DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02560
title: Community Policing and Police Agency Accreditation in the United States, 1992 and 1994
title: Archival Version

description: This study was undertaken to examine the compatibility of
 law enforcement agency accreditation and community policing. It sought
 to answer the following questions: (1) Are accreditation and community
 policing compatible? (2) Do accreditation and community policing
 conflict? (3) Does accreditation support community policing? (4) Did
 any of this change with the 1994 "top-down" revision of the
 Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA)
 standards? To that end, the researchers conducted separate content
 analyses of the 897 accreditation standards of the Commission on
 Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) in effect at the
 end of 1992 and the revised set of 436 standards published in
 1994. The standards were coded on 27 variables derived from the
 literature on community policing and police
 administration. Information was collected on the basics of each
 accreditation standard, its references to issues of community-oriented
 policing (COP) and problem-oriented policing (POP), and general
 information on its compatibility, or conflict with COP and POP. Basic
 variables cover standard, chapter, section, and
 applicability. Variables focusing on the compatibility of
 community-oriented policing and the accreditation standards include
 sources of legitimacy/authorization, community input, community
 reciprocity, geographic responsibility, and broadening of
 functions. Variables on problem-oriented policing include level of
 analysis, empirical analysis, collaboration with nonpolice agencies,
 evaluation/assessment, and nature of the problem. Variables on
 management and administration concern officer discretion,
 specialization by unit, specialization by task, formalization,
 centralization, levels/hierarchy, employee notification, employee
 involvement, employee rights, specific accountability, and customer
 orientation. General information on the compatibility or conflict
 between a standard and community-oriented policing/problem-oriented
 policing includes overall restrictiveness of the standard, primary
strategic affiliation, focus on process, and focus on administration.
description: Community policing and law enforcement agency
 accreditation are two of the most significant police reform
 initiatives of the late 20th century. Whether these two major
 developments, one primarily operational and the other mainly
 administrative, are compatible or in conflict emerged as a serious
 issue in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The spectacular rise in the
 popularity of community policing in the middle 1990s has made this
 question much more timely and important. This study examined the
 compatibility of accreditation and community policing. It sought to
 answer the following questions: (1) Are accreditation and community
 policing compatible? (2) Do accreditation and community policing
 conflict? (3) Does accreditation support community policing? (4) Did
 any of this change with the 1994 "top-down" revision of the
 Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA)
standards?
description: To examine the compatibility of community policing
 and accreditation, the researchers conducted separate content analyses
 of the 897 accreditation standards of the Commission on Accreditation
 for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) in effect at the end of 1992 and
 the revised set of 436 standards published in 1994. Each content
 analysis was done in three stages: (1) three researchers independently
 coded each standard, (2) a consensus coding was reached, and (3) the
 coding of all standards was reviewed for internal consistency. The
 standards were coded on 27 variables derived from the literature on
 community policing and police administration. Information was
 collected on the basics of each accreditation standard, its references
 to issues of community-oriented policing (COP) and problem-oriented
 policing (POP), and general information on its compatibility or
conflict with COP and POP.
description: Basic variables cover standard, chapter, section,
 and applicability. Variables focusing on the compatibility of
 community-oriented policing and the accreditation standards include
 sources of legitimacy/authorization, community input, community
 reciprocity, geographic responsibility, and broadening of
 functions. Variables on problem-oriented policing include level of
 analysis, empirical analysis, collaboration with nonpolice agencies,
 evaluation/assessment, and nature of the problem. Variables on
 management and administration concern officer discretion,
 specialization by unit, specialization by task, formalization,
 centralization, levels/hierarchy, employee notification, employee
 involvement, employee rights, specific accountability, and customer
 orientation. General information on the compatibility or conflict
 between a standard and community-oriented policing/problem-oriented
 policing includes overall restrictiveness of the standard, primary
strategic affiliation, focus on process, and focus on administration.
description: Response Rates: Not applicable.
description: Presence of Common Scales: None.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Content Data for 1992
DS2: Content Data for 1994
description: All 1992 and 1994 CALEA Accreditation Standards.
description: The codebook, user guide, and data collection
 instrument are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The
 PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be
 accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
 Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided
through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.