What Is Community Policing
Review of Literature
Community Policing and Police-Community Relations in the US context Community policing is a philosophy of policing which emphasizes partnerships between the police and the public (Walker & Katz, 2013). This approach considers cooperation between the police and the community as an important mechanism that gives the police better access to information provided by the community, which in turn can make the police more responsive to the needs of the community. Historically, community policing originated in 1970s and 1980s in the United States, when the police suffered a legitimacy problem. The police were criticized for being alienated from the important parts of the community, especially from racial and ethnic minority groups. …show more content…
This legitimacy problem was also called the police-community relations (PCR) problem. In response to the problem, community policing has served as a guiding principle for police reforms, which also highlighted that the police need to establish trust and cooperation with every constituent of the community they serve (Walker & Katz, 2013). As the police-community relations (PCR) traditionally refers to the relations between the police and the ethnic and racial minority community (Walker & Katz, 2013), a vast majority of research on the PCR and the citizens’ attitude towards the police focused on the minority groups’ perceptions of the police (Peck 2015; Wu, 2010). The following section discusses the public perceptions’ of the police, particularly immigrants’ perceptions of the police.
Immigrants’ and Ethnic Minority Groups’ Perceptions of the Police
An overwhelming amount of research on citizens’ perceptions of the police in the United States focuses on racial/ethnic minority groups’ perceptions of the police while some researchers presented immigrants’ perception per se (Wu, 2010).
The research on racial/ethnic minorities’ perceptions of the police is a different topic from immigrants’ perceptions of the police; however, both studies are relevant because racial/ethnic minority status is one of the important demographic characteristics of the immigrant groups that affect their perceptions of the police (Wu, 2010). Therefore, this section discusses both immigrants’ perceptions of the police and ethnic minority groups’ perceptions of the police. It is important to recognize however that there are many other factors that can affect citizens’ perception of the police such as age, gender, experience with crime, former contact with police, neighborhood conditions, degree of assimilation to the arrival country, perceptions of home country police, etc. (Wu, …show more content…
2010).
First, with regards to the racial and ethnic minority groups’ perception of the police, the literature, for the most part, suggests that racial/ethnic minority groups have more negative views of the police compared to whites. After reviewing 92 empirical studies conducted in the United States, Peck (2015) concluded that “individuals who identified themselves as black, non-white, or minority were more likely to hold negative perceptions and attitudes toward the police compared to whites.” A number of studies (e.g., Weitzer, Tuch & Skogan, 2008) indicated that African Americans have less favorable views of the police compared to whites. Also, Hispanics are found to have more favorable views than African Americans, but less favorable than whites. On the other hand, some studies on immigrant population such as Vietnamese, Chinese, and Latinos (e.g., Davis & Hendricks, 2007) found that those immigrants had more positive views of the police than native-born population. Perceptions of home country police were mentioned as explanations for more positive ratings among respondents (Wu, 2010).
Second, as for the immigrants’ perceptions of the police, the literature suggests that empirical studies on the immigrants’ perceptions conducted in the United States yielded mix findings. Some researchers found that foreign-born population had more negative views of the police than native-born population (Wu, 2010). A New York City study (Davis & Mateu-Gelabert, 2000) found that ethnic communities with a large number of newly-arrived immigrants had lower evaluations of the police than ethnic communities with a large number of native-born residents. Similarly, in a study on Chinese immigrants in three areas of the East Coast (Wu, Sun & Smith, 2011), foreign-born respondents had lower ratings of the effectiveness on the police than native-born respondents. Other researchers, on the other hand, found that immigrants had a more favorable view of the police such as higher level of confidence in police integrity and fairness compared to native-born population (Davis & Hendricks, 2007). In summary, the literature suggests that although there are some studies which found foreign-born immigrants had more positive views of the police than native-born population, many immigrant communities with racial and ethnic minority status are still likely to have more negative views of the police than the majority population of whites. Also, research suggests that immigrant groups’ perceptions of the police can be quite different by places and immigrant groups. Therefore, research on the immigrants’ perception of the police targeting various immigrant populations in different places is needed in South Korea.
