Reforming Police = Bending Granite

Police reform - It's not rocket science

Last blog I talked about confusing messages from police agencies about their operating philosophy. Are they one thing, or are they another? Does it matter?

Yes, it does. First, it is too easy to get sidetracked by all the crime prevention jibberish showing up nowadays. Police agencies need to be properly informed about what works, what doesn't, and what role to play. Last year Gerry Cleveland did a guest blog here about the Guardians versus the Vanguard that spells this out.

Second, SafeGrowth and crime prevention types get help (or not) directly from their local police services. In marginal agencies that help will be limited to patrol or enforcement crackdowns - important in a few cases, but not many.

With exemplary agencies SafeGrowthers will receive a full range of prevention services, crime analysis, sophisticated problem-solving as well as enforcement.

The difference between the marginal agency and the exemplary agency is night and day. And while the choice for prevention practitioners is a simple one, unfortunately they may not have the choice. Sadly, some police agencies are still mired in the muck of obsolete methods, or worse, choose to de-evolve to by-gone philosophies.

What are those philosophies?

The first cops - British bobbies - walked the beat. They knew who was who and what was what. The American version of that in the late 18th and early 19th century was the standard bearer of early peace-keeping. They were, at least by some accounts, part of the community. They are a distant echo of today's community policing, but lacking the technological sophistication and training emerging from the "professional" era.

PROFESSIONAL ERA - THE LAW ENFORCER

For reasons of training, quality and anti-corruption, a whole new kind of policing grew up in the early 20th Century - professional policing that focused on "law enforcement". Cops were taken off the beat and placed into patrol cars. Removed from the lives of everyday people, they were dispatched to trouble spots via radio (today, computer dispatch).

In the 60s professional law enforcement came under attack for being too removed from the everyday citizen. Police were not a part of the community. Out of touch with popular sentiment and ineffective at preventing crime, professional law enforcement got a black eye. It turns out, only a small part of policing deals with enforcing laws. Most of it is about keeping the peace, community safety and solving neighborhood problems.

COPPS PROBLEM SOLVER

That led to the community policing and problem-solving (COPPS) movement. My favorite part of COPPS is problem-oriented policing (POP).

Over the past few decades much fruit was born from POP collaborative police/community strategies. They solved difficult problems like robbery, violence, and burglary. For samples look no farther than the clearinghouse-of-everything-POP at the website of the Center for Problem Oriented Policing. I blogged on last year's award winner about cutting motel crime in California.

This year's batch of POP projects is now working through the adjudication process. As a screening judge on the POP awards panel I can tell you there are some remarkable projects this year.

If you get a chance to attend the POP Conference, do so.

The fortress versus the storefront

Gleaming, white and clean. The medieval fortress reborn

I passed a beautiful architectural feature the other day on a brief trip to Miami: A gleaming police HQ building. Monumental and modern, it was a civic fortress on display. It was similar to many other big city police HQ architectures in recent years.

Down the road I drove past a sports field called the Police Athletic League for kids. What a great opportunity for kids to play ball, hang out, and have fun.

Then a question of some irony dawned on me; Do urban features like these indicate police are in the community or a symbol of it?

At HQ the architectural story was clear; Clean and magnificent, landmarks like this show off something far more than a functional police headquarters. Landmarks like this stand out! More important, they stand apart from the everyday life the rest of us live. We expect that of city halls or war memorials. But why police stations?

The sport field told a different story. Like cultural activities and local storefronts, these are the kinds of everyday things we expect to integrate into our daily lives. They don't stand apart from community. They are a part of community.

Semantics? Perhaps, until you consider history.

Over the last century, police evolved from local cops walking a beat to law enforcement officers in patrol cars - the "professional law enforcement" movement. Over the last 40 years police reformers promoted community oriented problem solvers working to resolve local troubles - the COPPS movement.

It's difficult to know where some agencies are today. Many are a confusing hybrid of all those things.

The police HQ "fortress" is an emblematic symbol of law and order, a obvious product of the professional movement. It seems to me that is in stark opposition to COPPS. Nowhere was this more true than on the patrol car doors with the motto "Professional Law Enforcement". Someone obviously missed the COPPS memo. Or maybe not.

One place showcasing an alternative architectural hybrid is the small town of Milliken, Colorado.

Miliken Police HQ photo by Jim Burack/Debora Cohen

Innovative Milliken Police Chief Jim Burack spent considerable time with residents, experts, and his own agency to craft a sensible balance. It goes to show it is possible to have security and accessibility to the public. Let's keep the fortress in the medieval age where it belongs.