COMPROMISED POLICE LEGITIMACY AS A PREDICTOR OF VIOLENT CRIME IN STRUCTURALLY DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES*

This study examined whether indicators of compromised police legitimacy explained variations in violent crime within New York City police precincts from 1975 to 1996. Integrating models of urban cultural attenuation and procedural justice, the study hypothesized that variations in patterns of police misconduct and over/under policing (the indicators of police legitimacy) would predict variations in violent crime rates of communities characterized by concentrated structural disadvantage. Using a panel design and controlling for the relevant ecology of crime factors and spatial autocorrelation, the study found that in communities characterized by high disadvantage, incidents of police misconduct predicted variations in violent crime; in communities characterized by extreme disadvantage, both indicators of compromised police legitimacy (misconduct and over policing) predicted variations in violent crime. The study found no significant relationships between the indicators of police legitimacy and violent crime in communities of low disadvantage. Findings support emerging arguments that emphasize the importance of formal institutions of social control in the most structurally disadvantaged communities (that is, those often subjected to cultural attention) and suggest implications for the ecology of crime model and police accountability.     

Problem-oriented policing in public housing: The Jersey City evaluation

This paper examines the impact of a problem-oriented policing project on serious crime problems in six public housing sites in Jersey City, New Jersey. Representatives from the police department and the local housing authority, social service providers, and public housing tenants formed six problem-solving teams. Using systematic documentation of the teams' activities and calls for police service, we examine changes in serious crime both across and within the six sites over a 2 1/2-year period. We find that problem-oriented policing, as compared with traditional policing strategies used before the problem-oriented policing project, led to fewer serious crime calls for service over time and that two public housing sites in particular succeeded in reducing violent, property, and vehicle-related crimes.     

Identifying changes in spatial patterns from police interventions: the importance of multiple methods of analysis

The policing initiative of foot patrol was implemented to reduce crime and disorder as well as benefit the relationship between the community and the police in the community of Lower Lonsdale, North Vancouver, British Columbia. In this paper, police incident data are analyzed to evaluate the impact of police foot patrol on the hot spots of crime in this community. Specifically, two spatial analysis techniques (kernel density estimation and local Moran’s I) are used to show how the nuances of changes in spatial crime patterns can emerge when multiple methods of analysis are used.     

Is problem-oriented policing effective in reducing crime and disorder?

Research Summary
We conducted a Campbell systematic review to examine the effectiveness of problem-oriented policing (POP) in reducing crime and disorder. After an exhaustive search strategy that identified more than 5,500 articles and reports, we found only ten methodologically rigorous evaluations that met our inclusion criteria. Using meta-analytic techniques, we found an overall modest but statistically significant impact of POP on crime and disorder. We also report on our analysis of pre/post comparison studies. Although these studies are less methodologically rigorous, they are more numerous. The results of these studies indicate an overwhelmingly positive impact from POP.
Policy Implications
POP has been adopted widely across police agencies and has been identified as effective by many policing scholars. Our study supports the overall commitment of police to POP but suggests that we should not necessarily expect large crime and disorder control benefits from this approach. Moreover, funders and the police need to invest much greater effort and resources to identify the specific approaches and tactics that work best in combating specific types of crime problems. We conclude that the evidence base in this area is deficient given the strong investment in POP being made by the government and police agencies.     

PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING IN VIOLENT CRIME PLACES: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED EXPERIMENT*

Over the past decade, problem-oriented policing has become a central strategy for policing. In a number of studies, problem-oriented policing has been found to be effective in reducing crime and disorder. However, very little is known about the value of problem-oriented interventions in controlling violent street crime. The National Academy of Sciences' Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior suggests that sustained research on problem-oriented policing initiatives that modify places, routine activities, and situations that promote violence could contribute much to the understanding and control of violence. This study evaluates the effects of problem-oriented policing interventions on urban violent crime problems in Jersey City, New Jersey. Twenty-four high-activity, violent crime places were matched into 12 pairs and one member of each pair was allocated to treatment conditions in a randomized block field experiment. The results of the impact evaluation support the growing body of research that asserts focused police efforts can reduce crime and disorder at problem places without causing crime problems to displace to surrounding areas.     