Common Challenges and Police Strategies to Build Strong Relations While academic literature mainly focused on the immigrant or minority groups’ attitudes towards the police, the literature for practitioners documented the police strategies and practices to build strong relations with immigrant communities. A project supported by the United States Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (Lysakowski, Pearsall III & Pope, 2009) documented common challenges when providing public safety in immigrant communities by using a focus group study of police and community leaders (Table 1 in Appendix 2). It suggests various possible approaches: creating a specialized unit for immigrant communities, giving officers clear directions about how they are expected to interact with immigrants and creating incentives, training officers about cultural differences, and establishing strong connections with immigrant community leaders (Lysakowski, Pearsall III & Pope, 2009).
Another publication (Saint-Fort, Yasso & Shah, 2012) from the same agency identified eight key principles underlying best practices when engaging police in immigrant communities (Table 2 in Appendix 2) Saint-Fort et al. (2012) also documented the profiles of “promising practices” from 10 different law enforcement agencies in the United States. Each profile describes the characteristics of the community, needs of the community, how the police department reaches out to the immigrant community, how the police collaborate with other partners and solve the community’s concerns, how to monitor the successes and failures, and how to sustain successful programs. Then, they offered suggestions for the departments who hope to build positive police-immigrant community relations (Table 3 in Appendix 2). Methodology
Project Design
This study employed a case study approach to achieve its purpose: describing how a police department in the United States has responded to the challenges of increasing immigrant population and explaining how the police programs to improve police-community relations work in a diverse community environment. A case study approach has its advantage when “a ‘how’ or ‘why’ question is being asked about a contemporary set of events over which the investigator has little or no control” (Yin, 1994, p. 9). Despite the weakness of limited capacity of generalization, a case study will provide “a rich picture with many kinds of insights coming from different angles, from different kinds of information” (Thomas, 2011, p. 21).
Site Selection
The Aurora Police Department, a municipal police organization, was chosen as the subject for the case study based on the considerations below. First, the size of the department (665 officers) and the number of residents (351,000) is comparable to the average size of a police station (1st grade) and the average population served in South Korea (470 officers serving 310,000 residents). Second, the community it serves is ethnically diverse and has a large foreign-born population of 20.4% out of 332,820 residents (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Third, the department has long been committed to the community oriented policing and has various community policing programs such as Police Area Representative Program (PAR) since 1982 (Williams & Sloan, 1990). Fourth, the new chief of the department is actively instituting initiatives for enhancing community relations and connect with the minority population (Illescas, 2015; Aurora Police Department, 2015). Lastly, the department is within the reach of the researcher enabling the researcher to make field visits and interviews with the officers.
Data Collection
To provide a rich description and ensure accuracy by triangulation, this study used multiple data sources with various data collection methods including: document review, interviews, and field observation. The data collection process can divided into three phases, and each phase was employed back and forth as the process went on.
The first phase of data collection was reviewing the documents mainly from the Aurora Police Department, the City of Aurora Government, the Colorado Trust, and local newspapers. Most of the documents were open to the public and obtained from the website of each entity.
In the second phase, interviews were conducted from September 28 to October 16 using a snowball sampling technique.
A total number of eight participants: six sworn police officers from the Aurora Police Department, one city official, and one nonprofit personnel. The officers’ rank (positions in parenthesis) were as follows: five officers (three current Police Area Representatives, or PAR officers, one former Police Area Representative and investigation/electronic support officer, one recruiter and background investigator), and one lieutenant (Executive Officer at the Office of the Chief of Police). One city official works for the office of International and Immigrant Affairs of the City of Aurora. One nonprofit person works as a deputy director at the Asian Pacific Development Center of Colorado (APDC). Interviews were semi-structured (See Appendix 1 for interview protocol) and recorded and transcribed in the form of detailed
notes.
The last phase, field observation, was performed in two ways. The researcher participated in immigrant outreach event of a neighborhood watch meeting for a Spanish speaking immigrant group at Crawford Elementary School at 8:30 on October 21, 2015.The researcher also participated in Citizens’ Police Academy for 11 weeks starting from September 14, 2015. Each academy class in every week has two hour session composed of presentations by many units of the police department.
Data Analysis
In the analysis, the constant comparative method (Thomas, 2011, p171) was used to elicit common themes. Three sources of data were repeatedly compared to each other, as well as to relevant practices in other US jurisdictions described in the literature. Additionally, the data were compared to the similar practices of the Korean police to provide useful observations for the client.
