Gary Cordner Community Policing Summary

The article, Community Policing: Elements and Effects by Gary W. Cordner presents an understanding into the implementation and philosophy behind community-police partnerships; together with the article, Problem-Oriented Policing by John D. Reitzel, Nicole Leeper Piquero, & Alex R. Piquero, in which describes the beginning of a movement towards a different style of policing that calls for officers to become more proactive in the prevention of crime; the two articles emphasize how law enforcement organizations of today are becoming more focused, proactive, and community sensitive in an effort to achieve the ultimate goal of the prevention of crime before it occurs.

Community policing is an integral part of improving the quality of life in our communities. Core components of community policing include partnering with the community; problem solving; and transforming police agencies to support and empower front-line officers, decentralize command and encourage innovative problem solving. (csueastbay.edu) Cordner has identified four major dimensions for viewing community policing, they are: the philosophical dimension, the strategic dimension, the tactical dimension, and the organizational dimension.

The

first dimension described by Cordner is the philosophical dimension which includes the central ideas and beliefs underlying community policing. (Dunham and Alpert p.482) The most important elements of this dimension are citizen input, which is based on the idea that police departments should seek and carefully consider citizen input when making policies and decisions that affect the community; broad police function, which refers to a broad view of the police function instead of focusing only on crime fighting and law enforcement; and personal service, which is the idea of tailored policing based on local norms and values as well as individual needs.

The second dimension described by Cordner is the strategic dimension which includes the key operational concepts that translate philosophy into action. (Dunham and Alpert p.484) Elements of this dimension include re-oriented operations, which encourages the police to rely less on the patrol car and more on face to-face interactions with citizens; geographic focus, which recommends that the police emphasize geographic location instead of time of day for police assignment and responsibility for example, patrol officers should be assigned to the same areas for extended periods of time to increase their familiarity with the community; and prevention emphasis, which focuses on a more proactive and preventive orientation rather than a reactive one.

The third dimension described by Cordner is the tactical dimension which translates ideas, philosophies, and strategies into concrete programs, practices and beliefs. (Dunham and Alpert p.488) Three elements of this dimension are positive interaction which encourages officers to interact in a positive way with citizens as much as possible; partnerships, which emphasize that the police seek cooperation from citizens in identifying community problems and solicits citizen input and participation; and problem solving, which calls police attention to solving underlying problems and conditions.

The final dimension described by Cordner is the organizational dimension which is where, in order to facilitate community policing, police departments often consider a variety of changes in organization, administration, management and supervision.

(Dunham and Alpert p.491) Again, there are three important elements, starting with structure, which is the restructuring of police agencies in order to facilitate and support implementation of the philosophies and tactical elements described above; management which, is associated with styles of leadership, management, and supervision and gives more emphasis to organizational culture and values; and information, which emphasizes the need for information systems that aid in identifying and analyzing community-level

problems.

Although the effectiveness of community policing practices has not been clearly documented, it is widely believed that it can have a positive effect on community attitudes such as fear of crime and neighborhood satisfaction (Cordner, 1999). As concerns were raised regarding police effectiveness, police-community relations, police discretion, and police management and organization, problem-oriented policing originated as a non-traditional approach to law enforcement, a style that calls for officers to become more proactive in the prevention of crime by identifying the underlying conditions that result in repeated response calls.

Incorporated into community policing in the 1990’s, an effective problem-solving strategy known by the acronym SARA was introduced to meet the goal of utilizing a problem-solving approach that solves the underlying problems or conditions. The SARA process stands for a four- stage procedure; scanning, analysis, response, and assessment.