Police training strategies and the role perceptions of police recruits

There has been much debate regarding basic police training and its effect on the attitudes of police recruits. Some critics argue that academy training creates negative attitudes in police recruits that favor arrest and crime attack orientations. The data presented in this article suggest that police recruits from a large urban police training program possess attitudes unfavorable toward crime attack or strict enforcement policing roles. The article examines a Los Angeles Police Department recruit training class, and the perceptions these recruits have toward selected policing roles. The study suggests police recruits do not perceive their role as simply being one of crime attack and strict enforcement.     

Does police patrol in large areas prevent crime? Revisiting the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment

Research Summary

The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (KCPPE) was seen by its developers to have produced “consistent evidence of the lack of effects of any consequence on crime,” a conclusion that was to have a strong impact on assumptions about police patrol for almost half a century. We identified the original official crime data from the KCPPE, and reanalyzed outcomes focusing on a comparison of the “proactive” versus “control” beats (“reactive beats” were criticized because of violations of treatment integrity); examining broad categories of crime (to increase statistical power); and using count regression models. Our findings are not unequivocal, but point to modest impacts of police patrol on crime in police beats.

Policy Implications

Our findings suggest that lessons drawn for half a century from the KCPPE need to be revisited. The KCPPE does not show that police patrol in large areas has no influence on crime, and this finding is consistent with several more recent studies. At the same time, we note that the effects of patrol in the KCPPE using our analysis strategy, and those found in other studies of preventive patrol in larger areas, are about half that found in hot spots policing studies. This suggests that police agencies ideally should invest in focused hot spots policing initiatives. However, absent an ability to manage such initiatives, or the crime analysis capabilities to identify crime hot spots routinely, simpler preventive patrol schemes to utilize uncommitted patrol time can be seen as potentially effective in preventing crime.     

What happens after the lone ranger rides away?

A community policing program consisting of citizen input and problem solving techniques often results in a decision to police places and translates into lower crime rates at the policed locations. Proponents of community policing programs believe that they build social capital, which invests neighborhood citizens in the crime reduction efforts and reduces the simultaneous occurrence of potential offenders and victims required for crimes to be committed.     

The irony of broken windows policing: A micro-place study of the relationship between disorder, focused police crackdowns and fear of crime

In their seminal “Broken Windows” article in Atlantic Monthly, J. Q. Wilson and G. L. Kelling (1982) suggested that police could more effectively fight crime by targeting minor offenses. They hypothesized that untended disorder increases fear of crime in a community, starting a chain of events that eventually leads to heightened levels of crime. By targeting disorder, police can thus circumvent this cycle of neighborhood decline (Skogan, 1990). This study aimed to improve knowledge of the relationship between disorder and fear of crime in the context of the broken windows hypothesis by using a micro-place level research design involving a police crackdown on disorder and minor crime at hot spots. The results of the current study suggest that perceived social disorder and observed levels of physical disorder have a strong impact on fear of crime. This confirms the relationship between disorder and fear hypothesized by the broken windows literature, and implies that police may be able to reduce fear of crime by reducing disorder. It was also found, however, that the police intervention itself significantly increased the probability of feeling unsafe. Accordingly, any fear reduction benefits gained by reducing disorder may be offset by the fact that the policing strategies employed simultaneously increase fear of crime. These findings suggest the importance of a careful focus on “how” broken windows policing programs are implemented. Such programs must be geared not only to reduce disorder, but also to prevent increases in citizen fear that accompany crackdowns and other intensive enforcement efforts associated with broken windows policing.     