Community Policing and Police-Community Relations in the US context Community policing is a philosophy of policing which emphasizes partnerships between the police and the public (Walker & Katz, 2013). This approach considers cooperation between the police and the community as an important mechanism that gives the police better access to information provided by the community, which in turn can make the police more responsive to the needs of the community. Historically, community policing originated in 1970s and 1980s in the United States, when the police suffered a legitimacy problem. The police were criticized for being alienated from the important parts of the community, especially from racial and ethnic minority groups. …show more content…
This legitimacy problem was also called the police-community relations (PCR) problem. In response to the problem, community policing has served as a guiding principle for police reforms, which also highlighted that the police need to establish trust and cooperation with every constituent of the community they serve (Walker & Katz, 2013). As the police-community relations (PCR) traditionally refers to the relations between the police and the ethnic and racial minority community (Walker & Katz, 2013), a vast majority of research on the PCR and the citizens’ attitude towards the police focused on the minority groups’ perceptions of the police (Peck 2015; Wu, 2010). The following section discusses the public perceptions’ of the police, particularly immigrants’ perceptions of the police.
Immigrants’ and Ethnic Minority Groups’ Perceptions of the Police
An overwhelming amount of research on citizens’ perceptions of the police in the United States focuses on racial/ethnic minority groups’ perceptions of the police while some researchers presented immigrants’ perception per se (Wu, 2010).
The research on racial/ethnic minorities’ perceptions of the police is a different topic from immigrants’ perceptions of the police; however, both studies are relevant because racial/ethnic minority status is one of the important demographic characteristics of the immigrant groups that affect their perceptions of the police (Wu, 2010). Therefore, this section discusses both immigrants’ perceptions of the police and ethnic minority groups’ perceptions of the police. It is important to recognize however that there are many other factors that can affect citizens’ perception of the police such as age, gender, experience with crime, former contact with police, neighborhood conditions, degree of assimilation to the arrival country, perceptions of home country police, etc. (Wu, …show more content…
2010).
First, with regards to the racial and ethnic minority groups’ perception of the police, the literature, for the most part, suggests that racial/ethnic minority groups have more negative views of the police compared to whites. After reviewing 92 empirical studies conducted in the United States, Peck (2015) concluded that “individuals who identified themselves as black, non-white, or minority were more likely to hold negative perceptions and attitudes toward the police compared to whites.” A number of studies (e.g., Weitzer, Tuch & Skogan, 2008) indicated that African Americans have less favorable views of the police compared to whites. Also, Hispanics are found to have more favorable views than African Americans, but less favorable than whites. On the other hand, some studies on immigrant population such as Vietnamese, Chinese, and Latinos (e.g., Davis & Hendricks, 2007) found that those immigrants had more positive views of the police than native-born population. Perceptions of home country police were mentioned as explanations for more positive ratings among respondents (Wu, 2010).
Second, as for the immigrants’ perceptions of the police, the literature suggests that empirical studies on the immigrants’ perceptions conducted in the United States yielded mix findings. Some researchers found that foreign-born population had more negative views of the police than native-born population (Wu, 2010). A New York City study (Davis & Mateu-Gelabert, 2000) found that ethnic communities with a large number of newly-arrived immigrants had lower evaluations of the police than ethnic communities with a large number of native-born residents. Similarly, in a study on Chinese immigrants in three areas of the East Coast (Wu, Sun & Smith, 2011), foreign-born respondents had lower ratings of the effectiveness on the police than native-born respondents. Other researchers, on the other hand, found that immigrants had a more favorable view of the police such as higher level of confidence in police integrity and fairness compared to native-born population (Davis & Hendricks, 2007). In summary, the literature suggests that although there are some studies which found foreign-born immigrants had more positive views of the police than native-born population, many immigrant communities with racial and ethnic minority status are still likely to have more negative views of the police than the majority population of whites. Also, research suggests that immigrant groups’ perceptions of the police can be quite different by places and immigrant groups. Therefore, research on the immigrants’ perception of the police targeting various immigrant populations in different places is needed in South Korea.
