailed. 

The results of the biannual survey have been useful 
in developing programs, allocating funding, and 
assessing the communitys opinion of the department. 
LPD incorporates information from the survey 
when drafting operational plans, developing 
new projects, enhancing existing educational and 
other programs, building partnerships, proposing 
budgets, and allocating and deploying officers. 
Community surveys will continue to be part of 
LPDs strategy for delivering police services. The 
department has employed a crime, information, 
and research analyst who will continue to administer 
the surveys. 

Flattening Organizational Structure. The department 
flattened its organization by combining two 
high levels (lieutenants and captains) into one (commander) 
and eliminating one-third of the top-level 
management positions. The resources saved by the 
restructuring were used to hire more police officers. 
This minimized the number of filters in the organization 
and gave police at each level more authority to 
make decisions. Chief Butler says that flattening 
was initially met with a good deal of resistance but 
has been successful. 


The Our Town Conference. The department initiated 
a conference called Our Town for people in 
the community who seldom have the opportunity 
to attend conferences. Attendees learned cutting-
edge information regarding trends in technology, 
business issues, the media, education, government 
operations, and community building. 

To date, three conferences have been conducted. 
Organizational development experts Peter Block, 
John McKnight, and Patch Adams have been 
keynote speakers. As a result of these conferences, 
several new neighborhood groups have 
been formed and nonprofits such as Youth as 
Resources have been created. In addition, 250 
youths from local schools have committed themselves 
to community service projects. 

Department Observations 

Department officials are aware that the implementation 
of community policing should be an integrated, 
systematic approach and that any new 
program will have systemwide impact. Thus, the 
department ensures that new programs conform 
to its community policing philosophy and fit successfully 
within its management systems. 

Our ongoing challenge, says Chief Butler, will 
be shifting some of the responsibility of public 
safety from the police to the community, as 
well as the power to deal with related issues 
responsibly. 

Butler goes on to say that the department needs 
to give people a chance to create their part of 
that vision. Create an environment that gets people 
talking on their own and with each other. 
Encourage disagreement. Give people a voice. 
But he also says it is important to remind them 
that their voice comes at a cost. The cost for people 
to have a voice revolves around agenda. Their 
agenda must be about the organization and/or the 
community and not about themselves. 

Panel Commentary 

Many of the grants and programs the panel has 
evaluated asked for monetary support to initiate or 
complete a strategic planning process. In contrast, 
LPD requested and received ACP grant support 
several years after completion of its strategic plan. 
This phased support of analysis, implementation, 
and possible expansion of strategic goals is a 
worthwhile model. Strategic planning is the cornerstone 
of agency progress; an agency should 
not wait for a funding opportunity before initiating 
the strategic planning process. 

LPDs strategic planning process is remarkable for 
its inclusion of community and business leaders in 
site visits and for reporting back to the department 
as a whole. Ongoing modification of the plan 
through outside retreats demonstrates the departments 
commitment to process. In fact, paying 
attention to process is an underappreciated skill in 
law enforcement, and some departments have 
languished for years as a result. 

Using a grant to fund a full-time position is generally 
a risky proposition. Invariably, there are startup 
losses in time and energy. There is also the possibility 
that the program will not meet basic goals 
before the position can be funded again via a continuing 
grant or transferred to a general fund or 
other budget line item. In the case of Longmonts 
community services coordinator, however, this risk 
paid off. Not only did the department advance 
important strategic goals, but the success of the 
program prompted the city council to fund the 
position permanently. This outcome (which 
unfortunately remains more the exception 


than the rule) reinforces the power of a clearly 
articulated vision of both the objective and the 
plan for implementation. 

The use of the Teleminder system for communicating 
messages to community members is noteworthy. 
While these automated outdialing 
systems are used by large agencies under a variety 
of trade names, it is unusual to find an agency 
the size of LPD deploying such a system. 
Moreover, these systems tend to be used by 
public safety agencies for emergency management 
and mobilization. The use of these systems 
to communicate with the community maximizes 
their value, particularly when one considers that 
they are idle for most of any given day. 

Longmonts work is an excellent example of how 
purposeful leadership combined with public funding 
can bring about change within an organization 
that, without the grant, would not be motivated or 
prepared for the change immediately or quickly. 

Chief Butlers attention to integration of services 
and organizational structure demonstrates a fundamental 
understanding of how these aspects of a 
police department are related and how they affect 
the work of each officer. Officers will work more 
willingly and effectively in the community if behavior 
inside the department serves as a model of the 
behavior they are expected to display outside the 
department. 


CHAPTER 5 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY: 

A Sheriffs Vision For 
Community Policing
 
The Advancing Community Policing Grant. . . . . . . . . .39 
Department Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 
Panel Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 



LOS ANGELES 
COUNTY 

A Sheriff's Vision For 
Community Policing 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

Community policing efforts in the Los Angeles 
County Sheriffs Department (LASD) include 
officers working in patrol, custody, court services, 
detective, or administrative functions. The department 
has patrol deputies assigned to the 
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) 
Bureau to address problem-solving and community 
policing activities. Part of the Advancing 
Community Policing (ACP) grant money went 
toward bringing in more staff to help develop 
LASDs COPS Bureau. 

The ACP grant also provided overtime funds that 
were used to pay for 300 sergeants, 100 lieutenants, 
and other sworn and nonsworn managers 
to attend the Community Policing for Supervisors 
and Managers course offered at the California 
Regional Community Policing Institute (RCPI) at 
Los Angeles. Misconceptions about community 
policing were addressed in the training, said 
Lieutenant Bruce Pollack, RCPIs director. Many 
mid-level managers who were initially very much


against the COPS Bureau and philosophy became 
some of its most ardent supporters. 
Many deputies have admitted that they did not initially 
support the program but participated because 
it was the new policy. After learning and practicing 
the philosophy of the COPS Bureau, however, they 
discovered that it did not mean that the department 
was going soft on crime. Instead, it was 
redirecting its approach to community problems 
and involving community residents to a greater 
degree in addressing criminal matters. After participating 
in the departments community policing 
efforts, these deputies have become believers 
in the program and philosophy and are convinced 
that this is the manner in which law enforcement 
agencies should function, says Deputy Dan 
Waidner. 

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 
SHERIFF: LEROY D. BACA 
CONTACT: WWW.LASD.ORG 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $250,000 
SITE VISIT: JANUARY 3, 2001 

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
Los Angeles County is one of the 
Nations largest counties, with 4,081 
square miles, including the islands of 
San Clemente and Santa Catalina, and a 
76-mile coastline. The county has a population 
of 9.5 million, the largest single-
county population in the nation. The 
population is 44.6 percent Hispanic, 31.1 
percent white, 11.8 percent Asian, 9.5 
percent black, and 31 percent other.* 
Approximately 29 percent of Californias 
residents live in Los Angeles County. 
The Los Angeles County Sheriffs 
Department (LASD) is the largest sheriffs 
department in the world, with 9,000 
sworn and 6,000 civilian members in 21 
separate policing stations. The department 
is responsible for the enforcement 
of all laws and regulations as required 
by statute. The department participates 
in programs for rehabilitation, crime prevention, 
and delinquency suppression; 
directs and coordinates emergency services; 
maintains security for and supports 
the functions of the superior and 
municipal courts; and operates county 
detention facilities. These law enforcement 
services are provided throughout 
the unincorporated areas of the county 
and within 42 incorporated cities that 
contract with LASD for services. 
LASD is unionized. Two unions represent 
the sworn members of the department 
and one represents the civilian personnel. 
No one is obligated to belong to any 
union as a condition of employment within 
the department. 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 

The Project 

Major elements of LASDs ACP project included: 

. The COPS Bureau 

. The Vital Intervention and Directional 
Alternatives (VIDA) program 

. The Nuisance Abatement Tracking System 
. The fiscal system 


. The Activities Tracking System 


The COPS Bureau. Sheriff Leroy D. Baca made 
community policing a centerpiece of his administration 
when he was elected in 1998. LASDs 
COPS Bureau is responsible for all community 
policing activities within the unincorporated areas 
of Los Angeles County. The Bureau was created 
in an effort to unify the services provided by all of 
the COPS deputies under one command, says 
Commander Paul Tanaka. The primary objective 
of the COPS Bureau is to have each stations team 
develop a rapport with the residents of its specific 
community. The goal is to give the community an 
opportunity to become acquainted with the deputy 
sheriffs who police their area and, in turn, obtain 
information regarding the communitys needs. 
The COPS Bureau now has five specialized 




programs departmentwide and 309 deputies and 
41 sergeants assigned to 35 COPS teams in 20 
stations. 
Prior to the development of the COPS Bureau, residents 
of the unincorporated areas of the county 
received basic law enforcement services from the 
department. Patrol deputies, whose primary function 
was to answer calls for service, provided most 
of these services. Due to the large number of calls 
and a shortage of officers, patrol deputies did not 
have the time or resources to respond effectively 
to every community problem. As a result, patrol 
deputies spent most of their time handling such 
higher priority crimes as violent felonies. Lower 
grade crimes such as illegal drug activity, prostitution, 
drinking in public, and quality-of-life issues had 
not been thoroughly addressed, and problems such 
as vacant properties, abandoned vehicles, illegal 
vending and dumping, and curfew and truancy violations 
were often completely ignored. 

All COPS Bureau deputies are selected from the 
cadre of patrol deputies assigned to a specific station. 
As openings within the COPS Bureau occur, 
any station deputy can rotate out of patrol into the 
COPS Bureau. The basic difference between the 
two roles is that, unlike deputies in the COPS 
Bureau, patrol deputies answer calls for service 
and do not have time to investigate or handle 
problems that require long-term solutions. 

The COPS Bureau deputies work as a team. They 
address problems at specific locations that can 
vary from barking dogs or excessive trash accumulation 
to hardcore gang or narcotics activity. When 
patrol deputies notify COPS Bureau deputies of a 
problem, the COPS deputies take on the problem 
as a dedicated mission. 

Many mid-level managers who were initially very 
much against the COPS Bureau and philosophy 
became some of its most ardent supporters. 
Lieutenant Bruce Pollack 

As deputies rotate through the program, LASD 
expects that, eventually, every member of the 
patrol force will have served within the COPS 
Bureau and will know how to address more 
complex and varied community problems. 

Each deputy assigned to a COPS position is 
responsible for a particular reporting district, community, 
or neighborhood. This is to reduce the 
size of service areas to smaller, more manageable 
communities. COPS deputies assigned to these 
communities identify and develop solutions to 
problems in conjunction with community members 
and neighborhood leaders. Three types of 
COPS teams work within LASD: COPS, Special 
Prevention and Intervention (SPI), and High Impact 
Target Area. 

SPI COPS teams typically work in bicycle patrols, 
which have been effective in both apprehending 
criminals and allowing officers to get to know 
neighborhood residents. SPI teams work throughout 
the station area on both mission-specific 
patrols and saturation patrols, and they act as 
additional support for other COPS teams. 

The High Impact Target Area COPS teams operate 
at each station and work within specifically targeted 
areas for short periods of time (approximately 
four to nine months, depending on the area and 
community problems encountered). These target 
areas are selected based on such criteria as overall 
criminal activity, specific gang activity, calls 
from residents identifying problem locations, and 
other outside influences. These teams begin targeted 
community projects by surveying the community 
and asking the residents to identify their 
concerns and, if possible, locations where criminal 
activity occurs. These results are tabulated and 
problem locations are identified as specific missions 
that the entire team combats. 

When the High Impact Target Area survey is complete, 
the COPS team discusses the results of 
the survey with residents in a townhall meeting. 
Community leaders are invited to meet with the 


team to discuss the projects outcome. Any mission 
that is not completed during the project time 
period is turned over to the regular COPS team 
and the appropriate COPS deputy continues to 
work toward solving the problem. Other COPS 
deputies are assigned to community relations 
duties and to the VIDA program. 

The VIDA Program. The VIDA program is the 
only program in Los Angeles County that deals 
with at-risk youth before they become just another 
inmate in the juvenile justice system, says 
Sergeant Arlene Berner, the VIDA program coordinator 
for the department. The program utilizes 
community volunteers (such as U.S. Marines 
based in the Los Angeles area) to teach discipline 
and instill healthy habits through physical training. 
The program allows deputies to become mentors 
and positive role models for troubled youths. 

VIDA program deputies work with youths at 12 
sites in Los Angeles County. The 16-week program 
is a collaborative effort between LASD, community-
based organizations, the juvenile courts, the probation 
department, schools, and parents. 

VIDA focuses on youths between the ages of 11 
and 171/2 who have no serious law enforcement 
contacts but have exhibited such antisocial behavior 
as truancy, incorrigibility, threats of violence, or 
affiliation with street gangs. The juvenile courts, 
the probation department, the Department of 
Childrens Services, schools, parents, and law 
enforcement refer youths to this program. More 
than 600 youths have graduated from the VIDA 
program since it was expanded countywide in 
January 2000. 

The VIDA program is the only program in Los 
Angeles County that deals with at-risk youth 
before they become just another inmate in the 
juvenile justice system. 
Sergeant Arlene Berner 

The Nuisance Abatement Tracking System. 
The Board of Supervisors has created a Nuisance 
Abatement Tracking System in conjunction with 
LASD. The purpose of this system is to track the 
progress of nuisance abatements. 

Deputy sheriffs respond to citizen complaints of 
nuisance problems (code enforcement) in their 
area of responsibility. They can access the 
Nuisance Abatement Tracking System website 
and check on the status of any property in the 
county. This system provides a history of past 
inspections (if applicable) and whether the location 
has been a safety concern in the past. The system 
gives the user information about the owner and 
the names of informants. The program has a built-
in email capability, which allows deputies to forward 
information to specific contact people at 
designated public agencies who can respond to 
aproblem or complaint. The program also can 
generate statistical reports that satisfy monthly 
report and grant requirements. The system is user 
friendly with pulldown menus, FAQ guides, and 
help programs. The website, which is located on 
Los Angeles Countys intranet, can be accessed 
by personnel from county agencies. The system 
is currently used in two of the five supervisor 
districts. 

The Fiscal System. All of the COPS funds are 
incorporated within the departments budget and 
earmarked for the COPS Bureau. Due to the many 
requests for specific financial details from the 
County Board of Supervisors and federal, state, 
and local grant agencies, the COPS Bureau created 
and maintains a fiscal tracking system that can 
quickly produce reports that are tailored to each 
agencys need for information. 

