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**U.S. Department of Justice**        Office of Community Oriented Policing Services            145 N Street, N.E.       Washington, DC 20530      www.cops.usdoj.gov×         Menu         - Home
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**Community Policing: Much More Than Walking a Beat**
  May 2018 | Volume 11 | Issue 5

As Chief of the Arlington Police Department, I am often  asked if community policing really works. And the short answer to this question  is yes. There is research to demonstrate that community policing is effective in  reducing crime, and the Arlington (TX) Police Department (APD) can support  these findings in our jurisdiction.

To assess the value of any policy or procedure, our department  uses a comprehensive set of measures—a blend of statistics, hard data,  community surveys, and what we hear from our officers. Judging from these  measures, I can say unequivocally that community policing has helped to  increase public safety and order in Arlington, Texas. Just as importantly, it has  improved officer safety and led to a more positive work environment.

The long answer to questions about the effectiveness of  community policing is that when properly implemented, it provides many  advantages. To begin with, local people are more likely to cooperate with  police, keep a watchful eye over their neighbors, and report suspicious  individuals or criminal incidents when they know and trust us. And these benefits  extend to a wide variety of safety concerns.

**A geographic policing  model for proactive problem solving**

	             However, patrolling a neighborhood and talking to its  residents is not nearly enough. A critical element of community policing is  problem solving. Officers are expected to be proactive and creative not only in  addressing, but in preventing, problems.

	             To implement this approach, APD uses a geographic policing  model, assigning officers, beat sergeants, and sector lieutenants to a predetermined  geographic boundary. These individuals keep their assignments for long periods  to forge relationships with neighbors, business owners, and the faith  community. Working with them, officers apply problem-solving methods to reduce  crime and disorder while improving the overall quality of life in their beats. As  each officer’s rank increases, he or she becomes responsible for more  neighborhoods—not only for responding to crime, but for maintaining  communication and engagement.

**Increased safety for  the community and officers**

	             But these officers do more than meet and greet people; they  take the time to share information and learn what is of interest in different  sub communities within their area—geographic, business, ethnic, age related,  and otherwise. Many of them get deeply involved, especially with the kids. Some  teach special projects in the local school and many mentor young people. Others  are involved in athletic mentor coaching programs, which are especially  important because athletes are often the most respected leaders in their  schools, but are just as often at risk for disruptive behavior.

Building relationships like these helps us all in the long-run.  Young people develop a positive image of police and officers are safer when they  are known and respected. Officers also enjoy the feelings of goodwill, personal  connection, and individual accomplishment. This leads to more job satisfaction.

But, ironically, these relationships can negatively skew the  data on crime rates. Because residents trust the police, they are more willing  to report crime or suspicious behavior. Increases in arrests can be interpreted  as increases in crime. This demonstrates the difficulty of trying to “measure”  the positive effects of community policing.

**Combining preventive  and investigative methods**

	             Another distinguishing feature of community policing is that  it emphasizes proactivity rather than just reactivity. Our focus is on preventing  crime—solving problems by getting to the underlying cause. One of the tactics  we use is the SARA method: scanning, analysis, response, and assessment, a  method which has been determined to be successful in reducing crime and  increasing officer awareness of community issues.1 By defining the problem, analyzing its cause and effects, our team can not only  respond more effectively, but evaluate the outcome of our response in order to  prevent future incidents.

Technology and data sharing plays a large role in this, as  does collaboration—both within the agency and outside—with social service  providers, educators, health and other professionals, local government, and state  and federal law enforcement. We have found that these partnerships increase our  resources and our ability to solve problems.

**Collaboration and  data sharing**

In 2016, APD upgraded our records management system,  transitioning from summary crime reporting to incident-based reporting (IBRS).  This enables us to more fully explore victim and incident information. With  IBRS, officers must provide more detail surrounding an incident, enabling us to  determine underlying causes. As a result, we can tailor our responses to each  crime, react faster, and even predict overall crime trends.