Common Challenges and Police Strategies to Build Strong Relations While academic literature mainly focused on the immigrant or minority groups’ attitudes towards the police, the literature for practitioners documented the police strategies and practices to build strong relations with immigrant communities. A project supported by the United States Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (Lysakowski, Pearsall III & Pope, 2009) documented common challenges when providing public safety in immigrant communities by using a focus group study of police and community leaders (Table 1 in Appendix 2). It suggests various possible approaches: creating a specialized unit for immigrant communities, giving officers clear directions about how they are expected to interact with immigrants and creating incentives, training officers about cultural differences, and establishing strong connections with immigrant community leaders (Lysakowski, Pearsall III & Pope, 2009).
Another publication (Saint-Fort, Yasso & Shah, 2012) from the same agency identified eight key principles underlying best practices when engaging police in immigrant communities (Table 2 in Appendix 2) Saint-Fort et al. (2012) also documented the profiles of “promising practices” from 10 different law enforcement agencies in the United States. Each profile describes the characteristics of the community, needs of the community, how the police department reaches out to the immigrant community, how the police collaborate with other partners and solve the community’s concerns, how to monitor the successes and failures, and how to sustain successful programs. Then, they offered suggestions for the departments who hope to build positive police-immigrant community relations (Table 3 in Appendix 2). Methodology
Project Design
This study employed a case study approach to achieve its purpose: describing how a police department in the United States has responded to the challenges of increasing immigrant population and explaining how the police programs to improve police-community relations work in a diverse community environment. A case study approach has its advantage when “a ‘how’ or ‘why’ question is being asked about a contemporary set of events over which the investigator has little or no control” (Yin, 1994, p. 9). Despite the weakness of limited capacity of generalization, a case study will provide “a rich picture with many kinds of insights coming from different angles, from different kinds of information” (Thomas, 2011, p. 21).
Site Selection
The Aurora Police Department, a municipal police organization, was chosen as the subject for the case study based on the considerations below. First, the size of the department (665 officers) and the number of residents (351,000) is comparable to the average size of a police station (1st grade) and the average population served in South Korea (470 officers serving 310,000 residents). Second, the community it serves is ethnically diverse and has a large foreign-born population of 20.4% out of 332,820 residents (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Third, the department has long been committed to the community oriented policing and has various community policing programs such as Police Area Representative Program (PAR) since 1982 (Williams & Sloan, 1990). Fourth, the new chief of the department is actively instituting initiatives for enhancing community relations and connect with the minority population (Illescas, 2015; Aurora Police Department, 2015). Lastly, the department is within the reach of the researcher enabling the researcher to make field visits and interviews with the officers.
Data Collection
To provide a rich description and ensure accuracy by triangulation, this study used multiple data sources with various data collection methods including: document review, interviews, and field observation. The data collection process can divided into three phases, and each phase was employed back and forth as the process went on.
The first phase of data collection was reviewing the documents mainly from the Aurora Police Department, the City of Aurora Government, the Colorado Trust, and local newspapers. Most of the documents were open to the public and obtained from the website of each entity.
In the second phase, interviews were conducted from September 28 to October 16 using a snowball sampling technique.
A total number of eight participants: six sworn police officers from the Aurora Police Department, one city official, and one nonprofit personnel. The officers’ rank (positions in parenthesis) were as follows: five officers (three current Police Area Representatives, or PAR officers, one former Police Area Representative and investigation/electronic support officer, one recruiter and background investigator), and one lieutenant (Executive Officer at the Office of the Chief of Police). One city official works for the office of International and Immigrant Affairs of the City of Aurora. One nonprofit person works as a deputy director at the Asian Pacific Development Center of Colorado (APDC). Interviews were semi-structured (See Appendix 1 for interview protocol) and recorded and transcribed in the form of detailed
notes.
The last phase, field observation, was performed in two ways. The researcher participated in immigrant outreach event of a neighborhood watch meeting for a Spanish speaking immigrant group at Crawford Elementary School at 8:30 on October 21, 2015.The researcher also participated in Citizens’ Police Academy for 11 weeks starting from September 14, 2015. Each academy class in every week has two hour session composed of presentations by many units of the police department.
Data Analysis
In the analysis, the constant comparative method (Thomas, 2011, p171) was used to elicit common themes. Three sources of data were repeatedly compared to each other, as well as to relevant practices in other US jurisdictions described in the literature. Additionally, the data were compared to the similar practices of the Korean police to provide useful observations for the client.