On Evaluating "Community (Oriented) Policing" Through Other Police-Models (From Evaluating Community Policing, P 51-75, 2003, Tom Van den Broeck, Christian Eliaerts, eds., -- See NCJ-203040)

• NCJ Number: 203043
• Author(s): Paul Ponsaers
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 25 pages
• Sale Source: Uitgeverij Politeia NV
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article discusses police-models in respect to the position of community policing.

Abstract

The central clusters of reasoning about policing are called police-models. A police-model should ask what is the objective of policing, the meaning of prevention, how to evaluate police discretion, and what is the meaning of community. The modern models can be identified in two mainstream concepts, the military-bureaucratic model and the lawful policing-model. The military-bureaucratic model is characterized by no discretion, law as a means, accountability, insulation from the public, professionalization, legitimacy, repression-focused, and reactive. The lawful policing model is a reaction against the military-bureaucratic model. The distinct types of policing in this category are watchman style, service style, and legalistic style. Broad scope policing is the reaction of social sciences to the myth of exclusive models as the military-bureaucratic model and the lawful policing-model. It can be situated in a transition or experimenting phase towards more postmodern ways of policing. Community policing is characterized by multifunctionality, community, co-production, partnership, decentralization, flat hierarchy, service, de-specialization, grass roots police, and proactivity. (Neo) Intensive policing (Zero Tolerance) is a strategy used by the police in order to sweep the streets clean of deviance and disorder. This strategy provides police officers with a high level of discretion concerning the street level bureaucracy. Technological (led) policing or computer assisted policing is the result of a societal evolution towards the use of technology in all segments of society, including the police. Public-private divide policing consists of civil and commercial policing, including private investigators, consultancy businesses, and private security firms. These police-models are not to be considered as a sequence in time but are logic deductions. The reforms of an actual policing system is not the necessary consequence of the time, but a programmatic choice, which has to be realized through a painstaking process of democratization of the institutions. 65 footnotes