警事治理:国家警事社会化的新定义

治理理论对国家与市民社会关系的认识思路是国家和市民社会相互"型塑"达致社会公共事务管理的"善治"。在国内外警务战略模式变革中成为潮流的"国家警事社会化"战略,是指在警察机关专业警务活动的同时,动员社会组织和社区公众共同参与防控违法犯罪、维护社会治安秩序活动的过程。显然,"国家警事社会化"寻求警察与社会组织及社区公众的互动合作基础上公共安全管理的改善。因为警察与国家的对应、社会组织及公众正是市民社会的具象,所以可以用治理理论作为分析"国家警事社会化"的框架,并将其定义为"警事治理"。     

The police and crime control: Effectiveness,community policing,and legal change

Conclusion Current research on the level of police resources, patrol and investigation strategies, community policing, and the likely impact of changes in the legal framework confirms the simple truth that the police capacity to influence crime has always been vastly overstated. Unfortunately, the preventive police forces that emerged in Anglo-American jurisdictions in the wake of Sir Robert Peel's new police were linked directly and for the first time to the crime rate. While there was little that they could actually do about the crime rate per se, questions of police effectiveness, resource allocation, and the adequacy of police powers have tended to be answered on the basis of such data ever since. The need now is to find different ways of measuring and evaluating police work. It may be that the major contribution of community policing is to highlight precisely this issue by shifting the focus of policing away from the crime rate and by forcing police departments, politicians, and academics to confront the real capabilities of the police and to devise methods of evaluating them and promoting them to an increasingly skeptical world.This is a revised version of a paper given at the third conference of the Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia, March 19–23, 1989.LL.M., University of London 1968; LL.B., University of London 1967.     

Can community policing increase residents’ informal social control? Testing the impact of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy

This study examines whether community policing can build informal social control. Specifically, this paper assesses the impact of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) in Chicago neighborhoods. The data for this research are drawn from both the Community Survey of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) and the CAPS Prototype Panel Survey. Bivariate and multivariate methods are used to analyze data gathered from 8782 residents nested within 343 neighborhood clusters. Initially, community policing was found to increase informal social control, but this effect was rendered non-significant after controlling for theoretically and empirically relevant variables. Several social (dis)organization variables, as well as satisfaction with policing services, yielded significant effects in a multilevel regression model. Further analysis found that the community policing effect on informal social control was mediated through satisfaction with the police. These findings indicate indirect support for the ability of community policing to build informal social control and suggest that general satisfaction with the police is important to neighborhood crime control strategies.     

Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a systematic review of the research evidence

Objectives

We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the published and unpublished empirical evidence on the impact of police-led interventions that use procedurally just dialogue focused on improving citizen perceptions of police legitimacy.

Methods

The systematic search included any public police intervention where there was a statement that the intervention involved police dialogue with citizens that either was aimed explicitly at improving police legitimacy, or used at least one core ingredient of procedural justice dialogue: police encouraging citizen participation, remaining neutral in their decision making, conveying trustworthy motives, or demonstrating dignity and respect throughout interactions. The studies included in our meta-analyses also had to include at least one direct outcome that measured legitimacy or procedural justice, or one outcome that is common in the legitimacy extant literature: citizen compliance, cooperation, confidence or satisfaction with police. We conducted separate meta-analyses, using random effects models, for each outcome.

Results

For every single one of our outcome measures, the effect of legitimacy policing was in a positive direction, and, for all but the legitimacy outcome, statistically significant. Notwithstanding the variability in the mode in which legitimacy policing is delivered (i.e., the study intervention) and the complexities around measurement of legitimacy outcomes, our review shows that the dialogue component of front-line police-led interventions is an important vehicle for promoting citizen satisfaction, confidence, compliance and cooperation with the police, and for enhancing perceptions of procedural justice.

Conclusions

In practical terms, our research shows the benefits of police using dialogue that adopts at least one of the principles of procedural justice as a component part of any type of police intervention, whether as part of routine police activity or as part of a defined police crime control program. Our review provides evidence that legitimacy policing is an important precursor for improving the capacity of policing to prevent and control crime.     

