National Institute of Justice

R e s e a r c h P r e v i e w

Jeremy Travis, Director

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFF ICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS

BJA NI J OJJDP BJS OVC

July 1999

Agencies implementing community policing are striving to

change how police do their work and what contributions citizens

make to policing. Researchers are exploring what policing is like

in St. Petersburg, Florida, a city that has implemented community

policing. This Research Preview reports findings from the Project

on Policing Neighborhoods, sponsored by the National Institute

of Justice and the Office of Community Oriented Policing

Services. A similar report on community policing in Indianapolis,

Indiana, was published in July 1998.

Methodology

In 1997, the researchers observed police officers for approximately 240 hours in each of 12 of St. Petersburg’s 48 Community

Policing Areas (CPAs). These CPAs were selected to represent

variation in social distress (determined by the amount of

unemployment and poverty and the number of female-headed

households), which affects service conditions for police. Field

researchers observed 911 officers responsible for answering

calls for service, Community Policing Officers (CPOs) free to

focus on problem solving, and supervisors assigned to the

selected CPAs. Researchers also personally interviewed nearly

all St. Petersburg patrol officers (n=240) and their immediate

supervisors (n=37). In addition, more than 1,900 randomly

selected residents of St. Petersburg were surveyed by telephone.

Findings

Police role. Community policing expands an officer’s role beyond

just law enforcement. Interviews revealed some ambivalence in

officers’ perception of their role. Ninety-eight percent of officers

agreed that assisting citizens is as important as enforcing the

law, but 88 percent also said that enforcing the law is an officer’s

most important responsibility. Almost all officers agreed that

citizen input about neighborhood problems is important, but 25

percent said they have reason to distrust most citizens.

CPOs generally favored views associated with community

policing more than did 911 officers. They were much more likely

than 911 officers to say that minor disorders were police business. They were far more likely to rank reducing repeat calls for

service as an important goal and far less likely to rank handling

their call load or making arrests as important goals. Some views

were related to officers’ length of service. Experienced officers

were more likely to expect officers to respond to all minor

disorders except family disputes (on which there were no clear

differences by length of service). They were less likely to stress

the importance of making arrests, issuing citations, and performing drug and gun interdictions and were more likely to view public

involvement in neighborhood improvement and reducing fear of

crime as important. Contrary to assumptions common to many

researchers and practitioners, newer police officers were not the

ones with the most positive outlook on community policing.

Allocation of officer time. The researchers found that the St.

Petersburg officers they studied spent, on average, between onefourth and one-third of their time not on specific tasks, but rather

on general patrol or personal business. Contrary to widely held

beliefs about the reactive nature of police patrol, 911 officers

were typically free of dispatcher or supervisor assignments for

5–6 hours of their 8-hour shift. Because of the nature of CPOs’

job assignments, virtually all of their time was available for selfdirected activities, including officer-initiated encounters with the

public, involvement with other government agencies, administrative tasks, general patrol, and personal business.

The proactive nature of patrol work in St. Petersburg is revealed

by the rate of officer-initiated encounters with the public. On

average, 911 officers initiated approximately 45 percent of their

public contacts; CPOs, approximately 66 percent. Dispatch calls,

supervisor assignments, and contacts initiated directly by

citizens at a scene or by telephone accounted for the balance.

Not surprisingly, CPOs spent substantially more time engaged

in problem-solving activities than 911 officers (17 percent and

7–10 percent, respectively, depending on the shift). Eighty-three

percent of CPOs indicated involvement with a problem-solving

project in the past year, as did 57 percent of 911 officers.

Police-citizen interactions. Community policing is generally

concerned with solving problems, but also is concerned with

enhancing the quality of police-citizen interactions. Researchers

found that CPOs tended to spend substantially less time in

face-to-face contact with citizens than 911 officers. CPOs had a

Policing Neighborhoods:

A Report From St. Petersburg

Summary of research by Stephen D. Mastrofski, Michigan State University; Roger B. Parks, Indiana University;

Albert J. Reiss, Jr., Yale University; and Robert E. Worden, University at Albany, State University of New York
This document is based on research conducted by Stephen D.

Mastrofski, Ph.D., Professor, Michigan State University; Roger

B. Parks, Ph.D., Professor, Indiana University; Albert J. Reiss,

Jr., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Yale University; and Robert E.

Worden, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University at Albany,

State University of New York. The research was sponsored

under NIJ grant number 95–IJ–CX–0071, with funds from the

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. This and

other NIJ publications can be found at and downloaded

from the NIJ Web site (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij).

Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the

authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of

the U.S. Department of Justice.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Washington, DC 20531

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somewhat lower rate of contact with the public in general, but

they also had much lower rates of contact with suspects/

disputants and help-seekers while having much higher rates

of strictly social contacts.

Community policing promotes greater police-citizen cooperation.

The researchers found a relatively high level of such cooperation

in everyday police-citizen contacts. The police made a positive

response to at least one request from citizens 85 percent of the

time. Citizens responded positively to at least one request or

demand from police approximately 82 percent of the time.

Citizen perceptions. Under community policing, citizens play

two important roles—as consumers of police services and as

coproducers of policing itself. Eighty-five percent of the interviewed citizens said they were “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with

their neighborhood police services. Black respondents were

somewhat less likely to give these responses than whites. Twothirds of survey respondents rated St. Petersburg police as

“excellent” or “good” at working with residents to solve problems.

Whites were substantially more likely than blacks to give a strong

rating, but blacks were more aware of police-citizen problemsolving efforts and were more likely to report participation in

such efforts.

Establishing a visible and familiar police presence is important to

most police agencies. Approximately one-third of residents

surveyed said they had seen the police in the previous 24 hours.

Twenty-eight percent of all interviewed residents said they knew

police officers who worked in their neighborhoods. The researchers examined the relationship between a resident knowing an

officer and offering a favorable rating of the police. Familiarity

with neighborhood police was associated with positive ratings of

police among blacks and other minorities but did not affect

ratings of whites.

Conclusion

The research showed that community policing clearly made

inroads in the outlook of St. Petersburg officers and that the

strength of those effects is related to whether an officer has a

specialized community policing assignment or serves as a

general patrol officer. There were a number of distinctions

between the behavior of CPOs and that of 911 officers. This

suggests that considerable care is warranted concerning how

officer responsibilities are constructed if departments are to

promote community policing attitudes and behavior. Regardless

of job assignments, St. Petersburg patrol officers have substantial self-directed time available for targeted activities. The

challenge is to find ways to coordinate and supervise these

activities effectively. Citizens of St. Petersburg are relatively

satisfied with police services, which compares to responses to

surveys in other U.S. cities. Although minority citizens tended to

evaluate their police somewhat lower than whites did, they

showed a stronger willingness to become involved in problem

solving. This represents an excellent opportunity for strengthening police-community relations and improving the quality of life in

minority neighborhoods. These and other research results have

been used by the St. Petersburg Police Department to develop

and implement plans for the future. Detailed information on these

and other community policing issues will be forthcoming in future

project reports.

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