Community Policing: Research, Evaluation, and Policy Analysis

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Table of Contents

Literature Review
Research Methodology
Research Model
Questionnaire Design
Sampling Methods
References

Community policing is one of the latest intervention strategies aimed at stemming out the cases of crime in various countries. In some states such as the US, the federal government funds the program since it is aimed at dealing with insecurity nationally. According to the proponents of the intervention strategy, each person had a role to play as far as eliminating crime in society is concerned.

In this case, citizens have to inform the law enforcers whenever they suspect any criminal activity within the neighborhood. In other words, community policing can be defined as an arrangement whereby communities promise to report any criminal acts to the police even if they are not affected directly. The strategy was introduced in the 1990s after several cases were reported to have happened in streets without the knowledge of the police (Bennett, & Wright, 1984).

The Detroit police department in 1994 first applied the policy. The Detroit police employed the services of a civilian to oversee the implementation of the program. However, due to resistance to change and other bureaucratic problems associated with the police, the officer in charge of implementation could not go on and was forced by circumstances to resign in 1997 (Glensor, & Peak, 1998). Fortunately, other reformers undertook the responsibility to oversee the implementation of the policy until now.

A number of things are to be put in place before the establishment and implementation of the program. One of the requirements is that there must be mutual respect between the law enforcers (the police) and the community in general. Secondly, the parties should be willing to establish the best policy to approach the problem and lastly, the police officers should be willing to devote their time and energy towards solving insecurity such as robbery, meaning that they need to respond immediately to calls from the public (Peak, & Glensor, 1999).

The main aim of this article is to classify the objectives and achievements of community policing. For instance, the main problem lies in the training of the employees because the process is complex.

Literature Review

A literature review will involve evaluating the views of various scholars as regards community policy, as one of the intervention strategies. The overriding principle behind community policing is that the community needs to be incorporated into issues affecting society such as crime. Upon this realization, the police must come to the reality that problems should be viewed from a community perspective in case they are to be solved amicably.

Therefore, the main aim of officers working with the community is to increase partnerships between various stakeholders in the security sector. In the contemporary world, it is noted that community policing is one of the effective ways of solving crime issues because it aims at solving the problems that would cause crime.

In the traditional society, policymakers believed that things had to be done in the same as they used to be done before. The scholars supporting community policing argue that other forms of crime intervention are not effective, given that they do not organize and administer justice (Trojanowicz, & Bucqueroux, 1998). In fact, other methods of dealing with crime would only consume many resources but fewer results are witnessed.

Many scholars believe that implementing community policing would demand for the understanding of three major issues. One of the major issues is related to the conceptualization of community policing and perceptions among the law enforcement agencies. Again, it effective implementation of community policing strategies would depend on the existing policies in the law enforcement agencies. In other words, it means how well can polices be implemented by law enforcement agencies.

This would call for additional training to sharpen the wits of the officers. Finally, extensive and all-inclusive training programs would be included in the training of officers to enhance community policing. In fact, care should be taken to ensure that funds given to various police departments are utilized in implementing community policing.

In 1998, the Wayne University conducted a study to establish the effectiveness of community policing in the state. Detroit police was used as part of the sampled population, whereby 1231 residents were sampled. The citizens were asked to give the number of times that police officers patrol their region. Furthermore, the research wanted to capture the level of satisfaction among the public as regards to the work of the law enforcers in the state.

Finally, the citizens were to rate the existing relationship between the public and the law enforcers. The results showed that 64% of citizens saw the police officers patrolling the area while 74% of citizens claimed that they were satisfied with the role police officers played in society. However, a small percentage that is, only 46% claimed that the relationship between the law enforcers and the community was good. Regarding traditional and modern techniques of crime intervention, citizens preferred community policing to other forms of crime intervention strategies (Greenberg, & Rohe, 1985).

In Chicago, the same results were replicated through research meaning that community policing is an effective tool of crime intervention if applied diligently. Unlike Detroit, the policy makers in Chicago marketed community policing because they believe that it is an effective method of crime prevention and intervention (Rosenbaum, 1987).

