Situational policing

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

Alice

"That depends on where you want to get to."

The Cheshire Cat

--Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

A recent study explored whether community policing could work in different types of neighborhoods. The analysis found it successful in some communities, but not in others. Of the 15 participating Chicago police beats, the researchers rated 9 excellent or reasonable and 6 struggling or failing. Although the study's findings prove enlightening, the research question itself garners even more interest for it suggests that community policing should have similar benefits in different types of neighborhoods. (1)

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To this end, the authors present a theoretical framework to help police decide what type of community policing strategy could work best in specific neighborhoods. Making this decision requires an identification of the ultimate goal of policing (i.e., its desired end). This holds particular importance because it provides the basis for evaluating competing strategies and the ultimate measure of police effectiveness. Through the Situational Policing Model, the authors hope to present a clear and observable desired end state for officers as they work to respond to neighborhood crime and disorder. Choosing the right road, or policing strategy, depends on where the police are heading. Once this destination becomes set, officers will be better able to decide which roads most likely will get them there.

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BROKEN WINDOWS OR BROKEN EFFICACY

For over 20 years, the Broken Windows Theory--that neighborhood disorder leads to serious violent crime--has influenced policing. (2) Many authorities believe that physical and social disorder serve as predictors of violent crime. To this end, practices, such as zero-tolerance and order-maintenance policing, have become popular. (3)

More recently, researchers have raised important questions about any causal link between disorder and crime because they say the two are, essentially, the same thing. In other words, disorder is crime--they just differ in seriousness. These experts suggest that disorder and crime stem from the same societal problem (i.e., weakened informal social control). (4) They argue that it is not disorder that predicts crime but the level of collective efficacy--"the cohesion among residents combined with shared expectations for the social control of public space"--that predicts both crime and disorder. (5) Put another way, residents feel liable for safety and upkeep in some neighborhoods more than others, and this feeling of shared responsibility relates to the level of crime.

In a comprehensive study of 196 Chicago communities, these researchers found that not only was neighborhood-level collective efficacy the most significant predictor of crime and disorder but when collective efficacy and structural characteristics, like poverty, population density, and mixed land use, were taken into consideration, the connection between disorder and crime all but disappeared. These findings have implications for modern policing policies and practices.

NEIGHBORHOODS AS DEVELOPING GROUPS

Collective efficacy characterizes the neighborhood as a whole. The social sciences have established that groups, organizations, and entire societies have collective properties, like efficacy. Much of the knowledge about the dynamics of collective entities comes from studies of small groups, an emerging focus of scientific analysis starting in the 1940s and continuing today.

For example, these studies pointed out that many groups pass through, regress to, or get stuck in identifiable developmental stages. (6) For their purposes, the authors suggest that at any point in time, a neighborhood can exist primarily in one of three.

1) Dependence: The group depends on the leader for direction and the members share the assumption that the individual is competent and able to provide effective leadership.

2) Conflict: The group experiences conflict that, likely, occurs over incongruent assumptions about its goals, the roles of the members, or whether the leader can meet the unrealistic expectations of the membership.

3) Interdependence: The group successfully has resolved its conflicts and members work together interdependently toward their agreed-upon goals.

Normal group development occurs this way, sequentially through the first two stages and into the third, where the members work together most effectively. However, this process is dynamic, and, at any time, a group may regress to or get stuck in one of the first two stages, which limits its efficacy. A consideration of how this developmental sequence might play out in a neighborhood dealing with crime and disorder can make this concept clearer.

Stage 1: Dependence

Community members depend on the police to solve problems related to public order, and officers are willing and sometimes able to do so. Most residents view officers as competent and respect them. As long as the police can address most of the problems of community disorder, the neighbors likely will remain satisfied with their services and continue to depend on them. Officers may view the neighborhood as unable or unwilling to care for itself. They may see themselves as having a mandate to protect the community. (7) If police cannot meet the neighborhood's expectations, the community moves to the next stage of development.

Stage 2: Conflict

In situations where police cannot address community problems or keep the neighborhood safe, residents become dissatisfied and frustrated--both with authorities and with each other. They still see officers as having the primary responsibility for maintaining order in the neighborhood and keeping them safe, but they consider the police ineffective. Individual residents may decide to act on their own because of a negative view of officers and a recognition that the community has yet to develop the structures, processes, and trusting relationships that would inspire collective action. The dissatisfaction and frustration that exist in the neighborhood may result in complaints against the police. In defending themselves, officers may consider additional programs, such as high-visibility foot or bicycle patrols, to try to appease the residents and regain their confidence. At this point, police may feel vulnerable because they face unrealistic expectations with limited resources.

