Philosophically, not every officer agrees with the notion of community relations.

Theodore Roosevelt – “The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.”

In 1994, as a response to several high-profile instances of violent crime, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Among other things, the act established the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services [C.O.P.S.] under the Department of Justice. It was set up to fund and help thousands of police agencies around the country improve the way their police officers interacted with their constituents. At the time, it was believed that this change in approach would help address the root causes of crime and prevent crime before it happened.

The act and the change in approach, however, have been nothing short of a massive failure. The act only further contributed to mass incarcerations and prison overcrowding. Instances of custody deaths and high profile shootings remain commonplace. The Government Accountability Office even found that though there was a 26 percent decline in overall crime from 1993 to 2000, only 1.3 percent of the decline could be attributed to the work of C.O.P.S. The shift to a community-oriented policing strategy failed to prevent crime or improve community relations.

In the first part of this series, I discussed how a shift to modern policing structures gave up on the flexibility that the watch system provided. Then, in the second part, I argued that the inflexibility of the policing structures means that they cannot be responsive to the needs and concerns of the minority communities. Even today, to effectively engage with communities and their issues, the aforementioned community-oriented approach to policing is often cited as the solution despite its previous failures. In this final post in the series, I argue that community-oriented policing is the wrong solution and that our answer to prevention of crime might be to return to the origins of policing. In doing so, I pose a fundamental question: why do police officers continue to remain central to all crime prevention policies?

I. Community-Oriented Policing is Not a Worthwhile Engagement

The C.O.P.S website defines community policing as: “a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.”

This definition is vague and could mean everything from a minor change in tactic to a concept of philosophy. Previously, community-oriented policing has included police officers seeking to build relationships with their constituents by conducting foot beats, taking outdoor roll calls, distributing free ice cream and in some cases, moving into the neighborhood.  These strategies, in essence, attempt to strengthen relationships between the police officers and their constituents.

Community-oriented policing, in whatever form, continues to prioritize the role of police officers in the system. This obsession with police officers, I argue, means that community policing cannot result in any substantive change and is thus not a worthwhile engagement.

1. Community Policing does Not Prevent Crime.

While progressive police chiefs had begun experimenting with some form of community policing as far back as the 1960s, the theory gained mainstream prominence in the 1980s through the works of criminologists Robert Trojanowicz and Herman Goldstein.

As per Goldstein’s “problem-oriented policing” theory, modern policing cannot effectively address the issues that result in crime.  Police departments, therefore, needed to reform their approach: officers must not merely act as emergency responders to acts of crime, but must address issues that result in crime in the first place. He suggested that this may be done through building relationship, identifying problems that affect constituents, examining their causes, and crafting solutions. This “problem solving” notion remains central to community policing and C.O.P.S to this day. C.O.P.S even distributes several “how-to” guides to police officers, which instruct what course of action must be taken to solve problems ranging from dogfighting to big parties.

Fig: Goldstein’s “Problem-Oriented Policing”

While this approach does seem appealing at first, it rests on one fundamental presumption: police officers can solve problems that result in crime. There are limitations to the power police officers possess. They cannot address structural issues such as financial and social inequalities that result in crime in the first place. “Problems”, as a result, are generally then redefined to issues that police officers can address. For instance, a police department may set up additional cameras or street lamps to stop mugging on a particularly high risk street. This definition of the problem, however, misses the point. Muggings occur due to structural issues like lower wages, higher cost of living and social inequalities. As long as these issues persist, additional visibility on the street only means that muggings occur elsewhere. While this may lead to short term benefits such as higher public satisfaction, it is doubtful that this affects crime rates.

This argument finds support in statistics as well. A 2014 study that reviewed various strategies adopted by the C.O.P.S. program found that while community policing did have a positive impact on citizen satisfaction, perception of order, and police legitimacy, the effect on crime and fear of crime was negligible. Therefore, community policing does not prevent crime or increase public safety.

1. Community Policing Blocks Funds that can Solve Structural Issues.

Community policing not only fails to address structural issues, it also blocks funds that can help mitigate structural inequalities. Community policing involves hiring additional police officers, retraining the existing ones and establishing facilities necessary for reforms. Community policing, in short, is an expensive venture.

Fig: Police Spending in New York City

Since its founding, C.O.P.S. has distributed over $14 billion in grants to local police departments. Moreover, despite the lack of results, funding for C.O.P.S is hardly questioned. Even for the fiscal year of 2018, C.O.P.S. received a budget of $208 million. In some cases, community policing is left to a specialized group of officers, further inflating costs. For instance, New York City added over 10,000 community police officers in the 1990s. These new intakes were paid for by increased city property and income taxes. This saw an exponential rise in police spending before the initiative was temporarily abandoned in the early 2000s. Even today, the New York City Police Department receives more budget than the Department of Homeless Services, Department of Youth and Community Development, and Administration for Children’s Services put together. Spending on these programs, moreover, remains constant while police spending has constantly increased. Community policing, therefore, does not justify its high costs.

1. Community Policing Only Legitimizes an Institution that has Failed Minorities for Centuries.

Finally, community policing commits one fundamental mistake: it keeps police officers central to the vision for reform. Police officers have been reimagined as youth mentors, mental health professionals, and even social workers. However, regardless of the tag police officers are given, they continue to possess powers to arrest, detain and use force. As we increase the number of police officers under the garb of community policing, we only further flood communities with officers that possess the power to cause harm.

