Community policing: leading officers into danger?

While traditional methods of policing fail to provide desired levels of crime control and public safety, police departments across the Nation search for new and innovative ways to provide law enforcement services to their communities. In recent years, community-oriented policing (COP) has emerged as the method of choice for many law enforcement agencies.

As part of the conversion from traditional policing methods to community-oriented policing, agencies have become more reliant on a "new breed" of police officers better suited for performing proactive, citizen-oriented policing functions in their communities.(1) For the officers involved, the COP approach places a premium on specific qualities, such as being personable, even-tempered, and service-oriented. In addition, these officers must possess good communication and problem-solving skills and be conservative in the use of force.

However, these qualities describe not only a good candidate for community policing but also an excellent candidate to be killed in the line of duty.(2) For this reason, police administrators owe it to their departments, their communities, and most importantly, their personnel to ensure that officers engaged in COP receive ongoing survival training that adequately addresses the challenges they face.

Good COP, Bad COP

Building closer and more trusting relationships between the police and communities is not only desirable but also imperative if law enforcement is to improve its effectiveness. However, this closeness and trust should not be achieved at the cost of placing officers in undue jeopardy. Unfortunately, the heightened level of police-citizen interaction that makes community policing an effective approach also creates potentially serious safety problems for officers.

Basic survival training teaches that police officers should not become complacent, lax, or too comfortable with a situation.(3) However, it is difficult for officers to "keep their guard up" and to stay alert when trying to develop close ties with community residents and project a friendly, nonthreatening demeanor--basic components of community policing.

At the same time, research reveals that officers assigned to community policing feel safer, more confident, and better able to read people than do officers not involved in community policing.(4) As any veteran officer knows, a fine line exists between being "at ease" and being lax when following standard survival practices. Community policing officers, therefore, must remain vigilant not to be lulled into a false sense of security and subsequently place themselves in perilous situations.

Walking into Danger

A recent analysis of 51 line-of-duty deaths conducted by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program reveals striking similarities in many of the slain officers' approaches to policing. Killed in the Line of Duty,(5) a report based on the study's findings, provides various behavioral descriptors of the slain officers. These descriptors indicate that a majority of the victims shared similar qualities and characteristics. Most of these officers were described as being:

* Well-liked by the community

* Conservative in the use of force

* Hard-working

* Public relations and service-oriented

* Easygoing, and

* Willing to bend the rules regarding arrests, vehicle stops, handling of prisoners, and waiting for backup.

In addition, these officers consistently looked for the good in others. They believed that they could "read" people or situations and relax their guard in certain circumstances.

Many of these traits are exactly what administrators look for when selecting officers for community-oriented policing. In fact, these qualities--when balanced with appropriate levels of caution and discretion--are desirable in any officer who has regular contact with the public.

As the report emphasized, though, factors that jeopardize officer safety do not stem from these characteristics themselves but from actions that these traits may lead officers to take. The study discusses five areas relating to procedures and training that may be affected. They are:

1) Absence of procedure--situations in which an agency had no formalized procedures to handle the circumstance leading to a fatal assault.

2) Conflicting procedures--situations in which an agency had established procedures that were in conflict with officer safety.

3) Procedural errors--situations in which the victim officers failed to comply with accepted law enforcement procedures.

4) Correct procedures--situations in which the victim officers complied with accepted procedures but were still vulnerable to assault.

5) Training--situations that suggest agencies should provide additional officer safety training.

The study further separates officers' handling of the fatal incidents into two broad categories:

Improper approaches to vehicles or suspects and failure to control persons or situations. During fatal encounters, 41 percent of the slain officers made improper approaches; 65 percent were unable to properly control persons or situations. Further, according to the study, only 2 of the 51 victim officers--or approximately 4 percent--made no procedural errors. These statistics reinforce the importance of maintaining effective officer safety and security measures, regardless of the situation.

Enhanced Training

The increased interaction with a broad range of citizens inherent in community-oriented policing requires that officers be prepared to assess and respond quickly to a multitude of scenarios. However, few departments provide the training necessary to accomplish this complex task fully.

Many of the procedural errors noted in Killed in the Line of Duty can be addressed through regular safety and survival techniques training. Departments should ensure that, at a minimum, all officers engaged in community-oriented policing receive this training on a regular basis. This instruction should range from defensive maneuvers to tactical strategies for approaching vehicles, buildings, and subjects.

But training should not stop there. Although many use-of-force continuums list verbal control as a key level in the escalation of force, most departments devote little, if any, training to developing this skill.

This is a needless--and potentially dangerous--oversight. A number of innovative techniques for dealing with confrontational subjects and traffic stops have been developed. The Verbal Judo approach--an excellent means of instruction in control and deescalation--is gaining acceptance in police departments around the Nation. To provide officers with an effective alternative to physical confrontation, departments should periodically conduct training in these areas, as well as in basic communication skills.

Conclusion

Community policing represents an innovative form of policing that shows great promise in many communities around the Nation. It can be extremely beneficial to all parties involved--municipalities, communities, police departments, and individual officers. However, this method of policing also harbors some potentially lethal side effects--especially if implemented at the expense of officer safety training.

For this reason, officers engaged in COP should receive specialized instruction in proper community-oriented policing techniques, as well as periodic safety and survival training. Only a holistic approach to training will ensure that officers engaged in community-oriented policing are adequately prepared to respond to the challenges presented by this style of law enforcement. Otherwise, in their haste to improve efficiency and regain the support and trust of their communities, police departments across the Nation could be inadvertently training their officers to die.

Endnotes

1 Robert Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqueroux, Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective (Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson Publishing Company, 1990), 313-328.

2 Killed in the Line of Duty, United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC, 1992, 32.

3 Ronald J. Adams, Thomas M. McTernan, and Charles Remsberg, Street Survival Tactics for Armed Encounters (Northbrook, Illinois: Calibre Press, 1981), 46.

4 Supra, note 1,224.

Supra, note 2.

Sound Off provides a forum for criminal justice professionals to express alternative views on accepted practices or to address emerging, and perhaps controversial, issues. Law Enforcement provides this platform to stimulate thought within the law enforcement community and to encourage administrators to consider new ways of addressing such issues. However, ideas expressed in Sound Off are strictly those of the author; their appearance in Law Enforcement should not be considered an endorsement by the FBI.