The Activities Tracking System. The Activities 
Tracking System consists of the statistical records 
of COPS deputies actions. It summarizes the activities 
conducted within each community, team, station, 
supervisor district, and Field Operations 
Region and in the COPS Bureau. Additionally, 
a one-page narrative is included for each team 
to highlight its most recent accomplishments. 


This allows deputies to express themselves 
beyond what mere numbers can portray. This type 
of report, in which the narrative and the statistical 
sections complement each other, effectively 
addresses requests for information about the 
COPS Bureau. 

Department Observations 

Challenges 

When LASD was creating the COPS Bureau, there 
were many misconceptions, including different 
ideas about the duties of the newly assigned 
deputies. Some thought that this would be only 
an extension of the community relations function 
and that no true police work would be involved. 
Others saw this as a fluff assignment not worthy 
of a deputy who wanted to do true police 
work. Because most LASD deputies enjoyed protecting 
communities by being very proactive in 
law enforcement through the apprehension of 
criminals, many deputies did not want to be associated 
with this very different kind of program. 

As it turned out, the sheriff wanted a COPS 
Bureau in which the deputies would be very 
proactive against gangs, narcotics activity, and 
general lawlessness, in addition to being in close 
touch with community residents. This included 
addressing the criminal activity that was important 
to the residents rather than to the deputies. When 
the true nature of the COPS Bureau and the philosophy 
were made known, and when communities 
eagerly accepted this new approach to law 
enforcement, deputies became less critical of the 
program. 

Benefits 

The COPS Bureau has allowed deputies to form 
community partnerships that have benefited 
both the community and the department. Placing 
deputies who do not have the responsibility to 
handle radio calls in the community can provide 
long-term solutions. 

Nuisance Abatement Teams are examples of such 
partnerships. Members of the COPS team meet 
monthly with representatives of the code enforcement, 
building and safety, and health departments. 
The meetings address safety and nuisance issues 
that are beyond the scope of law enforcement, 
but are brought to the attention of police almost 
daily. 

Another example of a working partnership is the 
Azusa Law Enforcement Group (LEG). Members 
routinely attend meetings and work on projects 
together. The Azusa Police Department, West 
Covina Police Department, Covina Police 
Department, San Dimas COPS Team, Sheriffs 
Department, Operation SafeStreets, state parole 
department, and county probation department all 
provide representatives. Joint LEG operations 
have resulted in many arrests. Sharing of information 
within the group benefits each participating 
organization. The county areas that the San Dimas 
station serves are within several cities. Criminals 
do not recognize jurisdictional boundaries; they 
may live in one area and caper in others. LASD 
now can share information, which allows it to 
thwart the efforts of such criminals. 

LASD also has built relationships with the local 
schools. Although many schools are outside the 
county area, the students who attend them live in 
the county area. The students see LASD deputies 
in and around the campuses and soon realize that 
COPS teams can cross jurisdictional boundaries. 
An example is Sierra Continuation High School in 
the Azusa School District, which is across the 
street from a county park. LASD found that good 
truancy enforcement reduces daytime burglaries, 
so it works in partnership with the school. The 
school gives the department the names of habitual 
truants and a team from LASD picks them up. 


LASD has formed good relationships with the 
Board of Supervisors staff field deputies. They 
have provided information, support, and, in some 
cases, resources. Their ability to get responsive 
action from other county departments has been a 
valuable asset. 

According to Deputy Dan Waidner, an unintended 
outcome of the departments COPS Bureau and 
philosophy is somewhat like the proverbial 
double-edged sword. He says: 

On one hand, our COPS Bureau and philosophy 
has been amazingly successful in 
bringing communities together, decreasing 
crime and the residents perception of 
crime, enhancing residents quality of life, 
creating nicer looking neighborhoods, 
forming partnerships with other county 
agencies, intervening with at risk youths, 
and being able to address and handle 
almost any type of request for service. 

But, on the other hand, Waidner notes that 
because the program and philosophy have been 
so successful, COPS Bureau personnel are being 
inundated with service requests. The community 
has become accustomed to the increased level of 
service, and LASD is finding it difficult to continue 
at this pace. 

The deputies workload has increased so significantly 
that the end result could be a reduction in 
their ability to respond. The irony is that this is 
similar to the situation the department faced 
before it formed the COPS Bureau. Personnel 
were so busy handling calls for service that they 
could not provide adequate service to the communities. 
Now the department is providing all of 
these services, stretching itself to its limits in 
doing so. Executives in the department are 
attempting to address this concern. 

Panel Commentary 

The panel chose to include this grant for study for 
several reasons: It allows discussion and consideration 
of the difficulties involved when implementing 
community policing in a sheriffs department, as 
opposed to a municipal police department; a large 
number of initiatives already under way were supported 
and enhanced by the training this grant provided; 
and the size of the agency raised questions 
of how to get the most for its money. This case is 
another example (like Longmont and Boston) in 
which the department had already engaged in a 
strategic process to expand community policing 
and the grant funds furthered that plan. 

One might assume that providing $250,000 in 
ACP grant funds to the largest sheriffs department 
in the nation would have little effect. LASD, 
however, demonstrated that the specific amount 
of grant money is secondary to the catalytic effect 
of applying for, receiving, and expending a grant. 
Many agencies evaluated by the panel reported 
that the process of applying for the ACP grant 
occasioned often intense analysis of programs 
and goals and reinvigorated the agencys commitment 
to community policing. 

While the ACP grant represented a minute percentage 
of the overall LASD budget devoted to 
community policing, it was clearly instrumental in 
supporting two objectives: to make training possible 
for 400 sergeants and lieutenants and, as part 
of the financial package, to create and define the 
COPS Bureau. It is laudable that LASD had the 
foresight to wed the training initiative to both community 
policing in general and the COPS Bureau in 
particular, because there was resistance in the critical 
ranks of sergeant and lieutenant to both the 
general philosophy of community policing and the 
creation of a specific bureau. The use of grant 
funds for training sergeants and lieutenants was 
well-advised and quickly allowed LASD to develop 
a common understanding and language of community 
policing among a large group of supervisors 
and command officers. 


The panel applauds the choice of RCPI as the 
training venue for the Community Policing for 
Supervisors and Managers curriculum attended 
by LASD sergeants, lieutenants, and managers. 
The RCPI network needs this kind of recognition 
and engagement. The concept of the RCPI network 
is a good one and worth supporting. 

The challenge of designing a community policing 
approach in a county sheriffs agency is both profound 
and unique. The logistics of transforming an 
organization charged with policing an area of more 
than 4,000 square miles are daunting, to say the 
least. For this reason, the panel believes that 
Sheriff Bacas efforts have national significance. 
LASD is a unique laboratory, and its successes or 
failures may have significant implications for the 
overall future of community policing in non-
metropolitan areas. 

Sheriff Baca has made a dramatic long-term commitment 
to community policing. The departments 
plan that all deputies and supervisors will eventually 
rotate through a community policing assignment 
is impressive. This rotation will create a 
broad-based understanding of practical problem-
solving skills among the key individuals in the 
department who can make community policing 
successful. Rotation can do much to offset the difficult 
separation some agencies feel when they 
adopt a model that dedicates some officers to 
community policing within a cadre of patrol officers 
who have limited or no community policing 
expectations. The rate of calls for LASD patrol 
officer service was described as so high that it 
prevented patrol deputies from engaging in community 
policing problem solving. It will be interesting 
to see how LASD balances the increasing 
demand for problem solving within the community 
with an already taxed patrol force. If effective, 
community policing could contribute to a decrease 
in calls for service, thereby allowing more patrol 
deputies to join COPS Bureau deputies. 

One answer to the mandate to meet rising 
expectations is to focus on the community 
part of community policing. 

One of the more important insights advanced in 
the LASD summary is the need to plan for success. 
LASD believed that if the COPS Bureau met 
or exceeded its goals, there would be unintended 
outcomes, some of which would be negative. 
But this is a common dynamic: success gives rise 
to higher expectations and increased demands. 
Overwhelming success can have significant 
human, budgetary, and time management implications. 
At the risk of oversimplifying a complex 
issue, LASD may have a long way to go in the 
area of community empowerment. One answer to 
the mandate to meet rising expectations is to 
focus on the community part of community 
policing. The communitys expectations suggest 
a one-way service dynamic, instead of the shared 
responsibility between citizens and police that is 
the cornerstone of community policing. 

The Nuisance Abatement and Tracking System is 
a highly valuable tool that also has been used in 
afew other departments. LASD seems to have 
been successful in integrating its system into city 
and county systems. The departments use of the 
system of accountability is laudable. It ensures 
that projects are coordinated and that they benefit 
from the greatest possible amount of information. 
We recommend that LASD share both the process 
used to develop the system and the specific format 
and structure with other departments. This 
model will be helpful to any agency that wants to 
create such a system. 


CHAPTER 6 PORTLAND: 
Emergency Notification System

The Advancing Community Policing Grant. . . . . . . . .47 
Department Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 
Panel Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 
 


CHAPTER 6 

PORTLAND 
Emergency Notification System 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

By the time the Advancing Community Policing 
(ACP) project began, the Portland Police Bureau 
had more than 10 years of experience in computerized 
desktop mapping. Mapping had become 
increasingly popular. Citizens were aware of and 
officers were using the Crime Analysis Management 
Information Network (CAMIN) as a tool to 
visualize crime. The idea that citizens could perform 
similar mapping functions via the Internet was 
formed during development of the CAMIN project. 
Desktop mapping can effectively make selections 
on an electronic map and create a file, so it 
seemed logical to combine the power of desktop 
mapping with telephone communications. Making 
a selection from an electronic map and delivering 
a message to the telephones in that area would 
save lives and property. 

Administrators, officers, and community members 
were brought together to select and implement 
the program and its individual components. 
Community involvement was critical. 

Several previous incidents had highlighted the 
need for an emergency notification system. In one 
case, a storm caused severe flooding that necessitated 
the evacuation of nearby residents. In other 


cases, an armed gunman held hostages in a 
downtown high-rise office building and another 
barricaded himself in an apartment complex. In all 
of these examples, an emergency notification system 
would have provided a more efficient and 
timely means of alerting area residents to the 
potential danger. 

In 1990, the Portland Police Bureau adopted a 
Community Policing Transition Plan. The department 
realized that improving its technological abilities 
was critical to advancing community policing. 
Developing and using geographic information systems 
(GIS) technology as part of its community 
policing initiatives became part of the departments 
infrastructure. However, the growing 
popularity of electronic mapping within law 
enforcement meant more training would be needed, 
and it would have to be better coordinated 
within the bureau. 

The Project 

In 1997, the bureau applied for an ACP grant to 
continue building on its efforts with the installation 
of a dial-and-deliver GIS system. The proposed 
system would have a number of uses, including 
automated community reminders and the delivery 
of emergency automated telephone contact during 
a crisis situation. In addition, implementing the 

dial-and-deliver system would continue to enhance 
the departments GIS infrastructure on which the 
calling system would be built. Specifically, the 
objectives were to: 

. Implement a dial-and-deliver notification system 
(including the development of policies for its 
use, the selection and installation of components, 
and testing and going online with the 
system). 

. Evaluate the dial-and-deliver notification system 
to determine whether customers (both officers 
and citizens) find the system an effective and 
useful tool. 

. Provide training on GIS technology at all bureau 
levels. 

. Coordinate between the various GIS technologies 
to integrate all systems that use computerized 
mapping. 

. Upgrade existing GIS technology by providing 
needed enhancements. 

Before implementing the ACP project, officials 
had to research the various types of systems and 
equipment available. The Portland Police Bureau 
released a request for information (RFI) to all 
companies known to provide products or services 
in the emergency notification industry. 

In response to the RFI, three companies provided 
demos and answered technical questions about 
their systems. Department officials learned there 
were two basic types of systems available: equipment 
and service based. Based on its prior 
research, the bureau realized that a service-based 
system would best suit its needs. Selecting a 
provider was time consuming, but critical to the 
projects success. 

The Portland Police Bureau included members of 
the community in development of the GIS system. 
Two neighborhoods were eventually selected as 
test areas. A public information and media campaign 
was launched to inform the residents of 
Portland about the program, named Portlands 
Emergency Notification System (PENS). Brochures 
were sent to agencies and users who would be 
affected. 

Establishing a system for making emergency 
phone calls using a computer involves breaking 
the process down into its major components: policy, 
procedure, closure routine, command involvement, 
location of equipment, support, citizen 




involvement, media involvement, subscriber lists, 
and training. 

Policy. The Police Bureau was concerned that system 
calls would become commonplace or even 
ignored if there were too many nonemergency 
messages. Therefore, the city council directed that 
the system be used only for notification involving 
threats to life and property. A phone call from 
PENS must be considered an emergency. 

Procedure. The commander of each of Portlands 
five precincts is responsible for police operations 
within the precincts jurisdiction. Only the commander 
can authorize activation of the emergency 
notification system within that precinct. Officers, 
specialty units, or outside bureaus (including the 
Fire Bureau) must obtain approval from the 
precinct commander to activate the system. The 
procedure for operating the system is outlined in a 
manual supplied to all precinct commanders. 

Closure Routine. When the danger or threat has 
passed, a closure message can be sent to assure 
the citizens that the incident is over. This closure 
routine contacts the same people who originally 
were called and both informs them of the outcome 
and thanks them for their help. One officer 
stressed the importance of this callback component, 
believing that follow-up with residents is an 
integral part of community policing. 

Command Involvement. Both precinct commanders 
and command staff were involved in the 
approval of policy and procedures as outlined in 
the training bulletin. Although the precinct commanders 
were the only authorized activators of 
the system, they could delegate authority at their 
discretion. Commanders must set the policy within 
their precincts. 

Location of Equipment. The police information 
line unit was selected as the location for the 
equipment. The supervisor and staff both welcomed 
the program and took ownership of it. This 
unit is the contact point for citizens who need 
information on police-related matters. With six 
staff members and a supervisor, the unit both 
answers questions and refers citizens to the 
appropriate precinct, division, or unit. Officials 
believed members of this unit would feel more 
personally involved in the program because they 
maintained responsibility for the system. In addition, 
because of the groups small size, training 
was held in just one day, only hours after the 
system was installed. 

