NCJ Number
212951
Journal
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 75 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2006 Pages: 6-9
Date Published
January 2006
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article describes how the Long Beach Police Department (California) has been successfully integrating the community-oriented public safety (COPS) philosophy at all levels of the organization.
Abstract
The Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) is continuing to implement department-wide COPS practices through structural changes, training courses with all employees, and a redirection of the focus of command staff toward supporting efforts at the line level. One of the structural changes was to move crime analysts from a main office downtown to police division offices, where they help officers review crime trends in their assigned areas and examine best practices for addressing these trends. In addition, the Long Beach code enforcement and city prosecutor's offices have reorganized to reflect the four geographic police patrol divisions. Training courses have explained the COPS philosophy and provided instruction in working with COPS tools for problem solving. The training encourages line-level decisionmaking and strategies for identifying problems and solutions in assigned areas. In order to focus departmental leadership efforts on performance at the line level, commanders are encouraged to facilitate communication and cooperation that serves the interests of local problem solving. This article concludes with an example of how community input, crime analysis, and cooperative problem solving that involved the community resulted in specific action that reduced crimes and disturbances in a Long Beach district.