This particularly affects minorities. As I discussed in my previous post, minorities have for centuries been discriminated against, persecuted and punished by the police. Police officers have always represented dominant social structures of society and replicated their biases. This fundamental dynamic does not change simply because police officers are rebranded, or are made to go through a sensitization workshop.

For instance, in the last ten years, the Department of Justice recommended the implementation of community policing in various departments accused of misconduct. Yet, an investigative report by the Washington Post found that the use of force increased in half of those police departments. Similarly, they also found that police violence towards Black communities has not only persisted, it has become worse, due the emphasis on community policing. Minority communities are likely to interpret community policing programs to represent an occupation attempt that imposes surveillance upon their lives rather than protect it. A study has even suggested that minorities often avoid police and their ‘community’ endeavors.

Therefore, community policing only further endangers the safety of minority communities by exposing them to the harm that police officers cause them. They do not only endanger human lives, they take up funds that could alternatively be used to mitigate structural issues that result in crime in the first place.  We must look beyond police officers.

II. Imagining a World Without Police.

This takes us to the more fundamental question: why are police officers central to our crime prevention and public safety policies in the first place? Our first response to an increase in crime is always to increase the number of police officers in society. Alternatives to policing are almost never considered and police abolitionist movements are labeled as ‘crazy’ or ‘impractical’. It is now tough for people to imagine a society where police don’t exist, even though similar systems were in place at the very origins of law enforcement!

In 2019, the Department of Justice was allocated a budget of $14 billion for federal law enforcement agencies. Further budget allocations were also made at the state and municipal levels. For instance, the New York City Police Department alone had a budget of $5.58 billion. Police spending, moreover, has seen an almost constant year-on-year increase over the last few decades. Despite this, as discussed above, police officers fail to address actual structural issues that result in crime. These huge sums of money could alternatively be put to addressing structural issues.

A study conducted by three New York University professors, for instance, found that the presence of local community non-profits led to a decline in the violent crime rates. The presence of grassroots organizations, the study found, creates stable informal networks of association for at-risk members. These informal networks provide emotional, financial and social support to members in times of crisis. Over time, it was found that the support offered to these members had significant reduced criminal behavior and overall crime rates. Lack of financial, social and emotional support among at-risk youths has been found to be one of the structural reasons for increase in criminal behavior. By redirecting funds to community organizations, therefore, we can create long term impacts on public safety and crime prevention.

Another manner in which funds could be redirected is participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting refers to a method through which communities can brainstorm ideas, develop proposals, and then cast votes to decide which proposals would receive the required funding. This community-controlled decision making ensures that individuals who have a clear in-depth knowledge of the issues that the community faces, have a final say on how government money is spent. As the members of the community are more aware of the structural issues they face, they are more likely to direct funds towards proposals that mitigate them. This could include building good schools, hospitals, skill development programs, or recreational facilities.

The lack of policing not only helps redirect funds and prevent crime, it makes communities feel safer. As previously discussed, the divide between the minority groups and police officers is huge. The presence of police officers is often interpreted to be a form of surveillance and control, forcing minorities to alter behavior patterns. Minorities are then likely to have to make trade-offs between their liberties and potentially getting confronted, stopped or beaten by officers they fear. This means that fewer or no police officers can help minorities feel safer.

Moreover, while police officers are expected to act as emergency responders and protect the safety of the citizens, they have continuously failed to do so. To diffuse violent situations, police often use means of excessive force and brutality. This then cultivates a fear of the very people you call for protection. These roles can effectively be delegated to community members through adequate training and resources. Community members previously acted as first responders at the very origins of policing, and there is nothing to suggest that they cannot continue to do so today. For instance, initiatives such as the Violence Interrupters Project in Massachusetts have shown that community members can be trained to defuse violent situations through non-violent means. Having these well-trained and well-resourced rapid response teams can help tackle a wide range of emergencies while cultivating an environment of safety for the communities.

Initiatives are now being taken all across the country by various grassroots organizations to divest from policing and reinvest in long term programs. The No Cop Academy in Chicago and the Agenda to Build Black Futures program in New York have sought to divest funds from police projects and reinvest them into community programs. Similar initiatives have been successful in North Carolina, where the Durham beyond Policing coalition has been able to achieve self-policing communities through reinvestment.

These are only a few of the several initiatives that have been taken across the country. Despite encouraging results from these projects, similar movements have found almost no traction at the higher levels. Macro-policies that seek to replace the existing system would obviously require more research, resources and planning. However, regardless of the specifics, the criminal justice system must at least consider police abolition as an alternative if we wish to prevent crime and increase public safety in the future.

III. Conclusion

In conclusion, the growing complexity of law enforcement and consequent detachment from the public, together with a history of abuse, has led to a huge gulf between the police officers and their constituents. Despite this, our first level of response to fixing criminal behavior, particularly among minorities, is to rely on additional police forces or hope that minimal change in tactics would help mitigate the situation. In this three-part series, I argue that the solution is not to make minor tweaks to the existing system but perhaps return to its origins!