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
The Portland, Oregon metropolitan area 
is located in the northwestern corner 
of Oregon at the confluence of the 
Columbia and Willamette Rivers on 
the Oregon-Washington state border. 
Portland has a population of 529,121. 
The population is 75.5 percent white, 
6.5 percent black, 6.8 percent Hispanic, 
6.3 percent Asian, and 5.0 percent other.* 
The police department has 1,045 sworn 
and 312 nonsworn personnel. The 
Portland Police Association represents 
officers as a union. 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 

PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU 
LOCATION: PORTLAND, OREGON 
CHIEF: MARK KROEKER 
CONTACT: WWW.PORTLANDPOLICEBUREAU.COM 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: RE-ENGINEERING OTHER COMPONENTS 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $247,223 
SITE VISIT: JANUARY 8, 2001

The police information line is also the data entry 
point for all unlisted or unpublished phone numbers 
that are not supplied with commercially 


prepared data. During the course of the grant, the 
city of Portland and the Police Bureau had no 
statutory right to access those numbers from the 
phone company, so the Police Bureau asked citizens 
to submit their phone numbers and addresses 
if they wanted to be added to the system.1 

The service-based system allows for a remote 
system in the field for emergency notification. The 
Police Bureau has one mobile precinct online and 
a second on the way. The laptop computer can be 
taken into the mobile precinct and emergency 
notifications can be sent from the remote location. 
In addition to notification capabilities, the laptop 
has fully functional mapping that can be used in 
the mobile command center. 

Support. PENS is built on the desktop mapping 
program the Police Bureau has been using for 
more than 12 years, which allows the Police 
Bureau to maximize return on its investment in 
programming and training. The Planning and 
Support Division is the support unit within the 
Police Bureau; the grant manager was assigned 
to this unit. The service provider handles technical 
support for the software supplied in the PENS 
program, the maintenance of map layers and data 
files, and the completion of changes or updates 
to the system via a phone line. The updates and 
upgrades are seamless. The service provider also 
updates the unlisted numbers with numbers supplied 
to them by the Police Bureau. 

Citizen Involvement. Portland has 96 neighborhood 
associations that cover virtually the entire 
city. The Police Bureau worked with the Office of 
Neighborhood Involvement to find neighborhoods 
that would be willing to participate in a test. Two 
neighborhood group leaders volunteered. Information 
was released to the local newspapers, and articles 
informed citizens that the tests would occur. 

Through the mayors office, Portland has a program 
called Neighbor Safe that provides a forum 
in which neighborhood residents can voice their 
concerns on local issues. The Neighbor Safe program 
mailed a package to each household within 
the city that included information about PENS, a 
phone number for more information, and a form 
on which citizens could submit their unlisted 
phone numbers. 

Media Involvement. Media involvement and 
assistance in sharing information about PENS was 
important to the project as a way to distribute 
information and introduce citizens to the system, 
especially because the grant did not provide funding 
for a paid media campaign. 

Subscriber Lists. PENS is capable of much more 
than the delivery of emergency messages. The 
system can inform citizens about upcoming 
events and neighborhood meetings, as well as 
crime prevention tips and other information. 
One jurisdiction surveyed uses its system to 
contact the elderly on a daily basis. If there is no 
response, the operator is alerted to dispatch a car 
to the location. Another jurisdiction uses the system 
to notify banks and stores of counterfeit 
checks or money orders being passed. 

Training. Coordination of the training is ongoing 
and an expansion is planned. The CAMIN project 
established a computer lab for training and the 
computer lab now provides training in additional 
areas, including advanced mapping and crime analysis. 
The lab is equipped with mapping and other 
complementary tools that are used by the entire 
Police Bureau. 

Plans for the Future. The goal of implementing 
an emergency notification system has been met. 
The system is ongoing and fully functional. 
Although it will not replace officers in all instances, 
PENS will reduce the number of officers needed 
to evacuate citizens or inform them of danger. 
There is no question an emergency notification 
system can alert citizens and businesses faster 
and more efficiently than officers going door to 
door. The notification system should be enhanced 
in those areas that would benefit from its use, 


including contact with the elderly, suspect alerts, 
fraud alerts, and callbacks. 

Training in mapping as a way to display data for 
analysis and presentation must be continued, and 
training on all mapping programs is ongoing within 
the Portland Police Bureau. The bureau remains 
committed to training and supporting its members 
to provide the best service to the community. 

Department Observations 

Challenges 

Many citizens with unlisted numbers are still not 
included in the database. Portland has a high 
proportion of unlisted numbers, but officials are 
currently working on this problem and are encouraged 
by a new law that allows cities to obtain 
those numbers for the purpose of emergency 
notification. 

Technology has progressed greatly over the past 
few years, but it has not solved some of the most 
common problems. For example, TTY/TDD 
machines cannot be contacted at the same time 
hearing telephone calls are being made. TTY/TDD 
calls must be made separately and to known 
phone numbers. The ideal system would identify a 
TTY/TDD machine and leave a message, but such 
technology is not available at this time. 

Benefits 

At the conclusion of the ACP grant, an evaluation 
of the implementation process and the system 
was completed and submitted with the final report 
to the COPS Office. The evaluation found that the 
PENS system can deliver messages to any segment 
of the community much faster than traditional 
means. During actual events within the city, as 
many as 2,000 messages were delivered in about 
30 minutes, including up to 5 attempts to phone 
numbers that were not answered. 

Another key benefit is the systems ability to deliver 
a closure message to the same segment of the 
community when an incident is concluded, informing 
citizens about an incidents outcome. This is 
critical because sharing information to gain the 
cooperation of citizens is a primary goal of community 
policing. Certainly, the community supports 
the concept of emergency notification. Even citizens 
with unlisted numbers have embraced the 
concept and supplied their numbers to the Police 
Bureau. 

The Portland Police Bureau and the city of 
Portland have benefited greatly from this project 
and will strive to continue the progress that the 
ACP grant made possible. 

Panel Commentary 

The exposition of Portlands PENS system was outstanding. 
The Portland Police Bureau provided an 
analytical and historical summary of an impressive 
technological program that can serve as a model 
for other agencies. The cogent, comprehensive, 
and candid program assessment fully explains the 
development and implementation of a program that 
provokes commitment and inspires change. 

The selection of a service-based versus an 
equipment-based system was a critical decision 
point. Too often, agencies allow technology to 
define the parameters of service delivery, instead 
of the other way around. This is the classic form-
follows-function dynamic, which time and again 
has led to dissatisfaction, inefficiency, and obsolescence. 
By requiring a service-based program, 
Portland could tap into the CAMIN desktop mapping 
infrastructure in place. Nevertheless, successful 
integration of an outdialing system with 
desktop mapping by a large municipal police 


agency remains rare. The specific program element 
of automated closure messaging is without 
precedent and it is very impressive. 

The policy of making a closure call, particularly 
after a police incident in an area, demonstrates a 
commitment to communication with residents. 
This simple, considerate act will strengthen the 
departments relationship with residents and make 
residents feel even more fully that they are seen 
as important members of their neighborhood. 
Departments that do not yet have this technological 
capability can accomplish a similar result by 
purposefully investing a limited amount of time 
after a major incident to seek residents out, perhaps 
through neighborhood leadership, to explain 
what occurred. 

The Portland Police Bureau is a recognized leader 
in community organization and involvement. The 
use of technology to create a community notification 
system positions the bureau to interact with 
its residents in a proactive way regarding a number 
of important issues. The Bureau has considered 
the interests of its residents by establishing 
the policy that this system will be used only in the 
case of an emergency. As the Bureau expands 
use of the system to nonemergency alerts, it will 
be important to go slowly and listen carefully to 
feedback, because people may have a lower tolerance 
for nonemergency calls. 

Other departments considering this type of 
system will be keenly interested in Portlands 
experience. The panel hopes that the Portland 
Police Bureau will report specific information 
about its project, perhaps through a national law 
enforcement magazine. Other departments might 
be especially interested in the level to which residents 
subscribed, the various layers of neighborhood 
organization within the database so that 
different groups within the same area could be 
reached, and the changes the department implemented, 
if any, to reach residents who resisted 
computer-generated telephone calls. 

It is noteworthy that the Portland Police Bureau 
developed a Community Policing Transition Plan 
as early as 1990 and that the plan identified GIS 
technologies as a seminal component of any 
credible transition. This reveals a relatively sophisticated 
understanding of community policing fairly 
early in the history of community policing programs. 
This case study validates the Portland 
Police Bureaus well-deserved national reputation 
for commitment to problem solving and progressive 
policing strategies. 

This project demonstrates the power of a single 
strategic enhancement to a well-established and 
comprehensive community policing plan. The 
panel has seen other examples where a police 
department was uniquely positioned to take 
advantage of one-time funding for a strategic 
purpose because of extensive prior planning or 
community involvement. The Portland Police 
Bureau has capitalized on an already impressive 
ability to do computer-based GIS mapping for 
crime analysis. The panel would be interested to 
know what, if any, resistance or failure was experienced 
in the implementation of this system. 
These lessons will be as important as the programs 
successes to any agency attempting to 
duplicate this system, perhaps more important. 

The panel finds it significant that the Portland 
Police Bureau can define its city as 96 separate 
neighborhoods, each of which has provided contact 
information for neighborhood leadership. This 
powerful capability demonstrates the extent to 
which the department has integrated itself into 
the fabric of the city. Cities that do not yet have 
this ability would likely find that establishing it not 
only improves their ability to solve problems, but 
also dramatically enhances the police departments 
position in the community. 

Note 

1. The Portland Police Bureau did not have access 
to unlisted phone numbers. 


CHAPTER 7 

ROCK HILL: 

Embedding Community 
Policing In Neighborhoods and 
Officers Careers 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Lessons Learned. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59


CHAPTER 7 
ROCK HILL 

Embedding Community Policing in 
Neighborhoods and Officers Careers

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 
 
Background 

Entry-level employees in the police department 
are empowered to work with the community 
to solve problems. Officers generally spend the 
majority of their patrol tours assigned to only one 
or two of the eight city areas. Being responsible 
for a limited geographic area allows an officer to 
know the people and the resources that are available 
to solve problems. 

Rock Hills leaders have charted a long-term 
strategic plan to direct growth and make the 
city more livable. Called Empowering the 
Community, the plan is a joint effort between 
the citys major public and private institutions. 
The citys Neighborhood Empowerment Team 
helps citizens organize neighborhood associations, 
access city services, and identify resources 
that can help them enhance the quality of life in 
their neighborhoods. 

In addition to community policing, Rock Hill 
believes in community oriented government. 
This belief was spearheaded by the city manager. 
Community oriented government is also part of 
the police departments operating philosophy. 
Led by Chief David Fortson, the department has 
evolved from a traditional squad organization 
that was assigned community oriented policing 
duties to an agency that uses a departmentwide 
problem-solving framework. 


ROCK HILL POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: CITY OF ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA 
CHIEF: DAVID FORTSON 
CONTACT: WWW.ROCKHILLPD.COM 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: ORGANIZATIONAL 
CULTURE 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $100,900 
SITE VISIT: FEBRUARY 21, 2001 

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
Rock Hill, South Carolina is located in the 
center of the Carolinas, 25 miles south of 
Charlotte, North Carolina. Rock Hill is 
expanding very quickly; its current population 
of about 50,000 is expected to 
grow to approximately 85,000 by 2017. 
The population is 65 percent white, 31 
percent black, and 4 percent Hispanic.* 
The Hispanic community is the fastest 
growing population in the city. 
The police department has 106 sworn 
and 45 civilian personnel, divided into the 
Patrol Division, the Investigative Division, 
and Support Services. Officers are 
assigned to beats in eight areas of the 
city, each of which is continually 
patrolled by one of four officers. Officers 
are expected to take immediate ownership 
of their beats as soon as assigned. 
The police department is not unionized. 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 

The Rock Hill Police Department proposed to 
advance community policing by undertaking cultural 
change within its organization. Members of the 
department needed more training to institutionalize 
community policing to withstand a change in 
leadership. The following were major goals of 
Rock Hills Advancing Community Policing (ACP) 
grant project: 

. Develop a comprehensive reward system that 
provides incentives for employees who demonstrate 
support of the change process 

. Provide for and institutionalize organizational 
readiness for change 

. Institute and maintain an organizational culture 
that is closely linked to agency goals and 
objectives 

. Communicate to all employees the importance 
of an organizational culture that supports 
departmental goals, objectives, programs, 
and activities 

. Reduce barriers to employee participation in 
the cultural change process 

. Increase the value placed on education, 
research, and participatory management 


In 1998, a needs assessment found a need for both 
short-term training and a long-term strategic training 
initiative. Initially, the grant supported instructors 
and overtime costs related to courses in 
understanding community oriented policing, problem 
solving, Spanish, and improving communications. 
Long-term training in community oriented 
policing, traffic, investigations, and leadership/ 
supervision was integrated into the departments 
career ladder program. Additionally, a portion of 
the grant money was used to purchase equipment 
for presentation hardware and software. 

The Project 

The ACP grant served as a catalyst for organizational 
change and for development of the career 
ladder program by Chief Fortson in 1998. This 
program created a career police officer track that 
provided for five promotional opportunities for all 
sworn officers below the rank of sergeant. This 
program was developed to address concerns 
about promotion and training opportunities and 
as a tool to integrate community service into the 
criteria for promotion. 


According to Lieutenant Glenn Robinson, head of 
the Professional Standards Unit, In our initial 
community policing efforts, we were like many 
other agencies, trying to change our organizational 
culture too far, too fast. We embraced many of 
the tenets of total quality management. We had 
work teams for everything. Unfortunately, there 
was not much followthrough on the accountability 
aspect of good working teams. What resulted was 
chaos. There were too many goals, too many programs, 
and no central direction. The intentions 
were good, but the results were inconsistent. 

As a result, morale plummeted. Many senior managers 
elected to retire. Many mid-level managers 
left the organization for other police agencies or 
for the private sector. The agency lost more than 
40 officers in just three years. Even replacement 
officers were not retained. The agency lost its 
identity as one of the best in the region. The staff 
placed the blame on the former management 
team, the high number of changes, and the speed 
with which changes were implemented. 

