This essay examines two major late-20th-century policing innovations: community-oriented policing (COP) and problem-oriented policing (POP). Drawing on Department of Justice definitions and academic literature, the paper defines each strategy, highlights their similarities and differences, and illustrates both with concrete examples — including Chicago's "positive loitering" initiative and Jacksonville's hot spot experiment. The essay then identifies shared obstacles to implementation, including police organizational resistance, CompStat-driven metrics, and socioeconomic disparities in who benefits from reform. The paper concludes that while both strategies offer sound crime-prevention frameworks, their real-world impact has been limited by political pressures and institutional inertia.
The paper demonstrates effective definition-then-critique structure: each policing strategy is first defined using authoritative sources, then examined through a critical lens that identifies risks (e.g., increased corruption, racial discrimination, socioeconomic inequity). This technique shows evaluative thinking beyond simple description, which is essential at the undergraduate level.
The essay follows a classic compare-and-contrast framework: an introduction establishing scope, two parallel body sections (one per strategy, each with definition, critique, and example), a unified section on shared implementation obstacles, and a synthesizing conclusion. This parallel structure makes the comparison easy to follow while allowing each strategy to be fully developed on its own terms before the broader critique is applied.
Community-oriented policing (COP) and problem-oriented policing (POP) have been touted by some as representing the biggest changes to policing implemented at the end of the 20th century (reviewed by Maguire and King, 2004). However, as Maguire and King point out, defining these policing innovations is not a straightforward task, since there may be as many variations as there are police agencies. This essay defines and contrasts these two policing strategies in an attempt to better understand how crime control strategies have changed.
The Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) defines community policing as having three components: community partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem solving (Community Oriented Policing Services, n.d.). Under this definition, "community" includes not only residents but also other government agencies, groups, nonprofits, service providers, businesses, and the media. Proper implementation of community policing requires police organizational transformation that may affect every part of the agency, from leadership to personnel training, selection, and assignments. The problem-solving component of community policing is similar to problem-oriented policing, except that problems are identified in collaboration with the community, and a systematic approach is then implemented — sometimes in collaboration with community members — in an effort to reduce or eliminate crime or disorder.
This broad definition of "community" may carry a significant risk of police becoming more political as they form collaborations with various groups (Moore, 1992). Police leadership may begin to pay more attention to the policing needs of the powerful at the expense of more vulnerable segments of the community. The implementation of community policing may therefore increase the risk of corruption, racial and economic discrimination, and police brutality. The intense focus on police efficiency, according to Moore (1992), may even degrade due process protections for the accused. In other words, implementing community policing may heighten the need for strong public oversight to protect civil rights.
A concrete example of community policing occurred in August 2007 in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago (Rai, 2011). Approximately 25 residents began to "loiter" on the sidewalk across from a U-Haul business, joined by a young female police officer. The target of this activity was seven African-American men who were attempting to pick up work as day laborers. From the residents' perspective, this informal day labor market represented an eyesore and a source of increased crime. From the day laborers' perspective, it was the only way they could earn enough money to feed themselves and their families. The strategy was called "positive loitering," which implicitly framed the day laborers as negative loiterers — a negative influence on the neighborhood. This is an example of a community identifying a disorder problem and then working preemptively with police to eliminate conditions believed to foster criminal activity.
In contrast to the problem-solving component of community policing, problem-oriented policing (POP) may or may not utilize community collaborations to address a policing problem (Goldstein, 2001). The primary focus of POP is to bring all available resources to bear in reducing or eliminating a specific crime or disorder problem. Unlike general police patrols, which must address all crime-related activity, problem-oriented policing concentrates on a specific problem that may be occurring at a specific location. Like community policing, POP places a high value on preventive rather than reactive strategies. Of all policing approaches, problem-oriented policing has probably received the most empirical support (Clarke and Eck, 2005).
Since problem-oriented policing was first defined by Goldstein in 1979, others have broken the approach into four component parts: scanning, analysis, response, and assessment — known as the SARA model (reviewed by Telep and Weisburd, 2012). Scanning is the process by which police identify and prioritize potential problems. This is followed by analysis, in which various data sources are used to determine a problem-specific solution. Police then respond by implementing the solution they have formulated. Importantly, implementation is followed by an assessment of whether the intervention succeeded. The wide variety of problems police may encounter is illustrated by the 60 distinct problem-specific guides available from the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.
Common challenges in implementing a POP strategy include a lack of commitment from police leadership (reviewed by Telep and Weisburd, 2012). Other difficulties include setting unrealistic expectations — such as assigning officers too many tasks or anticipating quick results — and officers failing to carry out all four SARA steps adequately.
One notable example of problem-oriented policing was implemented in Jacksonville, Florida, in combination with a hot spot policing strategy (reviewed by Telep and Weisburd, 2012). Hot spot policing involves increasing patrol frequency in high-crime areas to deter criminal activity and has been shown empirically to be effective. Hot spots are typically defined as an intersection or a city block, rather than an entire neighborhood. The Jacksonville Police compared the efficacy of a traditional hot spot approach — involving saturation patrols — with a problem-oriented approach in which officers analyzed and tailored their response to each specific hot spot. The only statistically significant decrease in crime occurred after the 90-day intervention period, and only in the hot spots where a problem-oriented approach was applied. This result suggests that SARA is more effective than hot spot policing alone, though it may take longer than expected to achieve a significant reduction in criminal activity.
Community- and problem-oriented policing represent relatively recent innovations in crime control; however, there are significant obstacles to their implementation. Police agencies — or elements within them — often resist changing established practices. There is also the perception that socioeconomically advantaged neighborhoods will benefit the most from these reforms, suggesting that implementation may merely maintain the status quo. In sum, the goals of community- and problem-oriented policing are sound, but their implementation tends to be compromised by personal and political agendas. While widespread adoption of these policing strategies has occurred, the benefits realized by communities have therefore been mixed at best.
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