Is It Time To Double Down On Community Oriented Policing?

By Michele Gorman | December 15, 2019, 8:02 PM EST

As part of the community policing programs in Racine, Wisconsin, officer Jerome King regularly interacts with students like Miracle Holmes at Washington Park High School. (Photo: Emily Neubauer)


As tensions simmered in South Bend, Indiana, this summer after a white police officer fatally shot an African American man, a former police chief for the city lamented what he called its return to the "the old ways of policing."


In an August op-ed that appeared in a local newspaper, Larry Bennett, who was chief in South Bend from 1999 to 2002, said a previous focus on "community oriented policing" brought officers and residents together "to work on all of the issues which affected different neighborhoods."

That approach included monthly meetings between police brass and community leaders, according to Bennett, who added that "the department committed the necessary personnel and focused on each neighborhood by making sure the same officers operated in the same area daily."

"The citizenry knew their particular officers and the officers knew them," Bennett wrote in the South Bend Tribune.

These days, the department doesn't have the manpower to make that philosophy work, Bennett said.

"I truly believe that if this program were still in place, the relationship between the Police Department and the South Bend community would be much more positive," said Bennett, who could not be reached for additional comment.

Departments across the country have enacted COP initiatives to help residents feel safe and build trust. Many of the programs have put a dent in local crime statistics, and there is evidence to suggest COP tactics can help alleviate the tensions that might dissuade residents from contacting police about a potential crime or cooperating with investigations.

It's an approach to policing that's decades old but took on significance after the August 2014 shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. A task force that then-President Barack Obama convened in the wake of the shooting suggested departments work toward building trust with the communities they serve to reach more effective and impartial policing.

However, financial constraints can dissuade departments from embracing community policing, while other departments haven't fully welcomed the concept because they don't believe in it or would rather use their resources for something else, experts say.

The June shooting of an African American man in South Bend, Indiana, by a white police officer led to increased tension between police and the community. A former police chief said community policing had fallen by the wayside and could have helped improve relations. (Getty)


But community oriented policing could be due for a reboot.

Candidates for president including former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend who himself faced tough questions over the June shooting of Eric Logan, have made community policing part of their platforms on how to improve the criminal justice system. Biden, for example, said he wants to "reinvigorate" community oriented policing with $300 million in new funding.

As police continue to face what one researcher called "a crisis of legitimacy," can more community policing turn the tide?

Building Legitimacy

While U.S. law enforcement officials say there isn't one overarching definition or accepted understanding of the best individual strategies or programs for COP, a new study shows it can have a real impact and build legitimacy.


Researchers working in New Haven, Connecticut, wanted to determine whether positive, nonenforcement contact by officers improves people's attitudes toward and trust of the police.

"We currently have a crisis of legitimacy, where many residents don't trust police officers, making it harder for them to effectively fight crime," MIT Sloan professor David Rand, one of the study's co-authors, said in a statement.

From a pool of thousands of residents who responded to an initial survey, half were randomly selected to receive a 10-minute visit from one of 20 officers trained in community policing visit methods, according to Kyle Peyton, a doctoral candidate in the department of political science and the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University who co-authored the study.

The researchers followed up with surveys to examine the differences between the people who received visits and those who did not. Based on the responses, the study, published in September in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, found that the visits with a uniformed patrol officer "substantially improved the public's attitudes towards the police."

"We have known for a really long time that legitimacy matters, and we absolutely know that there are things that the police can do that will reduce legitimacy," said David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and director of the National Network for Safe Communities.

Peyton said they found the visits were most effective for people who previously had the most negative views of the police, as well as among nonwhite groups. For example, the impact of the visits were nearly twice as large among black residents as they were among white respondents.

While the researchers acknowledged that positive interactions on their own will not end police brutality or create police accountability, this kind of intervention is part of a broader shift away from overly punitive policing, according to Peyton.


Embracing COP

While some law enforcement officials said they consider door-to-door visits more of a research tool than a typical COP tactic, departments around the country have created their own initiatives that strive for similar results.


For example, the police department in Belton, Texas, hosts "Coffee with a Cop." At a recent installment, Scott Cox, a member of the Belton Clergy-Police Partnership, saw local residents walk into the cafe and hesitate when they noticed the police and the large crowd that had gathered inside to engage with the officers.

"At first they kind of had this look, 'What's going on? Is something happening?'" Cox said. "Then the officers greet them and tell them what's going on, and they just relax and they start chatting."