When Chief Fortson was hired, he brought a more 
pragmatic management style, with a focus on 
slow, consistent change. Prior problems were 
identified, solutions were developed, and the management 
team was reorganized. Previous goals, 
objectives, and programs were consolidated and 
prioritized with a focus on such issues as courtesy, 
civility, and customer service. Seeking national 
accreditation from the Commission on 
Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies 
(CALEA) became a driving force for change. 

In late 1999 and early 2000, we recognized that a 
staff shortage was our biggest problem, says 
Robinson. We not only needed to address this 
retention problem, but we needed to seriously 
upgrade our recruiting efforts. To improve its 
recruiting system, the department developed 
working partnerships with local colleges. 

In late 1999 and early 2000, we recognized that a 
staff shortage was our biggest problem. 
Lieutenant Glenn Robinson 

Major elements of Rock Hills ACP project
included:


. The career ladder program 
. A neighborhood empowerment team (NET) 
. Integrating community policing 


The Career Ladder Program. A core part of the 
career ladder program (see exhibit 2) is mandated 
training for community policing. More training 
accompanies each promotion. In addition, each 
employee (civilian and sworn) must contribute 
a minimum of 25 hours of voluntary community 
service on an annual basis, as a requirement of 
promotion. 

According to Lieutenant Robinson, The career 
ladder program has been our biggest retention 
tool. More money, more recognition, more responsibility, 
and more training is a winning formula for 
police officers and increasing the professionalism 
of our staff. 

The Neighborhood Empowerment Team. 

Voluntary community service dovetails with the 
community oriented government philosophy of the 
city of Rock Hill. The NET is a separate function 
of the city managers office, with five permanent 
members managing the program. Each member 
of the management team comes from a different 
city agency. Three of the five members work part 
time, and the other two work full time. A police 
officer is the leader of this team and reports 
directly to the city manager. 

The NET helps solve problems identified by 
the neighborhood associations. They serve as 


EXHIBIT 2. ROCK HILL POLICE DEPARTMENT CAREER LADDER 
Table of the career ladder program
All advances for sworn officers from within the 
department are issued based on this career ladder 
program. 

Rank 
Pay Grade 
Education/Time in Service 
Specialized Training 
Performance Rating/Disciplinary Action 
Community Service 

Police Officer I (POI) 

11 

Entry-level position: high school diploma/ GED or above 

Within 12 months of appointment: 
 City of Rock Hill customer service training 

Within first 2 years of employment: 
 Officer survival (minimum of 24 hours) 
 Standardized field sobriety training 
 Public speaking 
 State-mandated requirements 

Fully acceptable (2) or higher 

25 hours annually 


Police Officer II (POII) 

12 

 2 years as a POI with a B.A./B.S. 
  or higher 
 3 years as a POI with an A.A. 
 4 years as a POI without a degree 
 Lateral entry: 1 year as a POI with a 
  minimum of 5 years experience 

 40 hours of community policing 
 40 hours of traffic enforcement 
 40 hours of investigations 
 State-mandated requirements 

 Overall rating of fully acceptable (2) or higher 
 No rating of needs improvement (below an 
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job 
  dimension 
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written 
  warning within the preceding 12 months 

25 hours annually 


Master Police Officer I (MPOI) 

14 

 2 years as a POII 
 Lateral entry: 1 year as a POII with a 
  minimum of 5 years experience 

 40 hours of management/supervision 
 80 hours of community policing (includes 40 
  hours completed as a POII) 
 120 hours of additional law enforcement 
  training 
 State-mandated requirements 

 Overall rating of fully acceptable (2) or higher 
  and scored above the raters average 
 No rating of needs improvement (below an 
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job 
  dimension 
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written 
  warning within the preceding 12 months 

25 hours annually 


Master Police Officer II (MPOII) 

15 

2 years as an MPOI 

 360 hours of law enforcement training 
 State-mandated requirements 

 Overall rating of commendable (3) or higher 
 No rating of needs improvement (below an 
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job dimension 
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written 
  warning within the preceding 12 months 

25 hours annually 


EXHIBIT 2. (CONTINUED) 
Table of the career ladder program

Rank 
Pay Grade 
Education/Time in Service 
Specialized Training 
Performance Rating/Disciplinary Action 
Community Service 

Senior Police (SPO)

17 

3 years as an MPOII 

 480 hours of law enforcement training 
 Within 12 months of promotion to senior police 
  officer, must complete 36 hours of leadership 
  development training through the City of Rock 
  Hill Human Resources Department 

 Overall rating of commendable (3) or higher Officer   
 No rating of needs improvement (below an 
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job dimension 
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written 
  warning within the preceding 12 months 

25 hours annually

Sergeant 

17 

2 years as a POII, MPOI, MPOII, or SPO 

 240 hours of department-sponsored or 
  approved training
 State-mandated requirements
 Within 12 months of promotion to sergeant,
  must complete 36 hours of leadership develop-
  ment training through the City of Rock Hill
  Human Resources Department

 Overall rating of fully acceptable (2) or higher on  
  the last two annual performance appraisals, or 
  an overall rating of commendable (3) or higher 
  on the last annual performance appraisal 
 No rating of needs improvement (below an 
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job dimension 
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written 
  warning within the preceding 12 months 

25 hours annually

Lieutenant 

17/19 

 B.A./B.S. or higher, or the equivalent    
  combination of education and experience   
 2 years as an MPOII, SPO, or sergeant   

 80 hours management/supervision training
 36 hours leadership development training
 State-mandated requirements
 Within 12 months of promotion, must complete
  a department-endorsed executive development
  program

 Overall rating of commendable (3) or higher
 No rating of needs improvement (below an
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job dimension
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written 
  warning within the preceding 12 months 

25 hours annually 

Captain 

23 

 B.A./B.S. or higher, or the equivalent    
combination of education and experience   
 3 years as a lieutenant   

 Within 12 months of promotion, must complete
  a department-endorsed executive development
  program
 State-mandated requirements  
   

 Overall rating of commendable (3) or higher
 No rating of needs improvement (below an
  appraisal value of 2) or lower in any job dimension
 No disciplinary action in excess of one written
  warning within the preceding 12 months

25 hours annually


facilitators to meet the needs of the community. 
They help organize area associations, create connections 
to city services, and recruit the neighbor-
hood ambassadors who become the contacts for 
that specific area. 

An example of how this process works is the solving 
of a problem with derelict vehicles within the 
city limits. When the NET began in 1997, citizens 
identified this problem as requiring immediate 
attention. Discussions between the neighborhoods 
and the city resulted in a very strong ordinance 
regarding the removal of derelict vehicles. 
Now, derelict vehicles are no longer a problem. 
Today, you do not see vehicles up on cinder 
block in peoples front yards, on the curbside, or in 
driveways. Our city places a value on the way our 
neighborhoods appear. This is just one way where 
weve all come together to ensure that our neighborhoods 
stay nice, says Lieutenant Robinson. 

Integrating Community Policing. Patrol-based 
problem solving is integrated into the daily practice 
and philosophy of the department. An example 
of this is the Community and Youth Services 
Division. The Worthy Boys and Girls Camp provides 
a summer camp experience to more than 
300 local children, including children from low-
income families and high-risk environments. The 
police departments Community and Youth 
Services Division runs six one-week summer 
camps for these youths as an extension of the 
departments outreach programs that target children 
and young adults. Because there is no budget 
to run these programs, the police department 
organizes fundraisers throughout the year to pay 
for them. 

The career ladder program has been our biggest 
retention tool. More money, more recognition, 
more responsibility, and more training is a winning 
formula for police officers and increasing the 
professionalism of our staff. 
Lieutenant Robinson 

Although the camp is a summer program, the 
grounds are also used during the school year, in 
conjunction with the local school district, to host 
Rebound, the school districts alternative school 
for at-risk and disruptive students. A police officer 
serves on the faculty of Rebound and an officer is 
permanently assigned to the school. The officer 
teaches classes, leads activities, and serves as a 
security presence for students. 

Department Observations 

Challenges 

An initial obstacle was the mindset of the senior 
and mid-level staff, which was that this touchyfeely 
stuff might not work. However, the chief 
continually emphasized the need to embrace 
these concepts wholeheartedly. 

Another initial concern was establishing a comprehensive 
sense of community oriented policing as 
a problem-solving framework. Once established, 
training had to focus on addressing new problems 
resulting from the changing demographics in the 
service area. 

Acquiring quality training and locating resources 
has been difficult. Rock Hill partnered with the 
Carolinas Institute for Community Policing out of 
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department to 
meet many of its training needs. 


To determine the success of their efforts, annual 
evaluation criteria are in place to measure each 
city employees ability to perform community 
outreach. Criteria for promotion within the police 
department are now geared to community 
involvement. 

Benefits 

Embracing community oriented policing as a core 
philosophy has solved Rock Hills biggest problem: 
a shortage of police officers. The department 
found that emphasizing the community policing 
philosophy and explaining to prospective employees 
how this philosophy is integrated into the 
workplace attracted more qualified applicants. 
Moreover, once hired, these employees are more 
successful and more likely to flourish. The final 
outcome was that 16 of 18 vacancies were filled 
in just 18 months, and turnover has been reduced 
significantly. 

Lessons Learned 

Rock Hills experience with the ACP grant provided 
many lessons: 

. Community trust is not built overnight. It 
requires a real commitment to learning the 
communitys concerns, followed by a real 
effort to address them. 

. Both management commitment and line-level 
leadership are needed to solve problems. 
Employees must be empowered to find solutions 
and implement them in a streamlined fashion. 
Employees must also know they will be 
accountable for their successes and failures 
and rewarded for a job well done. 

. Change must be implemented slowly and incrementally. 
Trying to do too much, too quickly, 
results in failure. 

. Investment in training is necessary. Clear outcomes 
and measurable benchmarks need to be 
established. 

. Innovation is necessary to spark the creativity in 
employees and the community, question the 
process, and evaluate the communitys input. 

. Communication with citizens, colleagues, the 
business community, neighborhoods, and 
schools is crucial. The department should develop 
open processes that foster accountability and 
enhance problem solving. 

Panel Commentary 

With candor and some courage, Rock Hill has 
identified the destructive power of too many 
goals, too many programs, and no central direction. 
Agencies that do not balance progressive 
philosophies with rigorous pragmatism may spend 
years undoing the resulting damage. 

In its recovery from chaos, Rock Hill focused on a 
basic concept that was brilliant in its simplicity: 
integrate the departments standards, goals, and 
expectations in the leadership and promotional 
continuum and make each employees advancement 
contingent on successfully meeting the 
organizational goals. At the same time, the pursuit 
of training, which further inculcates agency objectives 
while increasing employee excellence, was 
rewarded. The brilliance of such an approach is 
that it allows the agency to be both dynamic and 
progressive (that is, the goals of the organization 
against which an employees performance is measured 
can grow and change). The effect is that the 
leadership cadre is in dynamic competition around 
worthy objectives, not simply advanced by memorizing 
a syllabus. 


It is laudable that Rock Hill used CALEA and its 
national accreditation process and standards as 
building blocks to identify institutional goals and 
objectives. Unfortunately, many agencies regard 
the accreditation process as an aggravating exercise 
or necessary annoyance, instead of as an 
opportunity to assess, analyze, and clarify a 
departments essential mission and organizational 
structure. 

The use of the word voluntary to describe Rock 
Hills community service program seems to be a 
term of art. Although the requirement of 25 hours 
of community service as part of the career ladder 
program is commendable (and modest), it would 
be difficult to reproduce such a requirement in all 
but a handful of agencies, and very likely impossible 
in agencies that have strong labor unions. In 
light of this reality, Rock Hills weaving of community 
service activities into the fabric of its institutional 
identity is laudable. Although it may be 
difficult for many agencies to formally integrate 
community service into their employment 
practices, unlimited opportunities exist for agencies 
to support, encourage, recognize, and otherwise 
reward employees who give their time and 
talents back to the community. 

Rock Hills staffing crisis motivated the department 
to make long-term organizational changes. 
Although it is too soon to gauge the success of 
the career ladder program, any institutional structure 
that purposefully invests in the professional 
development of its employees will create positive 
personal and organizational outcomes that could 
transcend any other difficulties. 

By following community government principles, 
the city government gave the community policing 
initiative a tremendous boost. A synergy of overall 
services is a fundamental requirement for full 
community policing effectiveness. In Rock Hill, the 
police departments values of empowerment, 
community engagement, and professional development 
were aligned with the citys commitment 
to neighborhoods. 


CHAPTER 8 
SAN JOSE: 
Creating A Shared Vision Through 
Leadership Training

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 
Lessons Learned. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 
 

CHAPTER 8 

SAN JOSE 

Creating a Shared Vision 
Through Leadership Training 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

The San Jose Police Department started community 
policing efforts in earnest in 1991 and 
chose to make community policing every members 
responsibilitythere were no specialized 
community policing officers. 

The police department currently operates out of a 
single station, although there are now two 
Community Policing Service Centers and plans for 
two more. The department is in the design phase 
for a separate substation to serve the southern 
portion of the city. San Jose is divided into four 
patrol divisions, each overseen by a captain. Patrol 
captains have 24-hour problem-solving responsibility 
within their divisions. 

Every six months, the department has a shift 
change in which patrol officers can bid for their 
next assignment based on seniority. Typically, 
transfers in and out of other bureaus occur at the 
same time. San Jose has an active rotation policy 
for its members, which limits most specialized 
assignments to three to five years. Even so, many 
patrol officers remain in a specific area for longer 
than a single six-month shift. The department 
wants to implement one-year shift changes for 
greater consistency in the community. This is a 
labor/management issue, and contract negotiations 
have not resulted in a change. 

San Jose has achieved a relatively high level of 
implementation of its community policing philosophy 
and partnerships/programs. The department 


has active partnerships with schools, neighborhood 
and community groups, and other city and 
county agencies. The mayor and city manager 
have each supported a coordinated response to 
community problems. 

Beginning in the late 1980s, Project Crackdown 
was the citys most comprehensive program that 
used principles of community partnership, community 
development, neighborhood empowerment, 
and coordination of a broad range of city services to 
address the problems of gangs, drugs, and neighborhood 
blight. Following Project Crackdown, the 
city continued its collaboration with a Mayors Gang 
Prevention Task Force, which has now operated for 
10 years. This task force is a highly collaborative 
grouping of city and county agencies, schools, businesses, 
and community-based organizations. It has 
created many strategic alliances and pursued initiatives 
involving gangs, school violence, truancy, and 
community empowerment. 

