Second, being an experienced officer, he is aware that both theories of Each case study contains a brief background of the city and the.
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The Police Foundation is a non -funding agency established in by the Ford Foundation to heAmerican police agencies realize their potential by developing and fpromising programs of innovation and improvementThe Foundation’s research fare published as an information serviceConclusions and recommendatioare those of the authors and not necessathose of the Police FoundatioCopyright u August, 1973. All Rights Reserved. Library of Congress Catalogue No. 73-87 136 Pol ice Foundation I 015 E ighteenth Street, N. W. Washingto n, D.C. 20036
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Lawrence W. Sherman is a graduate student of soc iology at Yale University and a consultant to the Police Foundation. He formerly ved in the Inspectional Services Bureau and the Police Commissioner’s Office, New York City Police Department, and has also been a sultant to th e Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. He received the B.A. from Denison University and the M.A. from the University of Chicago, both in 1970, and the Diploma in Criminology from bridge University in 1973. Catherine H. Milton is an Assistant Director of the Police Foundation. She previously served on the staffs of the International Associatio n of Chiefs of Police and the President’s Commission on Student Unrest, and worked as a reporter for The Boston Globe. Author of several publications including Women in Policing, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1964. Thomas V. Kelly is a free-lance writer, who formerly served as Director of National Affairs for VISTA. He is a frequent contributor to the Washingtonian magazine. Ill
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Acknowledgements Over the months required to complete this study, we have incurred many debts to many people. In 1971, former Police missioner Patrick V. Murphy gave Lawrence Sherman the opportunity to monitor New York’s embryo Neighborhood Team Policing program , and that led to further research. Charles H . Rogovin, former President of the Police Foundation, approved Foundation support of the initial research in other cities. The police and municipal ministrators in each of the seven case study cities were extremely cooperative wit h the research : former Dayton Police Director Robert M. Igleburger, Detroit Police Commissioner John F. Nichols, Syracuse Police Chief Thomas Sardina, Los Angeles Police Chief Edward M. Davis, Holyoke Mayor William Taupier, Richmond Police Chief Lourn Phelps , and the present New York City Police Commissioner Donald Cawley. Many others provided useful comments on many drafts, including James Elliott, Mark Furstenberg, Peter Bloch, John Angell, R aymond Galvin, Michael Gardner, Beryl Radin, Elizabeth Howe, Ronald Breedlove and Sophy Burnham. Joseph H . Lewis, Police Foundation Director of Evaluation, contributed to the chapter on evaluations. Though all these deserve many thanks , most deserving of thanks are the team policing officers who are dedicated to improving the quality of police service in America. v
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Foreword The police administrator faces a dilemma. He is aware that corruption and the abuse of authority are constant dangers on his force, that rioting and collective violence have occurred before in his city and may occur again, and that people are frightened and want visible dence of a massive police presence that will reduce crime. He also knows that, however much the city council may complain of rising crime rates, it is also concerned about rising tax rates and thus wants the police department run as economically as possible. For all these reasons, the police administrator is tempted to organize and operate his department along tight, quasi-military lines with strict supervision of patrol officers, a strong command structure that can deploy fectively large numbers of police in emergency situations, powerful and mobile tactical forces that can saturate areas experiencing high crime rates, and close controls over costs, scheduling, assignments, and discipline. But he also is aware that his patrol officers exercise great discretion and thus can never be fully supervised, that much of their time is spent on noncriminal matters, that some parts of the nity fear and distrust the police while other parts want closer contact with them, that massive displays of police power can sometimes exacerbate tense situations, and that quasi-military discipline can lower the morale and perhaps the effectiveness of many officers. For these reasons, he is tempted to organize his department along highly ix
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decentralized lines, with considerable discretionary authority given to patrol officers and their sergeants, great attention given to the tion of community disputes and the provision of social services, and little use of tactical forces . There are two reasons why the administrator regards this choice as posing a dilemma: First, he has very little evidence, other than his own hunches and the lore of his craft, which of these two models of policing is most likely to succeed, or even what “success” means. Second, being an experienced officer, he is aware that both theories of policing are correct in some measure, and thus gains from wholly adopting one will create costs from having foregone the other. For example, the military model may result in a prompt response to radio calls, but since answering all calls promptly means spe nding as little time as possible on any given call, an officer cannot learn much or be of much help to a citizen who calls. On the other hand, the service model will enable the officer to devote time and expertise to helping a citizen who calls but at the cost of postponing answering other calls or referring them to officers who are not as familiar with the area. Even if the administrator could be clear in his own mind as to what he wants, he faces two important constraints on his freedom of action, one internal to the department and the other external to it. His officers, in all likelihood, will be accustomed t o one way of doing things and they will see any effort to change that as a threat , not only to their habits and expectations, but to their promotion prospects, work schedules, and authority. Community groups, on the other hand, will be divided as to what they want: some neighborhoods may come tough, vigorous policing as a way of keeping the streets safe and the “kids in their place,” while others may prefer a police force that is closely integrated with the community and perhaps even subj ect to its control. Indeed, it is likely that any given community will want both things at once-be tough and concerned, visible and invisible, forcement-oriented and service-oriented. Team policing should be seen as an effort, one of many possible, to test these competing views and form a realistic and objective ment of what kinds of police deployment produce what results under which circumstances. This is not to say that it is merely an e xperiment, designed to satisfy curiosity or gather data. Rather, it is a police strategy-or more accurately, a collection of somewhat simi lar police strategies-which some police administrators believe may be a partial X
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solution to the dilemma they face . In theory it combines the vantages of a substantial police presence in a neighborhood, deployed to put the maximum number of officers on the street during times of greatest need and supervised so as to encourage the maximum use of information about the area and its citizens, with the advantages of a police style devoted to servicing complaints, helping citizens, and tablishing good relations. But so far it is only a theory. It is still too early to tell whether this strategy will realize the expectations of its creators. In presenting the case studies and analysis that follows, the Police Foundation is not suggesting that team policing, in any of its many variants, is the answer to the police dilemma, or even that we are now in a position to know what an answer is. We believe that it is a promising approach but one that is still somewhat vague in conception, weak in execution, and certain in results. In time, we hope that by carefully designing and testing several different police strategies, various police departments will obtain information that can be widely disseminated as to the cumstances under which one police strategy, or some combination of strategies, produces gains in crime control, citizen service, and munity support. The Police Foundation is engaged in helping ments try approaches they have formulated to see what works and what does not. It is this approach-testing and evaluating-rather than the stantive content of any given strategy that is important. Not every city, or every part of any city, may be well served by a single police strategy. Yet in the past, our police strategies were picked, or rather they emerged out of historical forces, without much systematic tion as to how well they might help control crime, or help citizens. deed, until recently we did not think in terms of a police “strategy” or “style” that could be deliberately chosen. We tended instead to accept either what existed as historically foreordained or what was proposed by “leading authorities” as unquestionably correct. At one time our cities were policed by watchmen who not only walked a beat, but who managed it and the people on it with a minimum of supervision and relatively few arrests. Some cities still display the watchman style. In reaction to this, advocates of centralized control, close supervision, and maximum enforcement arose, whose textbooks and personal ample created a new era of policing that was called “professionalism.” Now some of the doctrines of that school are being questioned by those XI
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