scholarly journals How the interplay between organisational ‘culture’ and ‘climate’ shapes police officers’ perceptions of community policing

2021 ◽  
pp. 146135572110640
Author(s):  
Liam Fenn ◽  
Karen Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Organisational Culture ◽  
Police Work ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Discretionary Effort ◽  
Organisational Justice ◽  
Contextual Determinants ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Culture And Climate

This article draws on interview data and the concepts of organisational ‘culture’ and ‘climate’ to critically assess police officers’ perceptions of community policing in one English constabulary. In so doing, it considers the cultural, organisational and wider contextual determinants of officers’ alignment to this style of police work. With an emphasis on developing community partnerships and engaging in problem-solving, rather than enforcement of the criminal law, community policing has been seen a primary way of rendering officers more ‘responsive’ to the needs of citizens, improving police–community relations and driving down crime rates. An important reform movement in police organisations around the world, the success of community policing nonetheless depends on officers’ willingness and ability to deliver it. Accordingly, the generation of evidence about the ‘drivers’ of officers’ attitudes to inform strategies to promote the delivery of the approach is essential. Findings suggest that officers value community policing as an organisational strategy but that the approach maintains a low status and is undervalued compared with other specialisms within the organisation. This is born of an organisational culture that foregrounds law enforcement as the primary function of police work and an organisational climate that reinforces it. This has implications for community officers in terms of their perceptions of and attitudes towards the approach, self-esteem and sense of value and worth, perceptions of organisational justice, discretionary effort and role commitment. Recommendations for police managers are set out.

The Police in the Middle of the Conflict

1969 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-392
Author(s):  
David W. Craig
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Police Work ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
Sophisticated Equipment ◽  
Police Community Relations

The key to real support of the police is to be found in the development of enhanced competence among police officers. The truly competent policeman performs effectively despite the diffi culties which stem from recent constitutional interpretations issued by the courts. Competency is more important than philos ophy in police-community relations. The development and im plementation of competency in police work depends upon scien tific recruit-selection methods, broad support of higher eduration of police, freeing police from irrelevant duties, and the wize use of more sophisticated equipment.

scholarly journals Can Community Policing Improve Police-Community Relations in an Authoritarian Regime? Experimental Evidence from Uganda

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Blair ◽  
Guy Grossman ◽  
Anna Wilke
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Core Outcomes ◽  
Scale Field ◽  
Large Scale Field ◽  
Police Community Relations

Throughout the developing world, citizens distrust the police and hesitate to bring crimes to their attention -- a suboptimal equilibrium that makes it difficult for the police to effectively combat crime and violence. Community policing has been touted as one solution to this problem, but evidence on its efficacy in developing country contexts is sparse. We present results from a large-scale field experiment that randomly assigned a home-grown community policing intervention to police stations throughout rural Uganda. Drawing on administrative crime data and close to 4,000 interviews with citizens, police officers, and local authorities, we show that community policing had limited effects on core outcomes such as crime, insecurity, and perceptions of the police. We attribute these findings to a combination of turnover, treatment non-compliance, and resource constraints. Our study draws attention to the limits of community policing's potential to reduce crime and build trust in the developing world.

scholarly journals Are College-Educated Police Officers Different? A Study of Stops, Searches, and Arrests

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rosenfeld ◽  
Thaddeus L. Johnson ◽  
Richard Wright
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Primary Basis ◽  
Traditional Performance ◽  
College Educated

A study of more than 60,000 police traffic stops found that college-educated officers were more likely than other officers to stop drivers for less serious violations, perform consent searches, and make arrests on discretionary grounds. These results are consistent with those of prior research indicating that college-educated officers are more achievement-oriented and eager for advancement based on the traditional performance criteria of stops, searches, and arrests. The results raise questions regarding the recommendation of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing to improve police-community relations by hiring more college-educated police officers, especially in urban communities where concerns about over-policing are widespread. If community engagement were to become a primary basis for professional advancement, however, the current results suggest that college-educated officers may adapt to the new standards as diligently as they have to the traditional criteria for reward and promotion in U.S. police departments.

#BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Lynette Goddard
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Inner Cities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Police Shooting ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper examines two British plays that respond to cases in which the police have been implicated in the deaths of black men. Gillian Slovo’s The Riots (Tricycle Theatre, 2011) uses interviews from witnesses and politicians to dissect the events leading up to and during the Tottenham riots that followed in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan by police on 4 August 2011 and spread to other inner cities in England over the following five nights. I examine how the first half portrays the local community’s concerns and locates the breakout of riots within a longer history of tense police-community relations in Tottenham, whereas the second half focuses on the political rhetoric surrounding the spread of rioting throughout England, which means that Mark Duggan disappears from the narrative. Oladipo Agboluaje’s adaptation of Kester Aspden’s The Hounding of David Oluwale (Eclipse Theatre, 2009) effectively uses dramatic strategies to remember the life of 38-year old Nigerian David Oluwale whose body was retrieved from the River Aire in Leeds on 4 May 1969 after allegedly last seen being chased towards the river by two police officers two weeks earlier. I explore the effectiveness of both plays as memorializations of black lives and consider how they contribute to ongoing debates about the relationship between black men and the police in Britain. #BlackLivesMatter #BlackPlaysMatter