At the time of the Advancing Community Policing 
(ACP) grant in 1997, the departments community 
policing efforts had lost momentum. A number of 
focus groups revealed that a comprehensive program 
to address leadership development and the 
creation of a consistent vision for community 
policing were needed to reinvigorate the departments 
efforts. 

The Project 

The San Jose Police Department requested grant 
money to pursue a number of departmentwide initiatives. 
A professional development course was 
planned for all 300 sworn and civilian supervisors 
to teach them the skills critical to implementing 
community policing. Thirty peer facilitators/mentors 
were to be identified and trained to lead the 
professional development classes and act as mentors 
to newly promoted supervisors. The department 
also proposed conducting additional training 
for command personnel. An executive retreat 
allowed the chief of police to develop the top leadership 
of the department. A consultant helped the 
department create a strategic plan while teaching 
strategic planning skills to department members. 
Another consultant presented an innovative leadership 
simulation process that used role-playing to 
reinforce the importance of community partnerships 
and collaborative leadership. The department 
expanded its intranet to allow for the delivery of 
information, updates, and curriculum to personnel 
at individual worksites. Site visits were made to 
Baltimore and Boston to see specific community 
policing programs and to Los Angeles to evaluate 
a modification of the West Point Leadership 
Model. 

San Joses goals and objectives for the ACP grant 
were to: 

. Increase the leadership capacity of middle management 
and line supervisors and develop a 
core set of attitudes for community oriented 
policing 

. Increase the decentralization of decision-making 
. Develop a comprehensive community oriented 

policing professional development course 
through site visits and research 

. Using leadership simulation gaming, train 300 
supervisory and command personnel in practical 
leadership skills related to community policing 
issues 

. Create a shared vision for the future of community 
oriented policing in San Jose 

. Institutionalize leadership and professional 
development training within the department 

At the time the grant was awarded, a new chief of 
police was taking over the department. Chief 
William M. Lansdowne modified terms of the initial 
grant request to include direct training and 
development opportunities for sergeants. This 
allowed more sergeants to attend the states 
Supervisory Leadership Institute, a highly regarded, 
long-term leadership development program. In 
keeping with the tenets of community policing, 
additional community members and government 
partners were allowed to attend. Also, the peer 


mentor and facilitator program was revised to 
become a sergeants mentoring program for newly 
promoted supervisors. In addition, the intranet 
was expanded to become a virtual library including 
such topics as personal development, problem 
solving, and promotion. The chief also asked for a 
strategic plan for community policing to be developed 
using internal resources. 

Ultimately, the San Jose ACP project included the 
following: 

. Training for lieutenants and captains on how to 
create and sustain community policing 

. A professional development course for 
sergeants that included community policing 
skills 

. The development and training of peer mentors 
who would mentor newly promoted supervisors 
and serve as facilitators for the professional 
development course 

. Site visits to Baltimore and Boston and a visit to 
the Los Angeles Police Department to study its 
West Point Leadership Model 

. The acquisition and use of technology to support 
web-based learning 

. Training on leadership and community policing, 
including LeadSimm leadership simulation 
training 

. Evaluation of the professional development 
course 

. A retreat for the chief of police and top command 
staff to create a consistent vision for community 
policing 


Seven significant elements of San Joses ACP project 
are highlighted below. Each one offers 
lessons for other law enforcement agencies that 
seek to implement community oriented policing. 

LeadSimm Training. Some of the strongest outcomes 
were seen with the two-day LeadSimm 
collaborative leadership training, in which more 
than 450 department members and community/ 
school/government partners took part. After the 
training, participants said they more clearly understood 
the need for and the value of partnerships 
before and during a community crisis. The training 
was so well received that sergeants used additional 
sessions to send officers from their teams. 
Many participants reported learning skills and concepts 
that have improved their handling of community 
problems. Other police officer participants 
formed ongoing relationships with community 
members that have aided them in addressing 
community concerns. 

SAN JOSE POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA 
CHIEF: WILLIAM LANSDOWNE 
CONTACT: WWW.SJPD.ORG 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $249,578 
SITE VISIT: JANUARY 4, 2001 

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
San Jose, California was founded in 1777 
and incorporated in 1850. It was 
Californias first incorporated city and the 
first state capital. San Jose is the 11th 
largest city in the United States. It is in 
the center of Silicon Valley, has a population 
of more than 894,943, and covers 
176 square miles. The population is 36.6 
percent white, 26.6 percent Asian, 30.2 
percent Hispanic, 3.3 percent black, and 
3.8 percent other races.* The department 
has 1,359 sworn officers and 450 civilian 
personnel. 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 


The LeadSimm training broadened the participants 
perspectives. Police officers gained a better 
understanding of the issues facing the chief. 
Community members saw police officers as 
human beings. Officers got to know community 
members as individuals who were willing to give 
up their time to learn alongside police. 

The sessions became increasingly popular for 
other city employees and school officials, and people 
outside the department eventually formed the 
majority of class members. Participants have 
developed a consistent view of collaborative leadership 
and its relationship to community problem 
solving. What began as an internal effort has 
grown into a powerful outreach tool. 

The department produced a video of the 
LeadSimm experience to explain its value as a 
training tool for community policing and leadership 
development. Members of the city council plan to 
provide this training to their constituents. 

The departments work with schools was also 
directly enhanced by the use of the LeadSimm process 
in school violence training. Responding to concerns 
about school violence, the department used 
the ACP grant to try out the LeadSimm process on 
the issue of catastrophic school violence. An initial 
simulation was followed by a live exercise at a high 
school to test procedures that would be required 
in an active shooter situation. The exercises 
demonstrated what could be expected during an 
incident of targeted school violence. This process 
enhanced the relationship between the police 
department and the school district. Thanks to this 
exercise, one of the largest high school districts in 
the city trained directly with the police department 
and other city partners on responding to school 
violence. 

What began as an internal effort has grown into a 
powerful outreach tool. 

Professional Development Course. The department 
has developed a customized professional 
development course for supervisors. The course 
curriculum includes leadership, qualities of successful 
community policing programs, problem 
solving, team building, public speaking, and mobilizing 
community resources. A focus group helped 
identify the major components of the curriculum. 
This process engaged more than 30 people of all 
ranks within the department (both sworn and civilian), 
as well as members of city government and 
the school administration in a daylong discussion 
of community policing. The goal was to identify 
the critical skills that a supervisor needs to be 
effective. Although the curriculum has been developed, 
the course has not yet been implemented. 

Virtual Library/Learning Team. A learning team 
was created using the concepts promoted by 
Peter Senge, an expert in knowledge management 
and author of The Fifth Discipline, to conceptualize 
and develop an intranet-based virtual library. 
The team of almost 30 individuals benefited from 
the learning process and developed skills that will 
support future creative endeavors. The department 
now has an expanding and frequently updated 
virtual library on its intranet site. Use of 
the virtual library is growing. 

When the professional development course is 
taught, the virtual library will present class reading 
materials, serve as a resource for assignments 
between sessions, and deliver information on 
current issues facing the department. 

Strategic Plan. The department now has a strategic 
plan for community policing that will guide it 
for several years. This plan will assist the department 
as it moves from a centralized force with 
one station to a decentralized force with four 
service centers and a substation. A broad cross 
section of department members participated in 
developing the plan. 


Sergeants Mentoring Program. A mentoring 
program has been developed and implemented to 
help newly promoted sergeants develop the specific 
skills that are necessary for the creation and 
continuation of community policing. This program 
emphasizes the scanning, analysis, response, and 
assessment (SARA) model and includes scenarios 
to demonstrate how others have approached problem 
solving. Newly promoted supervisors now go 
through a mentoring process with an experienced 
supervisor to refine problem-solving skills and 
develop creativity. 

Site Visits. Three site visits gave approximately 
10 members of the San Jose Police Department 
the opportunity to share experiences and philosophies 
of community policing with other law 
enforcement leaders. As a result of these site visits, 
several specific programs have been started in 
San Jose, including: 

. 
Faith-based initiatives from Baltimore and 
Boston. This program resulted in a cops, kids, 
and clergy day between top command staff, 
clergy, and local youths to discuss ways to create 
better partnerships. Several follow-up meetings 
were held at the community level. 
. 
Decentralized accountability within the patrol 
structure for problem solving. The Baltimore 
Sector Command model was used to create 
a process for some lieutenants to assume 
problem-solving responsibility for specific geographic 
districts on a 24-hour basis, where they 
formerly had responsibility only for a specific 
period of time on their workdays. 

. The West Point Leadership Model. As modified 
and taught within the Los Angeles Police 
Department, this model has been adopted as 
a component of the professional development 
course. 

Executive Retreat. The executive retreat was held 
offsite. Reviewing the results of focus group interviews 
stimulated discussion about community 
policing and the direction of the department. The 
results of those interviews (approximately 50 pages 
of comments and commentary from department 
members) continue to serve as a resource for 
addressing common issues within the department. 

Department Observations 

Challenges 

The LeadSimm training was the first concrete 
activity of the grant. Because this was new and 
unique, it took some time for word to spread that 
the training was valuable. Attendance was low 
until outside participants were invited and word of 
the value of the training spread. 

For the past several years, the chief of police has 
been the strongest proponent of community policing. 
As a result, the grant met with resistance 
from individuals who felt that the training and 
activities were merely a fad to be tolerated. 

For the duration of the grant, the department 
engaged in an aggressive training regimen, which 
created a scheduling strain. That also negatively 
affected attendance. A possible solution is to institutionalize 
this training to make it a part of the culture. 


The department took longer than it intended to 
produce the curriculum for the professional development 
course, which slowed the momentum to 
deliver the course. The curriculum is now complete 
and the department will train facilitators and 
schedule classes. 

The grant encompassed a broad range of activities, 
which fostered creativity. However, it was 
difficult for some department members to fully 
understand how various activities were related 
and difficult to see the big picture of the departments 
commitment to community policing. 


Benefits 

The ACP grant contributed to advancing community 
policing in the San Jose Police Department in 
the following ways: 

. The process of applying for the grant focused 
the departments attention on assessing its 
needs relative to community policing and 
allowed the department to strategize and plan 
an approach to improving leadership development, 
an issue of ongoing concern within the 
department. 

. The grant has re-energized the commitment of 
both police officers and community members to 
community policing. Several captains and lieutenants 
have had responsibility for major portions 
of the grant. Each applied new ideas to 
further refine the grant. Each time a new individual 
or group became engaged, that involvement 
added sophistication and complexity to the initial 
concept. More and more people became connected 
with community policing and understood 
that the grant was addressing a broad range of 
initiatives. Department members had new 
opportunities to meet people inside and outside 
the department and to build relationships that 
were directly related to advancing community 
policing. 

. Focus groups used in the preparation of the 
grant generated ideas that expanded the dialogue 
on community policing within the department. 
This discussion invigorated participants 
and demonstrated the departments willingness 
to share ideas in an open environment. 

. Both the grant application and implementation 
process and the training provided by the grant 
offered new opportunities for staff and 
improved their skills. 

. The grant allowed a large number of individuals 
to speak on behalf of community policing, 
removing the burden from the chief of police as 
the sole promoter. 

. The evaluation component caused the department 
to consider desired outcomes and to 
design elements of the grant specifically to 
meet those outcomes. The department began 
with the end goal in mind. As an example, the 
professional development course was originally 
conceptualized as an internal course. On consideration, 
the value of opening the course to the 
departments partners and members of the 
community became apparent. The same thinking 
was applied to the LeadSimm training. 
The department aggressively solicited outside 
participation. 

. The professional development course curriculum 
can continue to be used by supervisors to 
advance community policing. 

Over the course of the grant, from 1998 to 2001, 
community policing became more institutionalized 
as a part of the departments culture. Other citywide 
initiatives have complemented the grant. The 
city has expanded successful neighborhood-based 
initiatives to additional neighborhoods. This broader 
effort, named the Safe Neighborhood Initiative, 
gives comprehensive city attention not only to 
crime and blight, but also to housing, economic 
revitalization, and neighborhood organization. 
Internally, the city has instituted a process to measure 
the quality of services called Investing in 
Results, which has allowed the police department 
to focus on how its efforts support the citys 
broader mission. Additionally, the department has 
opened two of four planned community service 
centers, which have given the department a valuable 
presence throughout the city. 

Lessons Learned 

When a department invests in its people in creative 
ways, professional growth and a subsequent 
positive effect on the community are the results. 


The ACP grant in San Jose proved to be a catalyst 
for change in an organization that needed it. The 
following strategies for implementing community 
oriented policing emerged from the departments 
experience with the ACP grant: 

. Communicate regularly and in detail about the 
scope and intent of activities and initiatives. 

. Convene members of the department on an 
ongoing basis to discuss progress. 

. Include community members, key school personnel, 
and government partners in any training 
or discussion about community policing. This 
benefits the department, the other participants 
see the department as a powerful partner, and 
relationships that can be nurtured and called 
upon in the future are created. 

. Empower individuals to take responsibility for 
projects. Creative, energetic people should be 
encouraged to build on the ideas of other people. 
The outcomes will include a better project, 
a sense of group pride, and a renewed commitment 
to community policing. 

. It is not enough for the chief of police to support 
community policing. That support must extend 
through the chain of command and be demonstrated 
daily. 

Panel Commentary 

The panel applauds the candor of the San Jose 
Police Department in acknowledging that its community 
policing efforts lost momentum and that 
it consequently had to design and implement a 
leadership development program to reinvigorate 
its philosophical commitment to community policing. 
Police agencies rarely self-report that critical 
programs are jeopardized or are in decline; yet it is 
universally recognized that any significant program 
will experience cycles of success and failure. San 
Joses experience is immediately analogous to 
that of every agency that has attempted an ambitious 
agenda for change, and their approach to the 
need for course correction and reinvigoration was 
reasoned, appropriate, effective, and a model for 
others. 

It is not enough for the chief of police to support 
community policing. That support must extend 
through the chain of command and be 
demonstrated daily. 

The process of grant application and analysis is 
itself a catalyst for organizational insight and 
growth. In the case of the San Jose Police 
Department, the research initiatives and creative 
thinking of key personnel led to the validation of 
key challenges and the consequent identification 
of powerful programmatic responses to those 
challenges. 