To move out of stage two and toward stage three, interdependence (i.e., collective efficacy), officers must give up the notion that they alone can protect the neighborhood against public disorder. Both the police and the residents must recognize the importance of collective action and informal social controls in restoring and maintaining order in the community before the neighborhood can move toward stage three. Promises by the police that they will work harder or deploy more officers to the location serves only to move the neighborhood back to stage one, dependence.

Stage 3: Interdependence

Once the community and the police come to recognize their mutual responsibilities in restoring order and neighborhood safety, development of the social networks and processes needed to make this happen begins. At this point, officers may play a less prominent and less directive role in the maintenance of public order. As they continue to work together interdependently, police and residents likely will develop stronger and more trusting relationships. In this final stage of neighborhood development, solid community networks exist to ensure order and safety. Officers work with the neighborhood as needed to deal with situations beyond the scope and capability of the residents.

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TYPES OF NEIGHBORHOODS

Obviously, neighborhoods will differ in their ability to move along these stages of development. Some are stronger than others and have more resources to help them evolve. This realization leads to four types of neighborhoods.

1) Strong: These communities experience low levels of crime and have residents that interact interdependently (or are organizing themselves to do so) on issues of community disorder.

2) Vulnerable: Similarly, vulnerable neighborhoods have low rates of crime and disorder, but they also feature minimal levels of neighborhood development. When a particular form of disorder (e.g., graffiti, trash, loud music, or barking dogs) emerges, residents depend on officers to deal with it. As long as police can solve these problems, neighbors gladly will turn over their responsibilities to them. However, as disorder and crime grow beyond the capacity of officers to deal effectively with them, residents can become dissatisfied with police services, and conflict can develop. A vulnerable neighborhood is comparable to a person who, although not yet sick, has a weak immune system and, therefore, a high susceptibility to illness.

3) Anomic: These communities have a high rate of crime and disorder and a low level of neighborhood development. Residents typically are both dependent on officers to take care of community safety problems and dissatisfied because of their lack of success. Police respond to excessive numbers of neighborhood complaints far beyond their ability to handle them successfully, resulting in tension and frustration between officers and the community.

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4) Responsive: These neighborhoods experience high levels of crime and disorder, but residents work together with the police to resolve problems.

SITUATIONAL POLICING

The authors opine that policing styles should not follow a department's standard mode of operation but should reflect the conditions of the community. To this end, each neighborhood type can be matched with a preferred policing style.

Supporting and Recognizing: Strong Neighborhoods

Residents of strong neighborhoods may not have concern about crime and disorder because they experience few such problems. Officers assigned to these communities might offer police resources that support and enhance local, community-based efforts (e.g., youth activities). They also may work to expand neighborhood access to resources and decision-making processes and broaden the involvement of residents. The police department might want to recognize community members or groups who have had particular successes. Strong neighborhoods generally demand and need the least amount of police services.

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Substituting and Selling: Vulnerable Neighborhoods

As in strong neighborhoods, crime and disorder do not represent serious problems for residents. This fact makes it difficult to motivate neighbors to organize around these issues. However, residents may have concerns other than crime that they would want to work on together.

For example, several years ago, one of the authors resided in a vulnerable city neighborhood, consisting of 16 square blocks, where about 60 families with young children lived. Most of these households considered child care a huge issue. Recognizing this, the neighborhood organized a babysitting co-op where the families would take turns watching each other's children for points (four per hour). Each month, the points were balanced and each member received a report. This cooperative arrangement cultivated strong relationships among the residents. Over the years, when crime and disorder began to appear, the neighborhood was well prepared to work with the police interdependently.

To this end, in many vulnerable neighborhoods, the police simply might help to develop a crime watch or other residential crime prevention group that also may become involved with addressing other nonpublic safety problems. Policing vulnerable neighborhoods involves broadening the definition of public safety to include other concerns that normally do not fit into its framework.

Securing, Then Organizing: Anomic Neighborhoods

Because anomic neighborhoods have widespread crime and disorder and disconnected, frustrated, and fearful residents, they depend on the police for help. As they begin work in an anomic neighborhood, officers should help via more traditional means, such as stepped-up law enforcement (e.g., traditional law enforcement practices, such as drug raids and sweeps, undercover operations, and strict enforcement of relatively minor crimes). Once police have demonstrated to residents their commitment to working together with them by temporarily resolving some of their most significant problems, officers must participate in organizational efforts. Police do not necessarily have to serve as community organizers, but they must make sure that organizational efforts are going on and support them. This is the only way for an anomic neighborhood to become a responsive one.

Systems Planning and Response: Responsive Neighborhoods

These residents organize and work to regain control of public spaces. However, many of the social problems that give rise to crime and disorder in these neighborhoods lie far beyond their ability to deal effectively with them. Most of these issues also extend outside the expertise and resources of the police department. Other means (e.g., city and state public safety and social services; the public school system; local advocacy groups; urban planners, especially those focused on economic development; and other neighborhood-based services) become necessary to deal with the problems in these communities. Change requires a vision and a coordinated response. Police in these neighborhoods can help bring together local residents with other public service agencies. One example of this is the ability of local community policing officers in Chicago to submit priority requests for city services to the appropriate agency.