Alton McCallum, the Belton police chaplain, said such programs help humanize officers as members of the community.

"It allows my kids to see this is a police officer that is actually in our neighborhood and in our area," he said. "It's not what you necessarily see of just the bad cases in the news."

But some COP efforts around the country have generated controversy.

With school resource officers, for example, the benefits have been hotly contested. Some researchers have tied the increased presence of officers in school — which has been aided by federal funding — to the unnecessary exposure of students to criminal charges and said it contributes to the so-called "school-to-prison pipeline."

Two other Democratic contenders, U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, in their platforms don't outright mention COP or removing officers from schools, and instead advocate for breaking the school-to-prison pipeline with proposals including adding counselors for students.

Neither campaign responded to requests for additional information about their criminal justice platforms. Representatives for Biden and Buttigieg did not respond to requests for more information on their plans for community policing if elected.

To Gary MacNamara, a retired police chief in Fairfield, Connecticut, who is now executive director of public safety and government affairs at Sacred Heart University, national debates must be brought to the local level.

"At the same time, we must acknowledge that one approach does not fit every community," he said.

Despite criticism at the national level, the school officer program is working in Racine, Wisconsin. During the 2016-2017 academic year, the Racine Police Department and its local school district put into effect a program that has placed three full-time officers in two high schools and one middle school to interact with students, visit classrooms, mentor and coach students, and lead discussion groups.

One of those officers, Jerome King, is a friendly presence who roams the high school hallways, attending football and volleyball games and casually shooting hoops with students.

Washington Park High School senior Miracle Holmes often plays basketball with King and sees him outside of school hours at sporting events and in the community.

"He's caring, and we need that," Holmes, 17, told Law360. "We don't always want to see police officers as the bad guys."

Since the program was established, calls for police services in the Racine Unified School District have decreased by 25%, and arrests and citations of students has declined by 43%, said Racine Deputy Police Chief William Macemon.

"Our focus in the schools and the community is to destroy any perception of 'us vs. them' that may exist in community members and officers alike," said Macemon, adding that the relationships also boost officers' morale and motivation.


Breaking Down Barriers

Biden's call for more funding comes as federal dollars for community policing have leveled off from historical highs. Before 2012, the least amount of funding Congress provided the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services was $472 million for 2006, while funding in recent years has landed between $200 million and $300 million.


The program "has never been funded to fulfill the original vision for community policing," Biden's criminal justice platform states.

According to MacNamara, who served as chief in Fairfield from 2010 to 2018, the federally funded programs aren't stagnant, and often depend on the changing needs of communities and the problems occurring around the country.

Still, training and initiating new programs can be a hurdle for some departments that don't have the money or resources to fully dedicate officers to developing COP programs, according to MacNamara. And despite the funding available through the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the money "is not an endless supply," he said.

While many departments are in different phases of implementing COP programs, some haven't yet taken hold of the idea. And that reality isn't ideal, according to MacNamara.

"These days, I don't know whether there could be a truly successful police department that does not embrace community policing to some degree," he said.

Asked about former Chief Bennett's op-ed, South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski told Law360 the department has "always done some type of 'community policing.'"

He said the department has enhanced "our efforts and ideas greatly every year, most notably for the past four years," pointing to a list of outreach activities that include community cookouts, reading in schools, women's self-defense classes and a trick-or-treat event.

Even in the face of financial constraints, there are ways to strengthen a department's ties to the community. A department with limited resources might encourage officers to hold a car wash during their downtime, attend a local sporting event or informally engage with residents at another type of community event.

The police chief in St. Cloud, Minnesota, is one leader who is embracing the mission. As part of the COP programs there, a dozen police officers run a weeklong camp to mentor teenagers on topics including responsibility, conflict resolution, team-building, healthy relationships and table etiquette.

Since 2013, about 200 kids have graduated from the St. Cloud Youth Leadership Academy and police regularly communicate with the participants post-graduation.

"I can tell you that kids who previously had a different opinion of law enforcement, when they see those of us that have mentored them at that leadership academy you get a big smile and a big hug and they want to introduce you to their friends because now they think you're cool," Chief William Blair Anderson of the St. Cloud Police Department said, adding, "They see the person behind the uniform now."

Have a story idea for Access to Justice? Reach us at accesstojustice@law360.com.

--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.

Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!