Toward Community-Oriented Policing: Potential, Basic Requirements, and Threshold Questions

Recent research that has questioned the value of traditional policing methods has led to experiments with new forms of policing. With increasing frequency, these experiments place greater dependence, for police effectiveness, upon redefining the relationship that the police develop with the community. Out of these efforts, a concept of community-oriented policing is beginning to evolve that—when fully developed—could provide the dominant framework to which all future improvement efforts in policing are linked. A number of minimum requirements for moving in this direction are already identifiable. Most important, among these, is the need to assure that the police engage more directly in dealing with the substantive problems of concern to the communities they serve. Full development of community-oriented policing will require that a number of tough questions first be addressed. Four of these are identified and explored in the article.