SITUATIONAL POLICING IN MOTION

The authors contend that effective policing involves not only reducing crime and disorder but facilitating neighborhood development. In other words, police must strive to move the community along two dimensions: toward low levels of crime and disorder and high levels of integration and collective efficacy (interdependence). Therefore, matching the policing style to the neighborhood type represents only the first step in the process. From this point, officers must find the appropriate methods for moving the community in the right direction, toward the desired end goal--a strong neighborhood.

The anomic neighborhood can serve as an example. The right side of figure 4 lists policing strategies that will help move these communities toward the responsive, then to the strong quadrants. If crime is high and the citizens are dependent (stage one), police should use a professional, service-oriented approach as the logical and preferred first step. By responding to citizen complaints as law enforcers, officers can begin to deal with the neighborhood crime problems and demonstrate to residents that their problems can be impacted. The dotted line at the bottom of figure 4 indicates the direction police usually want to follow based on the utopian idea that, given increased resources or more efficient responses to calls for service, they could reduce crime without collective effort. This assumption has proven fictional over the years because departments do not have the resources needed to eliminate crime and disorder through more or better services. Even if some circumstances allowed this possibility, it would serve only to keep the neighborhood psychologically dependent (stage one).

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After an initial stage of stepped-up law enforcement, a second wave of activity might include problem solving. (8) Problem-oriented policing has proven effective over the years in identifying and eliminating the underlying causes of many of the calls for service. At first, the police might do problem solving on their own, without the participation of residents. But, at some point fairly early in the process, officers must establish dialogue with residents to include them as problem-solving partners. As relationships build and communication develops and deepens, police and citizens must reach a shared realization that officers alone cannot fix neighborhood problems and keep residents safe. With this common understanding, activities may begin to take place that move the neighborhood toward the responsive quadrant, where residents are ready to organize for systems thinking and planning around crime, disorder, and related issues. Recent years have brought a number of successful methods for this level of planning and coordinated action. (9) These means could easily be adapted to neighborhood-level efforts aimed at restoring order. Through comprehensive, system-level planning and action, the goals of reducing crime and disorder while forming interdependent neighborhood relationships can be accomplished.

CONCLUSION

Although neighborhood disorder has been associated with crime, researchers have challenged its causal relationship. For the past 20 years or more, policing practices have been based on the belief that neighborhood disorder causes serious crime. Consequently, a number of contemporary policing strategies, such as zero-tolerance campaigns to rid neighborhoods of visible signs of disorder, have been developed and implemented. However, in recent years, the rationale behind order-maintenance policing has come into question. Recent studies have shown that collective efficacy is a significant predictor of both crime and disorder.

By applying knowledge of group and social processes to local neighborhoods, the authors argue that police efficiency in solving problems of community disorder may unintentionally and unwittingly contribute to the maintenance of low measures of collective efficacy at the neighborhood level. However, officers can play a significant role in promoting collective efficacy. The police should view the Situational Policing Model as a guide. It bridges the philosophical gap between traditional law enforcement and community policing by identifying situations where each style is appropriate. Most important, it provides a desired end state at which police departments can aim and against which competing strategies can be evaluated.

Endnotes

(1) W.G. Skogan, S.M. Hartnett, J. DuBois, J.T. Comey, M. Kaiser, and J.H. Lovig, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, Problem Solving in Practice: Implementing Community Policing in Chicago (Washington, DC, 2000).

(2) J.Q. Wilson and G.L. Kelling, "Broken Windows: Police and Neighborhood Safety," The Atlantic Monthly 249 (1982): 29-38.

(3) W.G. Skogan, Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Urban Decay in American Neighborhoods (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1990).

(4) R.J. Sampson and S.W. Raudenbush, "Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods," American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 3 (1999): 603-651.

(5) Ibid., 603.

(6) S.A. Wheelan, Group Processes: A Developmental Perspective (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1994).

(7) P.K. Manning and J. Van Maanen, eds., Policing: A View from the Street (New York, NY: Random House, 1978).

(8) H. Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1990).

(9) M. Weisbord and S. Janoff, Future Search (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1995).

By JAMES J. NOLAN, Ph.D., NORMAN CONTI, Ph.D., and JACK MCDEVITT, M.P.A.

Dr. Nolan, a former police officer, is an assistant professor at West Virginia University's Division of Sociology and Anthropology in Morgantown.

Dr. Conti teaches at the Department of Sociology and the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Professor McDevitt is the associate dean for research and graduate studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

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