The Extent and Correlates of Public Support for Deterrence Reforms and Hot Spots Policing

As one approach to prison downsizing and criminal justice reform, scholars recommend altering the nature of policing by reallocating resources toward policing and increasing sentinel patrols and hot spots interventions. Public attitudes toward these reforms are unknown. In the current police crisis, shifting policies in ways disfavored by the public can impact police‐community relations, especially among those disproportionately affected. The current study uses survey data from a nationally representative sample of Americans to evaluate whether the public is receptive to the suggested reforms. Our results indicate that the majority of the general public believes policing is more cost‐effective than incarceration and supports a focus on sentinel patrols and crime hot spots, although there is less support for hot spots policing among blacks, Hispanics, and lower income individuals. The hot spots policing strategy most preferred is situational prevention, and the least supported is aggressive order‐maintenance policing.     

The effect of community policing on fear and crime reduction,police legitimacy and job satisfaction: an empirical review of the evidence

Since the 1970s, community policing strategies or the language thereof have been purportedly initiated by a number of police departments nationwide to address notable issues such as crime, neighborhood disorder, and fear of crime. This policing philosophy has received considerable attention and support among scholars, police administrators, and criminal justice practitioners. This article synthesizes the available empirical evidence on the effectiveness of community policing initiatives using a variety of outcome measures. An overview of community policing is first provided with particular attention paid to its essence and objectives. Prior studies that have analyzed community policing effectiveness are then reviewed and assessed in terms of their methodological rigor and scientific merit. A discussion and future research considerations are presented to conclude.     

Police Manipulations of Crime Reporting: Insiders’ Revelations

Social scientists have theorized about the corruption of crime reports (Bayley, 1983; Campbell, 1976). Yet, scant empirical research has examined the impact of modern policing methods on the accuracy of crime reporting. Our research uses an anonymous survey of 1,770 retired New York City police officers examining retirees’ experiences with crime report manipulations across their years of retirement. This includes retirees from the community policing as well as police performance management eras. We subject the data to various statistical tests including tabular analysis, graphical trends to visualize the data, MANOVA, and logistic regression to explain report manipulations. Results indicate that the misuse of the performance management system and pressures on officers from management are key explanations for manipulating crime reports. Individual explanatory variables such as gender, educational status, rank, race, and marital status had no effect. Our research supports Bayley’s and Campbell’s theories. We recommend greater transparency to remedy this.     

Determining the correlates of police victimization: An analysis of organizational level factors on injurious assaults

The current study attempted to expand the understanding victimization of police by examining the impact of a variety of factors related to community and aggressive policing styles on injurious assaults rates across 267 large municipal police departments. Regression analyses indicated that policing styles related to community meetings are associated with low levels of assault rates. Second, policing styles related to aggressive enforcement of drug laws has an aggravating effect on police victimization. Finally, departments that had high police-to-citizen population ratios also had lesser rates of injurious assaults.     

Reconstituting social order and social control: Police accountability in Canada

Despite the important role which the police play in the reproduction of social order, there is a lacuna in critical criminological literature on the policing of democratic societies. As a consequence, the mistaken impression is fostered that policing in Canada is not problematic. This paper challenges this view, documenting the extent of police malpractice and raising the question of the need for police accountability. Within this context the authors discuss three forms which police accountability has historically taken: judicial inquiry, community police monitoring groups, and consultative liaison panels. One problem which the authors note is the way in which all three models depend upon the police for information about the nature of crime and policing, making them susceptible to dominant discourses about policing. Thus they continue by discussing the left realist model as potentially a fourth model. This form of police accountability emerged in Britain during the 1980s and is characterized by the production of an alternative discourse on crime and police practices based on locally conducted and controlled victimization surveys. The extent to which this practice of police accountability might be relevant to the Canadian context remains yet to be explored. The authors note in closing, however, that this is an empirical and not a theoretical question, meaning that Canadian criminologists must become more practical and less academic in their discourses of social control. “A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard” (Revd. Martin Luther King, 1967)     

Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences,Engineering, and Medicine

This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.