The retooling of the original grant by incoming 
Chief Lansdowne was reported with honesty and 
insight. It is critical that every significant program 
has the support and imprimatur of the executive. 
It is a credit to both the San Jose Police 
Department and the COPS Office that they 
allowed for opportunities to rethink and ultimately 
modify the original grant based on the personal 
vision of a new chief of police. It is worth noting 
that the specific modifications proposed (i.e., 
expansion of leadership training for first-line supervisors, 
the increased involvement of community 
and government partners, the creation of a virtual 
library) were creative, progressive, and conceptually 
powerful. 

This ACP grant was clearly used to maximum 
effect. The San Jose Police Department made a 
significant contribution of its own intellectual capital 
and organizational talent to leverage the 
$249,000 award. The LeadSimm training program 
could stand alone as a substantial accomplishment 
and, in other hands, might have consumed the 
total sum of the grant funds. It is remarkable that 



in addition to the LeadSimm program, the San 
Jose Police Department undertook and implemented 
five ambitious programs, including a virtual 
library, a sergeants mentoring program, and a 
strategic plan for community policing. This level of 
performance is exemplary and should remind 
other agencies of the power of a grantregardless 
of the amountwhen it is wedded to a clear, relevant 
vision and a plan for its use. 

This grant is notable because of the broad manner 
in which it addresses leadership, with all levels of 
the organization included in training. Civilian personnel 
from the department and community members 
also participate in the training, including the 
professional development courses. 

These efforts to be innovative and provoke the 
organization to shake up its usual practices to 
more fully implement community policing are 
commendable. That boldness, however, must 
come with a caution: traditional organizations 
tend to be highly resistant to change. Under such 
conditions, change must be carefully and deliberately 
managed. This is a consideration both for 
those who fund change and for those who implement 
it. 

Throughout the process of change, it is important 
to develop champions at several levels of the 
organization who both support a specific community 
policing philosophy and value change and 
innovation. These champions were important to 
the success of San Joses efforts. 


CHAPTER 9 
SAVANNAH: 
Transferring Offsite Learning Into 
Neighborhood Beats

The Advancing Community Policing Grant . . . . . . . . . .69 
Department Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 
Panel Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 
 

CHAPTER 9 

SAVANNAH

Transferring Offsite Learning 
Into Neighborhood Beats 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

The Savannah Police Department requested 
grant money for a project called Community 
Oriented Policing Innovation and Experimentation 
Strategies (COPIES). The project was designed 
to improve leadership and managerial skills and 
encourage experimentation with new community 
policing ideas. We hoped to increase the likelihood 
that captains, lieutenants, and sergeants 
would make bold decisions to do things differently, 
to try new approaches, and to emulate the success 
of other departments, said Major Dan 
Reynolds. We wanted to encourage risk taking. 
The project had three primary goals: 

. To establish a permanent mindset among patrol 
managers and supervisors that will continue to 
promote operational changes within the department 
beyond the conclusion of the grant. 

. To provide onsite training. 

. To conduct site visits to other departments 
with good track records for community oriented 
policing. 



SAVANNAH POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 
CHIEF: DAN FLYNN 
CONTACT: WWW.SAVANNAHPD.ORG 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $198,525 
SITE VISIT: FEBRUARY 22, 2001 

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND
Savannah, Georgia was established in 
1733. Savannahs population of approximately 
131,510 is 56.8 percent black, 37.9 
percent white, 1.5 percent Asian, and 
1.5 percent other.* The city covers 80 
square miles. Savannahs historic district 
is visited by more than five million 
tourists each year. 
The Savannah Police Department has 
405 sworn officers and employs 95 civilians 
and 51 part-time school crossing 
guards. The department is divided into 
four bureaus: the Patrol Bureau, the 
Criminal Investigations Bureau, the 
Information Management Bureau, and 
the Support Services Bureau. The Patrol 
Bureau is divided into four precincts that 
are designed to be accessible to 
Savannahs citizens. 
The department implemented community 
oriented policing in 1991, and the process 
has been evolving ever since. Most 
recently, the focus has been on neighborhood 
geography, with an emphasis on 
collecting data, solving neighborhood 
problems, and providing services to citizens 
in specific geographic areas. 
 * U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 

The Project 

Savannahs Advancing Community Policing (ACP) 
project used several strategies/approaches, each 
of which is described in this section: 

. Targeting mid-level management 
. Training 
. Site visits 
. Replication and adaptation 
. Neighborhood beat approach 
. Problem solving 
. ArcView mapping system and CompStat 
. Savannah Impact 


Targeting Mid-Level Management. The ACP 
grant primarily targeted mid-level management in 
the Patrol Bureau, which has the most citizen contacts. 
Prior to the ACP project, Savannahs four 
precincts operated identically: upper management 
dictated how policing would be done. 

We were holding our supervisors and managers 
accountable for the move to community oriented 
policing, but we did not have their interest and 
support, Major Reynolds noted. We hoped that 
sending supervisors and officers to other cities to 
see community policing firsthand would win their 
support. I believe we were successful, since most 
of those who traveled came back invigorated and 
more willing to accept new policing strategies. 

Training. The grant supported training through a 
course titled Value-Centered Leadership, that 
was taught first to all lieutenants, captains, 
majors, and the chief, and next to all sergeants 
and key civilian personnel. Participants thought the 
training was outstanding and recommended it to 
other departments. 

We were able to conduct valuable training in 
leadership and expand the patrol officers role 
in community oriented policing, through training 
provided by internationally known experts, said 
Reynolds. This would not have occurred without 
supplemental funding. Reynolds said the training 
exposed personnel at all levels of the department 
to new ideas and experiences, which 
improved their attitudes toward community 
oriented policing. 

Site Visits. To learn more about community policing, 
all 33 sergeants, eight lieutenants, and four 
captains in the Patrol Bureau were required to go 


on the road. The department worked with the 
COPS Office to get a list of departments noted for 
their community policing. Guidelines were developed 
for the preparation of site visit reports. 

Four-person teams of individuals from various 
ranks and precincts fanned out to 14 departments 
across the country and Canada. Upon their return, 
they were required to document their findings. 
The departments visited were: 

. Austin, Texas 
. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina 
. Cleveland, Ohio 
. Delray Beach, Florida 
. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 
. Fort Worth, Texas 
. Fort Lauderdale, Florida 
. Mesa, Arizona 
. Overland Park, Kansas 
. Portland, Oregon 
. Reno, Nevada 
. Sacramento, California 
. San Antonio, Texas 
. Seattle, Washington 

The benefits of these visits were numerous: 

. Attendees discovered successful programs in 
other cities that could be replicated in Savannah. 
For example, the Savannah Crime Free Housing 
Program was inspired by a similar program in 
Mesa, Arizona. 

. Exposure to different environments prompted 
mid-level managers to institute new programs 
and a new way of doing business. 

. Officers developed important contacts in other 
police departments. 

. Officers acquired a deeper appreciation for community 
oriented policing after seeing it in action. 

. Morale improved among mid-level managers, 
who were given the chance to travel and 
to learn and incorporate new ideas and 
procedures. 

Replication and Adaptation. The site visit to 
Mesa, Arizona gave Savannah the idea for the 
Savannah Crime Free Housing Program, which 
focuses on crime prevention in privately owned 
apartment complexes. Using a certification process, 
property managers oversee such things 
as criminal-unfriendly lease agreements, Crime 
Prevention Through Environmental Design 
(CPTED), and resident neighborhood watch 
programs. 

A three-phase certification process requires rental 
properties to meet certain crime prevention criteria 
and takes from three months to a year to complete. 
The three phases consist of: 

. The requirement of an eight-hour training session 
for apartment management. 

. The implementation of strict security and building 
requirements for the property. 

. The enhancement of crime prevention education 
and awareness among tenants. 


Twenty of Savannahs 150 apartment complexes 
are now fully certified as Crime Free Housing and 
20 others are working on their certification. The 
voluntary program has reduced calls for service by 
20 to 70 percent (depending on the type of crime). 
Crime overall has decreased, with calls related to 
drugs, fighting, threats to life, disorderly persons, 


and juvenile complaints the most reduced, 
according to Corporal Tracy Walden, the projects 
coordinator. Were also seeing an increase in 
calls reporting things like suspicious persons, 
which is a good change. It shows that tenants are 
taking a more active role in reducing the likelihood 
of crime, buying into the program, and taking back 
claim to their surroundings. 

In addition, each apartment complex receives an 
economic benefit because it can advertise itself 
as a certified Crime Free Housing Community. 
This is an advantage in that it attracts potential 
renters and has led to lower turnover among 
current tenants. 

The Savannah Police Department has also partnered 
with the Savannah College of Art and 
Design, which owns 41 buildings in the city, mostly 
in the downtown area. The college is a major 
player in the citys revitalization efforts. The school 
has incorporated CPTED concepts into its curriculum, 
and the police department has conducted a 
CPTED evaluation of each building. The college 
also has agreed to install emergency phones 
around the campus. 

From their site visit to the police department in 
Overland Park, Kansas, officers from Savannah 
learned about the Construction Site Theft Task 
Force, which has drastically reduced construction 
site thefts. Savannah now produces a pamphlet 
that is given to each company that applies for a 
construction permit. The pamphlet outlines measures 
the construction company can take to 
reduce theft from its sites, including instituting 
CPTED measures, securing and labeling tools and 
equipment, and getting contact information for 
both police agencies involved. 

A site visit to Sacramento, California prompted 
interest in the Secondary Education Law 
Enforcement Cadet Training program. A partnership 
between the Savannah Police Department 
and the Chatham Board of Education, the overall 
goal of the program is to provide quality law 
enforcement technical skills to secondary school 
students, while deterring their entry in the criminal 
justice system. This project is under consideration. 

Neighborhood Beat Approach. In July 2000, 
Savannah instituted a new beat structure that 
makes neighborhood boundaries the basic geographic 
unit for delivering police services. One 
sergeant is assigned to each beat as the liaison for 
that beat, having 24-hour accountability regarding 
program efforts. Permanent beat officers, who 
cross shifts, meet with the beat sergeant and 
other beat officers for monthly updates. 

Beat officers take calls for service and use 
uncommitted time to work on beat problems. 

The goal is for officers to stay in their assignments 
for three to four years before they transfer. 

Calls from the community generally go directly to 
the sergeants. Sergeants then use community 
meetings to disseminate information and take 
questions from the community. 

A major benefit of the program has been improving 
the publics access to the police by giving 
them someone to call. In addition, by inviting citizens 
to the table, greater trust and understanding 
has developed between neighborhood residents 
and the police. There has also been an increase in 
accountability, with sergeants taking active ownership 
of their neighborhoods and becoming increasingly 
responsive to local problems. 

Sergeants have learned that it is important to: 

. Include neighborhoods in planning and determine 
the role of citizens. 

. Listen carefully to the communitys view of the 
problem and be candid about what they can and 
cannot do to solve it. 

. Educate the community regarding the role of 
police. 

. Assign self-motivated police officers to these 
beats. 


. Let officers know they could lose their beats for 
nonperformance. 

. Develop departmentwide support for community 
policing. 

. Facilitate a group effort to solve problems 
instead of requiring the officer to take sole 
responsibility. 


Savannah has won an award from the International 
City Management Association for implementing 
the neighborhood beat approach. 

Problem-Oriented Policing. Overtime funds from 
the ACP grant were used to work on problem-
solving projects using the scanning, analysis, 
response, and assessment (SARA) model. The 
SARA model has been used to close down bars, 
solve parking problems, and change city ordinances 
concerning the public consumption of alcoholic 
beverages. The department has developed a 
standard format for recording problem-oriented 
policing projects. The SARA model is taught in 
classes, and many officers now use SARA as standard 
operating procedure. 

ArcView Mapping System and CompStat. 

Several site visits allowed supervisors to observe 
the crime analysis function in other departments. 

They found that many departments used ArcView 
software for the geographic analysis of crime. 
Savannah had not been fully utilizing the capabilities 
of geographic information systems (GIS). After 
it acquired and implemented the ArcView GIS system, 
the department began using its own version 
of the CompStat model of crime analysis and 
police resource management to help solve problems, 
reduce crime, and deploy resources. 

Savannah Impact. One of the departments new 
initiatives is Savannah Impact, which is designed 
to rehabilitate habitual violent offenders by simultaneously 
providing social services and intensive 
supervision. The initiative is a collaboration among 
the Savannah Police Department, probation and 
parole offices, the juvenile court, the Gateway 
Community Service Board, and the Georgia 
Department of Labor. 

Parolees and probationers in the program will 
receive increased correctional supervision; they 
also will have direct access to remedial education, 
job training, job placement, substance abuse counseling, 
mental health assistance, and any other 
services necessary for their rehabilitation. The goal 
is to identify the 600 most violent adult offenders 
and 100 most violent juvenile offenders, then 
work to make them productive members of society 
and thereby prevent recidivism. 

Department Observations 

The organizational change to community policing 
has been evolving slowly. Cultural change within 
the department has been the most critical factor. 
Officers now routinely talk in terms of problem 
solving, something that was foreign when problem-
oriented approaches were first introduced more 
than 10 years ago. 

According to Brian Renner, Savannahs planning 
and research coordinator, The police department 
embraces community policing as a philosophy, 
rather than a program or special unit. We believe 
that there is never a finished state of community 
policing, but instead are always looking to improve 
the way we provide services. 

We are always evolving and adapting to the 
needs of our community, adds Major Reynolds. 
As the environment changes, you continually 
adapt and seek to improve your service to your 
customers. I think we will always be asking, Are 
we there yet? 


Panel Commentary 

The programs initiated by Savannah would not 
have been possible without the ACP grant. Like 
Savannah, many agencies are precluded from 
undertaking progressive programs because they 
are at a subsistence level of funding. It is commendable 
that Savannah used the ACP grant to 
invest in as many of its current and future leaders 
as practical, and that it involved the COPS Office 
in identifying the most instructive agencies for site 
visits. 

It is refreshing to see an institutional process of 
accountability following a site visit by an employee. 
Many agencies do not follow through with 
reporting requirements when they send their 
employees to out-of-state training, conferences, or 
site visits. The value of these relatively modest 
investments in people is immense, but that value 
is lost if it is not documented in a systematic and 
comprehensive way. Capturing lessons learned 
and innovations gleaned from site visits is one 
way to ensure continued support for programs 
that to some appear to be perks of small worth. 

