Institutionalizing partnerships: a mixed methods approach to identifying trends and perceptions of community policing and multi-agency task forces

ABSTRACT

Cooperation with citizens and community agencies is fundamental to successful community policing. Considerable scholarship has documented cooperation between police and residents; however, cooperation among police agencies at the local, state, and federal level is also important. We use a variety of methods to investigate if such multi-agency partnerships in the United States have become more common and, if so, why such cooperation occurs. In interviews, officers frequently report that the use of interagency collaboration increased as community policing became institutionalized. We then test our assertions using trend data to demonstrate that community policing and multi-agency joint task forces became increasingly popular since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and these trends are correlated at the departmental level. We contend that institutional pressures contribute both to the continued dominance of community policing as a policing style as well as the increasing occurrence of multi-agency task forces. This research has implications for policing in nations where numerous agencies comprise a fragmented system and policing decisions are made at the local level (e.g., Belgium, England, the Netherlands, U.S.) or other polycentric political communities such as the European Union.

KEYWORDS:

• Multi-Agency Task Forces
• Community Policing
• Interagency Partnerships
• Neo-institutional Theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Beginning in 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice created ‘Community Oriented Policing Services’ grants in response to passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (H.R. 3355) to provide funding for hiring, training, and testing innovating police strategies connected to community policing.

2. Twenty-nine participants completed the semi-structure interview in person; one participant completed a shorter survey about collaborative activities via email.

3. Names have been changed to protect interviewees’ identity.

4. Crime rates are adjusted to reflect the crimes reported within the region and the associated population. For example, in Region 1, one of the county Sheriff’s offices did not report crimes to the U.S. BJS; thus, the rate is adjusted by removing that county’s population.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Donna Sedgwick

Donna Sedgwick, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA, USA. She is a public administration scholar who investigates how public managers initiate, manage, and sustain collaboration. Her scholarship includes examination of collaboration between publicly funded programs, agencies, and nonprofits.

Jason Callahan

Jason Callahan, M.S. is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. His research interests include media and crime, police culture, and deviant behavior.

James Hawdon

James Hawdon, Ph.D. is the Director for the Center of Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, where he is also a professor in the Department of Sociology. He is a criminologist who studies community response to school shootings, violence, and critical incidents; online extremism and hate groups; and policing.