The study conducted in Chicago concentrated more on the awareness levels of citizens. The research indicated that mass awareness had increased in the recent past after various organizations joined hands to sensitize the community about the importance of community policing as regards to crime prevention. The results also showed that many people conducted the police whenever they witnessed a crime or suspected an individual. In Chicago, computers and maps are essential tools that are used by community policing staff to thwart the efforts of criminals. For instance, the police use the gadgets to access information pertaining to crime (Eig, 1996).

The apparatus are also used in comparing crime trends in the city. This means that the city uses technology and community policing strategies to come up with a powerful intervention policy that would give criminals a hard time in society. Plans are underway to develop a website that would enable the Chicago police to communicate freely with members of the public from the state.

Research Methodology

This chapter focuses on various aspects of research development. It includes methods of data collection, analysis and presentation. Every research project applies a certain research method to achieve its objectives, depending on its goals. The methods used to conduct research in this project compared closely with the methods proposed in the project proposal. In research, design deals primarily with aims, uses, purposes, intentions and plans within the practical constraints of time, location, money, and availability of staff (Creswell, 2003).

In this study, respondents were briefed in advance. The officers of the local police station would be given relevant notice by the researcher. The study population would also be amicably informed in order to get prepared for the study. Briefing was important because it could enhance reliability of the study. It is also ethical to inform people before researching on them.

The findings would also be made public to the researched, as one way of ensuring morality in the study. Furthermore, the researcher would observe researcher-researcher ethics, by keeping away from criticism. The response rate is expected to be high because the researcher would insist that the studywould be purely academic. This would encouraged many employees at police station and community members to fill in their questionnairs.

Research Model

This research would utilize quantitative research methods in conducting the study and collecting data.. Quantitative research would be used because it aims at summarizing data mathematically. In this regard, the research would take the form of a survey, whereby the researcher identifies some individuals and posts questionnaires to them. The sampled population would be selected randomly in order to eliminate biases (Crotty, 2003). The researcher would make sure that follow-ups are made, by conducting respondents on phone.

Questionnaire Design

There would be two key methods used to gather information in this report. The first one woiuld be through a questionaire, which would be administered online to the staff at the local police station and selected members of society. It questionnaire would be attached to this document. The questionaire will seek to capture various attutudes of staff at the local police station and selected members of society, regarding their performance perceptions towards community policing.

The second source of information to be used for research would be literature on various aspects of community policing. The focus of the literature review would be to establish information on the application of community policing techniques and also to determine the current state of research in the use of community policing technique as one way of dealing with crime in society. The questionnaire would have four Parts. The first part will seek to capture the biodata information of respondents.

The second part would deal with the demography and gender of the respondents. This would ascertain the prevalence of views in varoius categories in order to ensure that if any differences come about, then they would be captured in their demographic space (Leedy, & Ormrod, 2005). The third part would deal with academic credentials and work experience.

The motivation for this section would come from the understanding that different sections of the population respond differently to crime intervention techniques, based on age and race. The fourth part delved into the specific issues relating to community policing, starting from the understanding of the concept to the possible effects it would have on citizens.

The questionaire would also employ a mix of open ended and closed ended questions to capture different aspects of issues studied. Open ended questions would be used because they give respondents more time to figure out their opinions, which would make them volunteer more information related to felings, outlooks and comprehension of the subject.

This would allow a researcher to understand the position of respondents as regards to feelings. Open ended questions minimize some errors that would have been created in the course of research. Respondents rarely forget answers if given an opportunity to respond freely. Furthermore, respondents cannot ignore some questions because they must go through all of them. Open ended questions generate data that can be used in data analysis by other researchers.

In other words, they allow secondary data analysis. On the other hand, closed-ended questions are analyzed easily. That is why they will be used in this study. Each response can be coded for statistical interpretation. Nonetheless, closed-ended questions are compatible with computer analysis package.

