Determinants of Community Policing: An Open Systems Model of Implementation

Since the late 1970s, policing has emphasized encouraging and empowering the community to become more involved in public safety. Significant resources have been devoted to this effort. Since 1994, for example, the federal government has given more than $8 billion to local police agencies to implement community policing (COP).

Despite the resources expended and its proliferation, relatively little is known about the implementation of COP. There have been few statistically sensitive measures of COP implementation. The extent to which its implementation varies is not certain. The factors that facilitate or impede its implementation are not clear. The relationship between COP and the structures of police organization has not been explored. This work seeks to develop and use a measurement of community policing implementation. Doing so has implications not just for community policing but also for broader studies of organizational theory and implementation research.

Within the field of organizational theory, for example, contingency theory suggests that the task environment of an organization (e.g., its size, age, technology, and community characteristics) determines its structure and activities. By contrast, institutional theory suggests the structure and activity of an organization are responses to variables of its institutional environment such as region, funding sources, and external entities such as civilian review boards or unions that may exert influence over it.

These theories have often been seen as competing, but they need not be. Implementation research is a relatively nascent field that has yet to be implied to community policing. To do so, and to overcome some of the prior limitations of the field, I use a large sample of organizations and derive and use measures regarding organizations, innovation, and policing, integrating them into measurement models that can be statistically validated and produce an interval-level continuum of COP implementation. I also explore the relationship of this measure to the context in which the police operate and their organizational structure.

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http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/211975.pdf