NCJ Number
181383
Date Published
1998
Length
28 pages
Annotation
An analysis of the impact of community policing in Philadelphia public housing used data from police officer surveys and resident surveys to assess police attitudes toward the community and their police work and citizen attitudes toward their community, perceptions of problems, fear of crime, attitudes toward police, and other factors.
Abstract
The community policing approach focused on five distressed public housing communities along the 11th Street Corridor in North Philadelphia. The two major strategies were the development of a problem-solving, proactive, community-involved police response and the strengthening of resident associations as a source of input into police decision making and the provision of police services. The research compared police and citizen attitudes in this area with attitudes in four similar public housing communities that did not receive any form of community policing. Data were collected in September 1996, before the program began, and April and June 1997. The preliminary results indicated that the program appeared to have some influence on police officer behavior in a direction consistent with program goals. In addition, residents seemed to have noticed this higher level of activity. However, the control and experimental sites did not differ on many of the measures. A third wave of data will be collected during the fall of 1997 to determine whether a longer period of community policing will make further differences. Figures, tables, note, appended list of factors measured, and 45 references