Police officer attitudes toward community policing: a case study of the Racine Wisconsin Police Department

Abstract

We examined police officer attitudes toward community policing over a 19‐month period. Patrol officers’ and investigators’ attitudes toward community policing are less favorable toward community policing concepts, programming, decentralization of substations, and the community policing unit than senior command and, in some cases, sergeants. Both patrol and investigators indicate strained relationships with supervisors and are more supportive of a decentralized organizational structure than are sergeants and senior command. We ask if discretionary power and increased participatory management among all officers can be favorably viewed by management and if dissention can be tolerated and incorporated into a dialog for change.

Keywords:

• community policing
• police culture
• attitudinal surveys
• knowledge management
• people‐centered knowledge
• knowledge sharing
• program implementation

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by Grant No. 96‐FJ‐CX‐0093 awarded by the National Institute of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice. The authors wish to thank Dr Wesley Skogan, Northwestern University, Dr Lee Ross, University of Central Florida, Orlando, and the reviewers of this paper for their valuable suggestions for revision. We are grateful to Chief Richard Polzin, Retired, and Assistant Chief John Ernst, Retired, for their support.

Notes

1. This is the population as of the 1990 US Census which was published two years before the first community policing station was established in Racine.

2. Copies of the survey items with a key to scoring subscales may be obtained by writing the first author.

3. Alphas for the constructs representing attitudes about community policing concepts, community policing programs, community policing substations, the community policing unit, and the relationship between supervisors and subordinates ranged from 0.68 to 0.75 at Wave 1 and 0.62 to 0.81 at Wave 2. Inter‐item reliability for attitudes regarding the organizational structure of the department was 0.43 for Wave 1 and 0.56 for Wave 2.

4. Neighborhood Watch is a community crime prevention program which educates residents on how to keep their neighborhoods safe from crime. It trains people to assess dangerous situations and contact police when they perceive danger to themselves or their neighbors. National Night Out is held annually during the summer months. It provides neighbors the opportunity to meet each other so they know who lives in their neighborhood, meet with police officers, and learn about crime prevention. Neighborhood Watch and National Night Out are partnerships between police and citizens, while the sweeps program partners police and service providers who are Racine County employees.

5. For a discussion of findings from Wave 1, see Lewis, Rosenberg, and Sigler (1999).

6. While we sought to protect officers’ identities, we wished to have some system whereby respondents could be matched for each wave of the survey. Mother’s maiden name would be unique for all except siblings in the force and the last digit of the social security number would discriminate among them.

7. Eleven newly hired officers replaced 11 officers who left the department after the Wave 1 survey.

8. This included officers who were newly hired after Wave 1, who were absent or did not take the survey at Wave 1, or who refused to participate in the survey at Wave 2.

9. When comparing mean differences for analyses when years of service is entered into the analysis with rank, years of service has a slight and inconsistent impact on attitudes. Given the lack of substantive significance of this variable at Wave 1 and insignificant effects at Wave 2, we report the consistent and strongly statistically significant effects of rank.