Description

Community-Oriented Policing is a philosophy that emphasizes community participation in crime prevention efforts. However, its broad conceptual scope means that there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the interventions that fall within this typology, while a clear logic model and unambiguous implementation structure are lacking.
Community-Oriented Policing strategies seek to increase the levels of community trust in the police, understanding that mutual efforts and exchanges between those two segments are essential to reduce violence. Those strategies are based on three principles: greater autonomy of street police, community participation, and problem-solving.
The Community-Oriented Policing model requires a “flattening” of the traditional police hierarchy so as to delegate decisions to street police officers who are linked to the community, implying a closer dialogue with communities, especially with vulnerable groups, in decision-making processes related to the stipulation of priorities and selection of ways and lines of action.
This type of intervention usually involves multiple actions, such as foot patrols, teaching programs in schools, newsletters, and building collaborative networks with community entities and leaders to identify problems and co-produce appropriate responses.

Country of application
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Colombia
  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Liberia
  • Pakistan
  • Philippines
  • Uganda
Evidence

A systematic review with a meta-analysis identified 25 studies evaluating on the impact of Community-Oriented Policing community policing programs. MetaA meta-analysis of thoese evaluations showed that the programs positively affect the rates of satisfaction rates with the police. A reduction in perceptions of disorder was also observed. While the meta-analysis did not find any statistically significant results, the systematic review did produce evidence of improved police legitimacy. The authors find found no conclusive evidence that this intervention improves crime prevention or fear of crime. Nor do did they find find any conclusive evidence of improved performance of Community-Oriented Policing community policing when it incorporates orientation to problem orientations. It is important to mention the limitations of the study, due to the conceptual imprecision of the strategy, which generates heterogeneous interventions [1].
The Crime Solutions platform categorizes Community-Oriented-Oriented Policing (COPS) as inconclusive, as it considers this systematic review to have low internal validity, which would preclude a more rigorous assessment of its average effects on the variables of interest.
A more recent meta-analysis, covering six coordinated field experiments in Global South countries in the global south, concluded that Community-Oriented Policing community policing did not generate any of the hypothesized main effects. In the meta-analysis, no statistically significant effects of increased Community-Oriented Policing community policing practices were observed on any of the main outcomes: crime victimization, perception of insecurity, citizen opinion of the police, police abuse, or citizen cooperation with the police. However, effects were observed on secondary measures of related to citizens’ attitudes towardtoward the police in at three of the intervention sites [2].

Bibliography

[1] Gill, C., Weisburd, D., Telep, C. W., Vitter, Z., Bennett, T. (2014). Community-oriented policing to reduce crime, disorder and fear and increase satisfaction and legitimacy among citizens: A systematic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(4), 399–428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-014-9210-y

[2] Blair, G., Weinstein, J. M., Christia, F., Arias, E., Badran, E., Blair, R. A., ... & Wilke, A. M. (2021). Community policing does not build citizen trust in police or reduce crime in the Global South. Science, 374(6571). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd3446

Evaluated cases

Citizen Contact Program (Houston, USA)

Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Project (England)

Axis: Policing
Effectiveness:

Effective

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Effective
Problem type:

Great Britain’s National Reassurance Policing Program

Police Strategy Combining Community Policing and Problem-Oriented Policing

Newark Coordinated Community Policing Program (United States)

Officer-Initiated Community Policing Strategy

Why might the cases evaluated have different levels of effectiveness in relation to their respective type of solution?
Click here to understand why.

Some cases were not included in the evidence bank due to deficiencies detected in the methodology of their impact evaluations.
Click here to see the list

 

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