To take advantage of all of our internal resources and  promote the kind of synergy that leads to well-informed decisions, we have also  decentralized our operations to a certain extent, which allows different areas to  work together. Though we do have individual departments—homicide, for instance,  is in its own physical space—conversation related to these and other crimes are  in a virtual space where we can get input from many other specialists.

**Everybody has an  important role to play**

The success of community policing depends upon the ability  of individual officers to build positive relationships and take the initiative  to solve problems. But everybody at APD has an important role to play in  maintaining a positive public image, regardless of rank, assignment, or task. Non-sworn  APD employees are as important as the officers in building community  relationships. Good personal communications and the establishment of trust are  as necessary at the records counter as in dispatch and the detention center.

Public communications are equally important. Everybody  associated with our department, including our citizen volunteers, is also  taught how to communicate and monitor information effectively through social  media training. This is particularly important because we are constantly  confronted with misinformation—some of which is deliberate, from individuals  who want to promote divisiveness.

To counteract this after a serious incident such as a  homicide, we institute community restorative efforts by flooding the  neighborhood and initiating conversation with the residents, ensuring that they  know exactly what happened. We connect with them virtually as well, asking them  to share this information with their community and to let us know if they get  misinformation. We also use social media to humanize the public image of our  officers and law enforcement.

**Successful enforcement  operations**

A good example of how community policing principles come in  to play in an enforcement operation is our Operation Safety Net (OSN) program.  Launched in 2016 after we noticed that robbery and aggravated assault crimes  were trending up, OSN was a multidisciplinary approach combining intelligence,  investigations, and field operations to form one team working on the same goals:  reduction of robberies, assaults, and gun crime. Operations were based on  weekly intelligence reports that provided field officers with information on  areas and persons of interest, determined from "hot spot" mapping.

The program also required the cooperation of the public. To  keep local people aware of increased police presence in their area and the  goals of the operation, we launched public messaging campaigns—through social  media and face-to-face communications—before OSN began. When the program began,  robbery offenses were trending up in summary UCR reporting; when it concluded,  these offenses had fallen to average levels.

In 2017, we launched a second initiative aimed at curbing gun  crime. This program, known as the Violent Crime Task Force (VCTF), involved  saturation patrols and zero tolerance, limited to targeting of enforcement of  violent offenders and offenses. At its conclusion, violent crime involving guns  had fallen to average levels, and later UCR summary reporting showed that  violent crime fell six percent in our community.

A common denominator in these, as in all other operations,  has been the support of our community. When we are proactive and approachable,  citizens are more likely to cooperate and support the police. And we continue  to work to earn that support—every single day.

**Community support for  police operations**

	             So back to the original question—does community policing  reduce crime and improve the quality of life in our city? The Arlington Police  Department has experienced several great successes in our commitment to  community policing. Most importantly, APD has the support of Arlington’s various  communities when there are incidents and events that warrant police  intervention.

We’ve also had a great deal of positive feedback from our outreach  efforts, our partnerships with the faith-based community, and our citizen  volunteer and participation programs. This is in addition to good reports from our  patrol officers, who say that the members of their community—residents and  small business owners alike—are aware of challenges of maintaining order and  public safety, and satisfied with the strategies we’re using.

And here’s one more way I measure the success of our  community policing model. One of the applicants for a job at APD was not only  from out of state, but without any personal ties to Texas. When asked why he  wanted to become an APD officer, he replied that an online search showed that  we encourage our officers to invest in youth and participate in other programs  that give officers the ability to work closely with the community. “I want to  be part of that,” he said. At APD, we are all involved in building good  community relationships—and take pride in what we’ve accomplished.

	             Chief Will  Johnson	             Arlington  Texas Police Department

 

References:1 Maguire, Edward R., Craig D. Uchida, and Kimberly D. Hassell, “Problem-Oriented Policing in Colorado Springs: A Content Analysis of 753 Cases,” Crime and Delinquency 61, no. 1 (2015): 71–95.    

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The Community Policing Dispatch is the e-newsletter of the COPS Office. 

The Community Policing Dispatch is the e-newsletter of the COPS Office. 

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