Departments commonly have limited outside reference 
beyond what individuals learn from schools, 
conferences, or research. It is rare for departments 
to engage in primary research to study the methods 
of other departments; doing so ultimately 
forces individuals to focus on the strengths and 
weaknesses of their own departments. 

Many of the programs initiated as a result of 
Savannahs site visits have been in existence elsewhere 
for some time (e.g., Crime Free Housing 
certification, Neighborhood Beat programs, 
ArcView-based CompStat, and others). It is commendable 
that the Savannah Police Department 
translated observations from other jurisdictions 
into action. The ambitious implementation of this 
array of significant programs is also remarkable. 

The concepts that constitute the Savannah Impact 
program are commendable. If the goals of this 
program were ever realized, there would be significant 
interest on a national level. The array of services 
identified to help rehabilitate chronic 
recidivist offenders is dauntingly expensive. 

Nevertheless, the ambitious commitment of the 
Savannah Police Department to pursuing this program 
is worthy of recognition. The panel hopes 
that Savannah will be able to report a successful 
methodology to other police agencies eager to 
find solutions to a nationwide problem that has 
been marked more by failures than success. The 
Savannah Police Department has distinguished 
itself by engaging in primary research, which 
must have had a unifying effect on the entire 
department. 

Sending all patrol supervisors on study trips brings 
support for community policing and innovation to 
the forefront. It allows these individuals to grow 
as police officers, to take chances in a new environment, 
to try new working relationships, and to 
positively change how they view their own jobs. 
Including first-line supervisors in site visits gives 
them a sense that they are valued members of 
the department whose opinions are important. 
This is very important for obtaining buy-in, which 
is, in turn, critically important to the ultimate success 
of the community oriented policing program. 


CHAPTER 10 
WINDSOR: 
A New Partnership Between Law 
Enforcement and Citizens 

The Advancing Community Policing Grant. . . . . . . . . . .75 
Department Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 
Panel Commentary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 



CHAPTER 10 

WINDSOR 

A New Partnership Between Law 
Enforcement and Citizens 

The Advancing Community 
Policing Grant 

Background 

The Windsor Police Department sought the 
Advancing Community Policing (ACP) grant to 
establish a departmentwide community policing 
focus and to initiate a promotional campaign to tell 
citizens about those efforts. When the department 
applied for the grant, it was still operating primarily 
under traditional policing principles. 

Chief of Police Kevin Searles says applying for 
the grant forced the department to talk about 
where it wanted to go as an organization and 
how community policing fit in. The bottom line, 
according to Chief Searles, was an agreement that 
community policing needed to be integrated into 
the entire department and throughout the town to 
get everyone involved, building strong relationships 
in the process. 

The Project 

Several methods were used to kick off the organizational 
transformation that evolved under the 
grant: 

. Strategic planning 
. Community relations 
. Increased communication 



. Neighborhood Watch program 
. Decentralization and accountability 


Strategic Planning. A strategic plan was developed 
to identify recommendations for successfully 
implementing community policing. Surveys were 
conducted with Windsor police officers and the 
community as part of the planning process. The 
strategic plan made programmatic and implementation 
suggestions that helped guide the department 
in the change process. A key component of 
the planning process was the use of a Community 
Policing Steering Committee that comprised a 
cross section of the department. After a series of 
developmental sessions, this group met with the 
departments supervisory staff and union officials 
to share its vision and discuss the next steps. 

Community Relations. Grant funds were used 
to hire a community relations coordinator to coordinate 
and monitor ACP grant activities. Those 
duties included documenting the process, supporting 
Neighborhood Watch meetings, providing area 
statistics for police, documenting concerns and 
problems, alerting sergeants to any new concerns, 
and creating crime prevention/safety awareness 
materials for public use. 

Increased Communication. The Windsor Police 
Department was committed to open dialogue with 
the community. Several communications tools 
were developed with grant resources to help 
build internal and external relationships. 

A websitewww.windsorpolice.comwas developed 
by Officer Gerry Bagley, the union president 
of the department. Officer Bagley is a department 
veteran who has helped build a strong alliance 
between the police union and management to 
support community policing. The website is interactive, 
includes an abbreviated version of the dispatch 
log (updated daily), and answers questions. 

A weekly television show called On the Beat 
with the Windsor Police Department covers topics 
of interest to the community. One segment followed 
a new recruit as he went through the police 
academy. Another show featured the command 
staff responding to citizens questions in an open 
mike format. 

The Citizens Police Academy is a 12-week course 
for local residents that meets one night each 
week and gives residents an inside look at the 
departments operations. 

Neighborhood Watch Program. The Neighborhood 
Watch program has been revitalized after a 
hiatus of several years. Reaching out to a larger 
section of the community, the program has linked 
organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, 
Windsor Realtors, Meals-on-Wheels, senior centers, 
civic organizations, religious groups, and 
neighborhood clusters. Reducing crime is a primary 
focus of the community network, as is improving 
the quality of life. Helping residents with such 
quality-of-life issues as noise, potholes, and traffic 
problems results in obvious benefits to the residents. 
The most important benefit from addressing 
these issues is that residents get to see 
officers working on issues that are important to 
them. This makes residents more likely to call 
police with tips, general information, and reports 
of suspicious activity. 

With the increase in foot patrols, officers are more 
visible and approachable. Two members of the 
department are assigned to each Neighborhood 
Watch group to provide continuity and build relationships. 
Assigning all personnel to watch groups 
is the heart of the new departments policy. 
Everyone learns firsthand about customer service, 
ownership, and accountability. The department 


promotes the belief that an officer is more effective 
when he or she has active relationships in the 
community. Officers now view every resident in 
town as a potential source of information. The 
department plans to make the sharing of information 
a two-way process by providing information 
to citizens via its website, email, and phone trees. 

Decentralization and Accountability. The 
Windsor Police Department split the town into 
two major districts: north and south. A captain has 
complete responsibility for the activity in each district. 
The captains direct the work of all personnel 
in their respective regions. All command staff are 
evaluated on problem solving, crime rates, and 
citizens perception of safety (obtained through 
survey results in their district). 

Department Observations 

The ACP grant gave the Windsor Police 
Department the opportunity and resources to 
effect changes that probably would not have been 
possible without that support. The grant added a 
motivating factor, presented a vehicle for change, 
and produced a sense of commitment. The 
department is in the early stages of internal implementation 
and must still build a philosophical and 
operational bridge to the officers on the beat, not 
all of whom have embraced the changes. 

Chief Searles says that the real benefit of the 
grant was that it forced us to think about this 
whole set of issues and it kept us on track, 
because we had made a commitment. But he 
adds that the process was not without its challenges, 
especially because many officers were 
reluctant to embrace the notion of community 
policing. Part of the problem was our administrative 
staff performed poorly in terms of communicating 
clearly what our vision was and what we 
were trying to accomplish. The department 
learned it is a mistake to have a few community 
policing specialistseveryone in the department 
must be focused on community policing. 

WINDSOR POLICE DEPARTMENT 
LOCATION: WINDSOR, CONNECTICUT 
CHIEF: KEVIN SEARLES 
CONTACT: WWW.WINDSORPOLICE.COM 
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 
CATEGORY: ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE 
AMOUNT FUNDED: $241,173 
SITE VISIT: FEBRUARY 7, 2001

DEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND 
Windsor, Connecticut is located in the 
Hartford capital area, along the 
Connecticut and Farmington Rivers. 
Windsor is 91 miles south of Boston, 106 
miles from New York City, and has 28,237 
residents over 29.63 square miles. The 
population is 62.9 percent white, 26.7 
percent black, 5.0 percent Hispanic, 
3.1 percent Asian and 2.3 percent other.* 
One-third of more than 1,200 businesses 
in town is connected with the service 
industry. The Windsor Police Department 
is a small department, with 56 sworn and 
10 civilian employees. 
* U.S. Census Bureau, 2000. 


Windsors community policing philosophy has 
evolved to incorporate four strategies: 

. Making sure that citizens feel safe at all times 

. Providing citizens with customer service 

. Doing good police work 

. Ensuring the long-term economic viability of 
the town 


Chief Searles says that the last point is important 
because you dont get budgets approved if the 
town is hurting, because people dont want their 


taxes going up. So it all works togethercops 
working in partnership with the community to 
solve problems. It works. 
Officer Bagley says the police union has been supportive 
of the community policing efforts because 
they have proved so effective. He observes that 
early efforts already have made a difference, and 
he is looking forward to the future: By getting 
into the neighborhood and walking it with residents, 
our experience has shown a much better 
understanding of the neighborhood by the officer, 
as well as greatly improved citizen input. Officers 
will now have detailed information about criminal 
activity in the neighborhood, so citizens will have a 
more accurate view and therefore an improved 
perception of public safety. 

Panel Commentary 

Two days of training for each department member 
is a powerful start for a small department. It 
establishes a common language, reinforces the 
philosophy and department commitment in a short 
time, and builds skills for all who are interested. 

The website is well done and provides services 
that larger departments would find helpful to 
review. It has a personal feel, yet is professional at 
the same time. The feedback section is important, 
because it lets residents know the department is 
working on their concerns. The townwide referral 
system and intranet tracking system are also well 
done and should be shared with other departments. 
The photo gallery included on the website 
puts a friendly face on the department. 

The department made a smart observation that 
success depends on everyone having community 
policing responsibility, not just a few people. 
That attitude and the departments philosophy 
are apparent in the images and features on its 
website. 


CHAPTER 11 CONCLUSION 


CHAPTER 11 

CONCLUSION 

The nine Advancing Community Policing (ACP) 
grantee sites featured in this report 
approached the process of advancing community 
policing with strategies that were designed to 
meet specific community needs. Although the 
organizational structures of law enforcement agencies 
and goals for community oriented policing differ 
by locality, the ACP efforts described in the 
previous chapters offer lessons for other law 
enforcement agencies that plan to implement or 
enhance community oriented policing. 

This report highlights in depth the most significant 
elements of each site evaluated. The contact information 
provided within each chapter offers access 
to additional information on topics of particular 
interest. Law enforcement agencies that plan to 
implement community oriented policing initiatives 
or to enhance existing efforts are invited to use 
the nine ACP sites as resources. 

The COPS Office also offers assistance to law 
enforcement agencies that want to develop or 
enhance community oriented policing projects. 
For more information, contact: 

U.S. Department of Justice 
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 
1100 Vermont Avenue N.W. 
Washington, DC 20530 
202.514.2058 
800.421.6770 (U.S. Department of Justice Response Center) 
www.cops.usdoj.gov 


APPENDIXES 
A: The Fellowship and Expert Panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 
B: Project Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 
C: ACP Grantees and Organizational Change Components. . . . . .87 
D: About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 


APPENDIX A 

The Fellowship And Expert Panel 

In August 2000, the COPS Office sponsored an 
Advancing Community Policing Visiting 
Fellowship, housed in the Policy Support and 
Evaluation division of COPS, to explore the successes, 
challenges, and experiences resulting 
from this unusual grant program. 

Site visits conducted by the visiting fellow were 
informal and conducted in the spirit of cooperation, 
trust, and respect. Of keen interest to everyone 
was the opportunity to find out what the 
grantees had done with their projects and to help 
them connect with each other to share innovative 
ideas. Each project was a local effort supported 
with federal funds. 

The fellowship style of inquiry was designed to 
be congruent with such community policing 
values as collaboration, respect, and partnering 
for successful results. A significant part of the 
methodology included the creation of an expert 
panel of senior law enforcement executives and 
practitioners. 

An expert panel was convened to analyze and comment 
on the Advancing Community Policing grants. 
The unique methodology and working relationship 
of the panel merits recognition. At the outset, the 
members of the expert panel agreed to provide 
meaningful commentary on the work of their 
peers to advance community policing efforts 
at an institutional level. At its first meeting, in 
November 2000, the panel agreed that analysis of 
practical, working programs would represent the 
most compelling and catalytic testimony on the 
effectiveness of community policing. It also noted 


that a practical investigation of the subject would 
add needed information to the field. As a consequence, 
the panel proposed an ambitious methodology 
of analysis and written commentary that 
could contribute to the important and growing 
body of literature about community policing. 

To meet this goal, the panel first identified the 
most critical issues confronting agencies that 
were attempting to transform their organizations 
to support community policing. These issues 
included the degree of innovation and creativity of 
the grant application, the extent to which an organization 
was receptive to change, the capacity of 
an agency to sustain innovation, and the candor 
and thoroughness of an agency in its assessment 
of what succeeded and (just as important) what 
failed. In addition, the panel took into account geographic 
location and demography, jurisdiction, mission, 
agency size, and other factors in an effort to 
establish a representative sample of agency programs 
on a national level. 

The panel first analyzed each of the grantees 
against these criteria, then developed a series of 
tiers that identified and focused on two clusters: 
the nine agencies that would receive indepth 
inquiry and the additional agencies whose 
initiatives could be captured in more abbreviated 
case descriptions. The overarching goal of this 
exercise was to summarize and analyze the initiatives, 
innovations, ideas, lessons learned, successes, 
and false starts that, in their totality, paint a 
comprehensive picture of community policing as it 
currently exists. 

Fellow Andrea Schneider undertook a rigorous process 
of review and dialogue with the agencies 
that were selected. A key element of this process 
was a series of site visits during January and 
February 2001. Members of the expert panel 
accompanied Schneider on several site visits and 
contributed to an often intense examination of 
programs, obstacles, and lessons learned with 
agency commanders, representatives, and community 
members on their home turf. 

On occasion, the team provided technical assistance 
to an agency it visited, specifically in 
the areas of strategic planning, training, and 
overcoming resistance to change. This was a 
concomitantand much appreciatedbenefit to 
the site assessment approach. At the same time, 
the panel and each agency selected for examination 
participated in an ongoing written dialogue. 

Upon receipt of program summaries and assessments, 
the panel submitted new questions and 
challenges to the agency, which in turn generated 
new, and ever more thoughtful, draft summaries. 
This correspondence made the process of drafting 
each case study dynamic and interactive, and ultimately 
captured those experiences that were 
unique to each and those that were common to all 
of the agencies selected for review. 

