Marginal Revolution - Car patrol eliminated the neighborhood police officer. Police were pulled off neighborhood beats to fill cars. But motorized patrol — the cornerstone of urban policing — has no effect on crime rates, victimization, or public satisfaction. Lawrence Sherman was an early critic of telephone dispatch and motorized patrol, noted, "The rise of telephone dispatch transformed both the method and purpose of patrol. Instead of watching to prevent crime, motorized police patrol became a process of merely waiting to respond to crime."
Curbed - Cops roving cities in police cruisers have become a ubiquitous part of the urban landscape. But having law enforcement officials monitor cities in glass and steel bubbles has proven problematic. Not only does a patrol car further isolate police from their communities, it sets up an undeniable us-versus-them hierarchy on American streets.
Community policing—also known as relationship-based policing or partnership policing—aims to engender a trusting relationship between officers and the people they’re meant to protect, two groups which, in big cities especially, can have strikingly different social, racial, and economic backgrounds.
Walking the beat, engaging with residents at a personal level, is at the heart of that initiative. “If you understand the culture and you respect it, you’ll be able to police it more effectively,” said Fernando Rejón, a director for the Urban Peace Institute who helps to train law enforcement officials in community-based policing and gang intervention
In 2011, the LAPD launched its first Community Safety Partnership in partnership with the Urban Peace Institute and the city’s housing authority. Officers selected for the pilot program received a different set of skills than most cops. They were shown how to spot signs of post-traumatic stress and mental illness which could cause violent behavior. They were specifically trained to work with kids and teens, as up to 40 percent of all residents of public housing are under 18. And they agreed to devote five years to the same neighborhood—long enough to learn residents’ names.
The first CSPs began with officers patrolling a handful of densely populated public housing communities in Watts. One of those officers was LAPD Lieutenant Emada Tingirides, who recently spoke about the effectiveness of the program at a race and justice summit sponsored by The Atlantic. She had grown up in South LA and believed she understood the community’s challenges—until she started walking in Watts, she said. “I thought I was an expert on my job until I let my community teach me.”
Foot beats changed the community dynamic. Not only were smaller issues like graffiti and vandalism easier to see and fix on foot, police could have daily check-ins with elderly residents and small business owners. Cops on foot helped kids get to school on neutral paths that didn’t cross into contested gang territory. Soon, police officers found themselves taking on new roles, like coaching sports teams and leading Girl Scout troops.
Most notably, over the first three years, homicides plummeted by 50 percent.
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