This paper examines the definitions, objectives, models and influencing factors of community policing (COP). It draws on broad academic and policy literatures, and empirical examples. The paper finds little consensus on the definitions, objectives and models of COP, but notes that the form COP takes is connected to histories of state-society relations. Community policing can encourage a focus on the community’s needs, but involves risks.
Community policing can focus on the state police or it can refer to policing practices by a more plural set of authority structures. It is used in a variety of policing programmes – from zero tolerance policing, to intelligence-led policing, to establishing a service mentality within the organisation to addressing perceived local crime priorities.
It is possible to pinpoint some general principles of COP on which there is broad agreement – partnership, community consent, accountability, a service orientation and preventative / proactive / responsive / problem-focused approaches to crime. Yet important divergences remain, for instance around the notion of ‘community’, the political sensitivity of the COP terminology, and over whether COP refers just to policing with the community or also to policing by the community.
While it is often the case that police see COP primarily as a strategy to assist in crime reduction, and communities see it as a mechanism for holding the police to account, these objectives can shift depending on the context. Understanding the shifting interests of those involved is important in understanding why COP may play out in certain ways, or why it may achieve different results in different contexts.
While COP provides opportunities that can strengthen accountable safety, security and justice, important risks remain. These include:
- Highly contested evidence as to whether COP is achieving the (multiple) objectives often ascribed to it, including because it is so varied in form;
- Creating silos of good policing divorced from the broader national policing context;
- Creating or reinforcing inequalities between communities;
- Reinforcing power imbalances within communities in potentially destabilising ways;
- Supporting groups that have weak democratic representation and accountability, thus undermining rather than contributing to community security and justice.
Before supporting community policing, it is also important to consider factors that shape police–community relations. These include, for instance, histories of state formation, political ideology, state presence, experience of conflict or emergency, social divisions and state–society relations.