Police officers’ attitudes toward citizen advisory councils

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Nix ◽  
Scott E. Wolfe ◽  
Brandon Tregle
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Justice ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Advisory Council ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Line Level

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of sheriff deputies’ perceived legitimacy of their agency’s citizen advisory council (CAC). Design/methodology/approach The authors obtained survey data from 567 sheriff deputies in a southeastern state. The authors first asked whether respondents knew their agency had a CAC, and then asked those who responded affirmatively a series of questions about the legitimacy of the council. The authors then ran an ordinary least squares regression that included organizational justice, self-legitimacy and public scrutiny as independent variables predicting perceived legitimacy of the CAC. Findings Deputies who perceived greater organizational justice from command staff were significantly more likely to perceive the CAC as legitimate. Originality/value In response to strained police/community relations, reform advocates have urged the police to embrace a more democratic style of policing, including allowing for more citizen oversight of agencies. The study sheds light on how line-level officers perceive such oversight.

Body Cameras and Policing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryce Elling Peterson ◽  
Daniel S. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Citizen Complaints ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
The Impact

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are small devices that police officers can affix to their person—in a head-, shoulder-, or chest-mounted position—that can audio and video record their interactions with community members. BWCs have received strong support from the public and, in recent years, widespread buy-in from police leadership and officers because of their ability to improve accountability and transparency and enhance the collection of evidence. Implementation guidelines recommend that officers activate their BWCs during each officer–citizen interaction and inform the people they encounter that they are being recorded. Early research on this technology found that officers equipped with body cameras were significantly less likely to engage in force and receive citizen complaints. However, more recent studies with larger samples have had mixed findings about the impact of body cameras on use of force, citizen complaints, and other police activities and behaviors. Numerous legal and ethical considerations are associated with BWCs, including their implications for privacy concerns and public disclosure. However, police officials, policymakers, civil rights groups, and the public must continue to weigh these privacy concerns against the potential for BWCs to enhance police accountability and transparency. Future scholarship should focus on the degree to which BWCs can improve police–community relations and yield valuable evidence for both criminal cases and internal investigations.

Racial Profiling and Policing Black Communities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Kirven
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Black Males ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Contact Theory ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Community Relations

Strained police-community relations are not new to distressed and black communities. However, recent decades of modern-day policing have become a challenging, stressful job for officers in terms of safety and social order, job performance, and being recorded (often on cell phones) and quickly judged by the public. This article looks at racial profiling, implicit bias, and how the heavy hand of order-maintenance policing is used to the detriment of black communities, especially black males. The relevance of contact theory will be discussed in terms of its relevance for reaching mutual ground between black males and police officers. This article offers practical strategies for (a) social workers (community practitioners), (b) black males and citizens of color , and ( c) police officers themselves. For officers specifically, this potential awareness can lead to healthier, neutral experiences with black males leading to positive policing of black communities.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Luis Daniel Gascón ◽  
Aaron Roussell
Keyword(s):  
Community Policing ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Civil Disorder ◽  
Liberal Reform ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Community Meeting

This chapter opens with an exchange in a community meeting about the Rodney King riots, which raises questions about the nature of these meetings, the role of police in civil disorder, and the nature of police-community relations. The authors trace the origins of community policing as key liberal reform premised on the maintenance of legitimacy. They outline the “eyes and ears” function civilians are expected to play in meetings and explain how neighborhood disputes can limit the mobilizing potential of community partnerships. The authors also discuss the setting where this study takes place and outline their methods. This chapter ends with an outline of the rest of the book.

Exploring the Duration of Police–Citizen Encounters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengyan Dai ◽  
Xiaochen Hu
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Multivariate Models ◽  
Community Oriented Policing ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
Police Community Relations

Abstract Modern policing policy and practices emphasize the philosophy of community-oriented policing and the principles of procedural justice to improve police–community relations. Using this theoretical framework, this study examines the duration of police–citizen encounters involving domestic and non-domestic conflicts. A sample of 262 encounters from the systematic social observations in Cincinnati was analysed. The multivariate models show that officers spent less time interacting with the citizens in the lower social class and spent more time on the encounters involving assaults. Community policing specialists spent more time interacting with citizens. Considering citizens’ voice is also associated with longer duration. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Confirmation bias: A barrier to community policing

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 162-167
Author(s):  
Michael D. Schlosser ◽  
Jennifer K. Robbennolt ◽  
Daniel M. Blumberg ◽  
Konstantinos Papazoglou
Keyword(s):  
Community Policing ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Effective Community ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Share Information

This is a very challenging time for police–community relations, one characterized by a mutual lack of trust between police and citizens. But trust is an important tenet of effective community policing. Trust between police and communities can result in better problem solving, fewer legal violations by citizens, less frequent use of force by the police, less resistance by citizens during arrests, greater willingness to share information, less inclination to riot, and greater willingness of community members and police to cooperate. One key obstacle to fostering trust between the community and police is confirmation bias—the tendency for people to take in information and process it in a way that confirms their current preconceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. Recognizing and addressing confirmation bias, therefore, plays a critical role in fostering more productive engagement. If we are to improve police–community relations and co-create a way forward, learning to approach debates with open minds, an awareness of the lens of our own perspectives, commitment to considering the opposite, and the goal of listening with curiosity are essential.

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