After reviewing the principles of community policing and their implementation in Slovenia, this paper reports on the findings of a survey of 177 Slovenian neighborhood police officers to determine their opinion of community policing.
Community policing is based on communication and cooperation between community representatives and police in order to achieve consensus on security issues. This collaboration enables police and citizens to address security concerns together. In Slovenia, a change to the community policing philosophy occurred in 1990, as the police were reorganized to create the new job position of neighborhood police officer, who has the primary responsibility for crime prevention. Each police district has a leader who cooperates with other police officers, community members and organizations, and other public agencies in crime prevention activities. The survey was conducted to assess the district leaders' views of community policing. Questionnaires were completed by 177 leaders between November 3 and December 5, 2003. The questionnaire focused on knowledge of the laws for executing community policing, officers' satisfaction with these laws, satisfaction with their work, assessment of the organization of their work, the planning of their work, assessment of cooperation with communities, knowledge of various forms of community policing, and recommendations for improving their work. The survey found that respondents were generally familiar with the laws that governed their work and were satisfied with their work. The respondents noted the lack of community organizations with which they could work and the need to develop a structure within which cooperation between the police and community residents could occur. They believe that this requires that leaders be relieved of a primary emphasis on enforcing the law in their districts so they can be free to engage in the development of cooperative endeavors of crime prevention. 9 tables and 10 references