It is unlikely that the community shared the police concern for bicycle registration. Clearly, the police department would have benefited from community input before carrying out this initiative. Community involvement may have refocused police concerns, foreseen the shortcoming of the police strategy, or helped devise a more appropriate tactic to address the problem. When the public perceives police action as inappropriate, the legitimacy of the police is questioned. Pointless Surveys Police departments adopting community policing need to enhance their communication with the public.
Many departments start by surveying public opinion.
Our next department, as part of a high profile implementation campaign, assigned officers to distribute and collect questionnaires. The surveys were then placed in a file cabinet and forgotten. The department never examined the survey data. Everyone wants to think that his or her opinion is important. The goodwill a department achieves by soliciting public opinion quickly dissipates when citizens realize their input doesn't matter.