The technique is more specific meaning that its answers are consistent in all conditions. This aspect is impossible with open-ended questions because each respondent is allowed to use his or her own words. Finally, closed-ended questions take less time to administer, unlike open-ended questions, which are detailed hence time consuming.

The questionnaire would be sent to respondents through the internet that is, the researcher would mail the questions to respective respondents. The researcher arrived at this decision after considering time and reseources. The method is costless and less time consuming. Furthmore, the method allows respondents to reflect on the questions and answer them accurately. Employing research assistants would be problematic because of the sensitivity of the study.

Many people would be reluctant to give their views freely. The method is ineffective because answers are not independent. The respondent might not have filled the questions personally. Moreover, the method is affected by the respondent’s level of literacy. One big disadvantage of the technique is that there is no interaction between the researcher and the researched.

This means that respondent’s reactions are not captured. Reactions are important because they give more information regarding the feelings of respondents. Generally, the technique is applicable where the researcher is interested in numbers, not deep feelings of the respondents. In this study, the researcher would be interested in identifying the number of police officers and community members who feel community policing is the suitable method of curbing crime in society.

The literature collected would provide information regarding various theories of crime intervention. The literature would avail a number of theories dealing with the application of community policing in crime intervention in the context of law enforcement. The local police station fits well within this parameter.

Finally, the literature would provide information on the state of research on the field. Various researchers have conducted studies on various elements of crime intervention its effect on society (Russell, & Ryan, 2009). This would give the study a sound academic backing and a strong basis for drawing comparisons and conclusions.

The use of the questionaire would make it possible to capture issues that are unique to the local police officers and the selected community members. This is because there would be no accessible literature with required degree of relevence to the subject matter. The targeted staff is expected to respond to the questionaire online.

The availability of staff influenced the choice of this method because the local police station operates throughout and therefore it is not possible at any one time to find all officers in one place. An online questionaire would reduce the costs of data collection, assure confidentiality, and would be available thoughout for the staff for a fixed period (Anderson, 2004). After collection, the data would go through analysis, culminating into the observations and conslusions to be discussed in chapter three and four, respectively.

Sampling Methods

The most applicable sampling method for this exercise would be random sampling. Considering that the targeted population would consist of staff in the community-policing program, there would be no much risk of generating biased data. If the survey needed to cover the entire staff of the state police, systematic sampling, coupled with stratified sampling would be ideal to ensure cross-departmental representation (Hakim, 2000).

However, this survey would target a few officers from the local police station, and selected community policing staff hence random sampling proved sufficient to collect required data.

References

Anderson, T (2004). Research Methods in Human Resource Management. London: Chattered institute of Personell Management Publishing.

Bennett, T., & Wright, R. (1984). Burglars on Burglary: Prevention and the Offender. Aldershot, UK: Gower.

Creswell, J. (2003). Research design: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Crotty, M. (2003). The Foundations of Social Research: meaning and perspective in the research process. London: Sage.

Eig, J. (1996). Eyes on the Street: Community Policing in Chicago. American Prospect, 2.29.

Glensor, R., & Peak, K. (1998). Lasting Impact: Maintaining Neighborhood Order. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 67.1.

Greenberg, W., & Rohe, M. (1985). Informal Citizen Action and Crime Prevention at the Neighborhood Level. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Hakim, C. (2000). Research Design: Sucessful Designs for Social and Economic Research. New York: Routledge.

Leedy, P., & Ormrod, J. (2005). Practical Research: Planning and Design. Prentice Hall: Pearson.

Peak, K., & Glensor, R. (1999). Community Policing & Problem Solving: Strategies and Practices (2nd ed). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Rosenbaum, D. (1987). The Theory and Research Behind Neighborhood Watch: Is It a Sound Fear and Crime Reduction Strategy. Crime and Delinquency, 33.1, 103–134.

Russell, B., & Ryan, G. (2009). Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches. London: Sage.

Trojanowicz, R., & Bucqueroux, B. (1998). Community Policing: How to Get Started (2nd ed). Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing.

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