From April to July 2001, the panel members communicated 
frequently via conference calls and 
email, as the draft visit reports were reviewed and 
refined. In addition, each panel member contributed 
written commentary to the nine case studies 
that highlights the broader issues of organizational 
change. 

This report is the result of the commitment of 
agency leaders, the readiness of organizations to 
change, and the availability of much-needed 
resources, skills, and time for implementation. 
Many variables contributed to both the successes 
and the failures in achieving and managing change 
and effecting meaningful outcomes. Examining 
the challenges was as important as looking at the 
successes, especially in terms of midcourse corrections 
and lessons learned. 


APPENDIX B

Project Types

Priority Area One: Leadership and Management 

Managing innovation at all levels of an organization 
is extremely difficult. Change strategies 
in this area might focus on enhancing 
managerial skills through leadership training, 
developing new techniques for overcoming resistance, 
implementing short-term and long-term 
strategic planning mechanisms, remapping managerial 
systems, redesigning performance evaluation 
and promotion procedures, decentralizing 
command to local levels, or improving the relationship 
between labor and management. 

Priority Area Two: 
Organizational Culture 

Changing organizational culture or reducing its 
impact on behavior is one of the greatest challenges 
for any administrator, especially in policing. 
Innovative approaches might include training for 
mid-level managers, developing new performance 
measures for patrol officers, altering traditional 
field training programs, designing new recruiting 
strategies to attract (and retain) a diverse field of 
employees (both sworn and civilian), and other 
human-resource reform efforts designed to 
encourage innovation and reward officers for 
engaging in community policing activities. The 
COPS Office welcomes other innovative ideas for 
changing elements of the organizational culture. 


Priority Area Three: Modifying 
Organizational Structures 

The structure of an organization is more than a 
series of lines and boxes on an organizational 
chart. Organizational structure defines lines of 
authority, communication, and responsibility. 
Research has shown that police agencies often 
need to restructure in order to enhance their 
community policing strategy. Restructuring 
means changing the fundamental design of an 
organization. 

Organizational structures are defined by a number 
of elementsthe depth of the hierarchy (rank 
structure), the geographic spread (number of 
precincts and beats), formalization (the degree 
to which the organization is governed by strict 
policies, procedures, rules, and standards), the 
span of control (number of subordinates per 
supervisor), the degree of specialization, and 
many other features. Many community policing 
efforts involve changes to one or more of these 
structural elements. 

Strategies in this area might include widespread 
structural changes such as geographical decentralization, 
managerial decentralization, flattening the 
rank structure, decreasing formalization, implementing 
geographic accountability, and other 
structural reforms aimed at increasing worker 
autonomy and information flow and otherwise 
enhancing community policing. 

Priority Area Four: Research 
and Planning 

Unlike private-sector organizations, public-sector 
organizations often do not devote a significant 
amount of their resources to research and development. 
When research and planning units exist 
in police agencies, they often are used to produce 
annual reports and track agency statistics 
for recordkeeping rather than for analytical purposes.
1 Applicants might develop or expand a 
research and planning unit to conduct in-house 
research and evaluation, examine ongoing agency 
operations, conduct sophisticated crime and 
trend analyses, analyze policy development, rationalize 
resource deployment, import innovations 
from other agencies, and generally infuse the 
organization with an ethos of experimentation 
and innovation. 

Because information technologies play an important 
role in modern policing, applicants may apply 
for items that enhance their analytical capabilities, 
including crime analysis software, computer 
mapping/GIS systems, database tools, statistical 
analysis software, custom software development, 
and other related items that will enable the organization 
to respond more effectively to community 
needs. 

Applicants should demonstrate the possibilities of 
specific information technologies, but how these 
possibilities will translate into community policing 
activities such as problem solving, crime analysis 
and community engagement. Applicants considering 
such items are reminded that there must be a 
clear link between requested technologies and the 
proposed organizational change strategy. 

Priority Area Five: 
Re-engineering Other 
Components of the Organization 

There are many organizational issues facing 
American police agencies. Applicants should 
apply under this category if they have developed 


 
innovative organizational change strategies that do  
not fit clearly within one of the predefined areas.  
One of the main criteria for any of the organiza- 
tional change priority areas is the demonstration of  
a clear set of goals and a realistic commitment to 
change at the organizational level. Some areas 
that might fall within this category include: 

. Call-management schemes so agencies can 
manage patrol resources more effectively and 
efficiently 

. Re-evaluating existing departmental policies and
procedures to ensure that they are efficient,
effective, necessary, and consistent with the
aims of community policing

. Community outreach campaigns that better ex-
plain the community policing philosophy and the 
changes necessary to implement this philosophy 

Note 
1. Reiss. A.J., Jr. (1992), Police Organization 
in the Twentieth Century, in M. Tonry and 
N. Morris (eds.), Modern Policing, pp. 5198.


APPENDIX C 

ACP Grantees And Organizational 

Change Components 

AGENCY                                          PROJECT FOCUS

Arizona 

Tempe Police Department                   Re-engineering Other Components
Tucson Police Department                  Re-engineering Other Components
 
Arkansas 

North Little Rock Police Department       Organizational Culture
Pine Bluff Police Department              Research and Planning

California 

Fontana Police Department                 Research and Planning
Los Angeles Police Department             Organizational Culture
Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department   Organizational Culture

AGENCY                                         PROJECT FOCUS

California (continued) 

Oakland Police Department                 Leadership and Management
Riverside Police Department               Research and Planning
Sacramento Police Department              Re-engineering Other Components
Sacramento County Police Department       Organizational Culture
Salinas Police Department                 Re-engineering Other Components
San Jose Police Department                Leadership and Management
Santa Barbara Police Department           Research and Planning
UCLA Police Department                    Re-engineering Other Components
Ventura Police Department                 Organizational Culture
Westminster Police Department             Research and Planning 


AGENCY                                         PROJECT FOCUS

Colorado 

Boulder Police Department                 Research and Planning
Brighton Police Department                Re-engineering Other Components 
El Paso County Sheriffs Department       Modifying Organizational Structures
Longmont Police Department                Re-engineering Other Components
Summit County Sheriffs Office            Research and Planning

Connecticut 

Bridgeport Police Department              Modifying Organizational Structures 
East Hartford Police Department           Organizational Culture
Hartford Police Department                Leadership and Management
Manchester Police Department              Organizational Culture 
New Haven Police Department               Leadership and Management
Windsor Police Department                 Organizational Culture 

Delaware 

Delaware State Police                     Research and Planning

District of Columbia 

Metropolitan Washington, D.C.             Organizational Culture
 Police Department 

Florida 

Broward County Sheriffs Department       Organizational Culture
Hillsborough County Sheriffs Department  Re-engineering Other Components
Jacksonville Sheriffs Department         Organizational Culture
Marion County Sheriffs Department        Modifying Organizational Structures
Pompano Beach Police Department           Organizational Culture
Santa Rosa County Sheriffs Department    Research and Planning
Sunrise Police Department                 Re-engineering Other Components 

AGENCY                                          PROJECT FOCUS 

Georgia 

Albany Police Department                  Leadership and Management 
DeKalb County Sheriffs Office            Research and Planning 
Savannah Police Department                Leadership and Management 

Illinois 

Kankakee Police Department                Organizational Culture 

Indiana 

Indiana State Police                      Re-engineering Other Components 

Iowa 

Sioux City Police Department              Organizational Culture 

Kentucky 

Jefferson County Police Department        Leadership and Management 
Louisville Police Department              Re-engineering Other Components 

Louisiana 

Lake Charles Police Department            Research and Planning 
Shreveport Police Department              Re-engineering Other Components 

Maine 

Brunswick Police Department               Re-engineering Other Components 

Maryland 

Howard County Police Department           Leadership and Management 
Prince Georges County Police Department  Leadership and Management 


AGENCY                                           PROJECT FOCUS

Massachusetts 

Boston Police Department                  Modifying Organizational Structures
Brookline Police Department               Organizational Culture
Framingham Police Department              Research and Planning
Lawrence Police Department                Re-engineering Other Components
Lowell Police Department                  Re-engineering Other Components
Somerville Police Department              Research and Planning 

Michigan 

Bay City Police Department                Organizational Culture 
Flint Township Police Department          Re-engineering Other Components
Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa             Modifying Organizational Structures
 and Chippewa Indians Police Department    
Lansing Police Department                 Research and Planning

Minnesota 

Burnsville Police Department              Re-engineering Other Components
Duluth Police Department                  Organizational Culture

Mississippi 

Bay St. Louis Police Department           Re-engineering Other Components

Missouri 

Kansas City Police Department             Research and Planning
St. Charles Police Department             Research and Planning

AGENCY                                            PROJECT FOCUS

New Jersey 

Hoboken Police Department                 Organizational Culture
Jersey City Police Department             Leadership and Management
Montclair Township Police Department      Research and Planning
Newark Police Department                  Leadership and Management
New Brunswick Police Department           Leadership and Management
Pequannock Township Police Department     Modifying Organizational Structures

New Mexico 

Albuquerque Police Department             Research and Planning
Los Lunas Police Department               Organizational Culture

New York 

Buffalo Police Department                 Organizational Culture 
Nassau County Police Department           Leadership and Management

North Carolina 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department   Organizational Culture

Ohio 

Akron Police Department                   Research and Planning
Bowling Green Police Department           Modifying Organizational Structures
Richland County Sheriffs Office          Research and Planning
Toledo Police Department                  Re-engineering Other Components
 
Oregon 

Portland Police Bureau                    Re-engineering Other Components    
Washington County Police Department       Research and Planning


AGENCY                                         PROJECT FOCUS 

Pennsylvania 
Lower Merion Township Police Department   Research and Planning 

Rhode Island 

Providence Police Department              Re-engineering Other Components 

South Carolina 

Rock Hill Police Department               Organizational Culture 
Spartanburg Department of Public Safety   Organizational Culture 

Tennessee 

Bradley County Sheriffs Department       Organizational Culture 
Murfreesboro Police Department            Re-engineering Other Components 

AGENCY PROJECT FOCUS 

Texas 

Arlington Police Department              Research and Planning 
Dallas Police Department                 Research and Planning 
El Paso Police Department                Leadership and Management 
Waco Police Department                   Modifying Organizational Structures 

Utah 

Salt Lake County Sheriffs Department    Organizational Culture 

Washington 

Bellingham Police Department             Re-engineering Other Components 
Kennewick Police Department              Organizational Culture 

Wisconsin 

Green Bay Police Department              Leadership and Management 


APPENDIX D 
About The Authors 

Andrea Schneider, M.A. 

Visiting Fellow and Project Director 

Andrea Schneider holds a masters in political 
science and is an independent consultant, 
facilitator, and community coach for community 
problem solving. She brings her expertise in community 
collaboration, systems change, action planning, 
and nontraditional evaluation to the Office of 
Community Oriented Policing (the COPS Office) 
Fellowship. She is best known for developing collaborative 
community initiatives that address complex 
social problems and link research with 
practice, as well as investigating programs for 
practical results. 

Ms. Schneider has served on numerous federal 
and state advisory and task forces, including 
testifying before the 101st Congress on the 
prevention of drug abuse; serving on an expert 
panel to evaluate a $30 million federal training 
and technical assistance system, Californias 
Attorney Generals Community Challenge; and 
participating in a Health and Human Services 
Foundation Task Force to link the private sector 
with public initiatives. 

She was the executive director of the Community 
Partnership of Santa Clara County, California; 
directed the Prevention Division of the Santa 
Clara County Health Department of Drug Abuse 
Services; and is a founding member of the 
Prevention Network in California. 

Ms. Schneider is from Palo Alto, California. 


Deputy Chief Clark Kimerer 

Clark Kimerer was hired by the Seattle Police 
Department (SPD) in 1983. As a police officer, he 
worked in the East and West Precincts and subsequently 
as the training officer for the SWAT Team. 
Promoted to sergeant in July 1987, he held 
assignments in the DWI Unit before being 
assigned to the Goodwill Games Planning Group. 
From 1985 to 1992, he was also chief negotiator 
for the SPD Hostage Negotiation Team. Following 
his promotion to lieutenant in late 1989, he continued 
as lead planner for this group through the 
completion of that event. He was later transferred 
to the West Precinct, where he remained as captain 
from 1992 to 1996. 

As a captain, Chief Kimerer also commanded the 
Internal Investigations Section and the Vice and 
Narcotics Section. He was promoted to assistant 
chief in January 1999, and served as chief of staff 
until his promotion in October 2001 to deputy 
chief. As deputy chief of operations, he oversees 
Operations Bureaus 1 and 2, the Investigations 
Bureau, and the newly formed Emergency 
Preparedness Bureau. 

Chief Kimerer holds a bachelor of arts degree in 
classics and liberal arts from St. Johns College and 
attended the Graduate Institute for the Liberal Arts 
at St. Johns. He has also participated in advanced 
courses at the FBI Academy, Northwestern University, 
and the Harvard Negotiation Project at 
Harvard Law School. 

Chief Kimerer is chair of the Downtown Emergency 
Service Center Board of Directors and 
serves on several executive and advisory boards, 
including Childhaven International, Our Lady of 
the Lake School Board, and Service Integration 
Advisory Council of AIDS Housing of Washington. 
In his leisure time, he enjoys skiing, traveling, 
backpacking, and coaching his sons soccer and 
basketball teams. 

Chief Scott R. Seaman 

Scott R. Seaman is the chief of police of the Los 
Gatos/Monte Sereno (California) Police Department. 
Previously, he served 27 years with the San 
Jose (California) Police Department. Throughout 
his career, Chief Seaman has created or assisted 
in the development of innovative projects for 
youth, schools, and the community. Chief Seaman 
designed and authored the San Jose Police 
Departments Advancing Community Policing 
grant. He served as a member of the COPS Office 
Expert Panel evaluating the Advancing Community 
Policing grants. 

Chief Seaman holds a B.A. in criminology from 
the University of California, Berkeley and an 
M.S. in management from California Polytechnic 
University, Pomona. He is a graduate of the 
California Command College and the FBI National 
Academy. Chief Seaman is a recognized expert in 
issues of police use of force, police procedures, 
and community policing. He is the recipient of 
the 1996 Community Leadership Award for San 
Jose and numerous other community service 
awards. 

Editors Note: Joan Sweeneys biography was 
unavailable as this report went to press.