The comprehensive care model.

Providing a Framework for Community Policing

Amid the push for partnerships between local government, police, schools, and community groups as a means to prevent crime, many jurisdictions struggle with how to coordinate such a comprehensive effort. Even in the era of community policing, agency administrators rarely meet with community residents to identify common goals, much less to strategize about how to cooperate in a common endeavor. Moreover, approaching sometimes-unfriendly or distrustful community groups to join in the decision-making process presents an even more formidable task. Yet, forming lasting relationships among key government leaders, police departments, and community groups across the country could have a substantial impact on public safety issues.

Indeed, the community represents a major, often-untapped crime prevention resource. Residents can provide an essential information base greater than that of police departments with limited personnel and resources. In turn, the police act as catalysts who bring the necessary resources to bear on specific, community-identified public safety problems. Police work then becomes comprehensive, problem solving and proactive as opposed to solely reactive. It makes sense to devise a way in which local government agencies and the community can connect effectively. The comprehensive care model represents one such way.

PRINCIPLES OF THE MODEL

The premise behind the comprehensive care model is that to succeed, prevention programs must mobilize every aspect of the community to address the underlying problems that, if left untouched, would lead to crime. The model relies on community engagement, proactive approaches, and comprehensive strategies.

Community Engagement

The hallmark of the comprehensive care model is community engagement. In order to encourage community involvement, police administrators first must accept and support the idea that community members have a potential role in police activities. Oftentimes, the move to a community-oriented approach requires redesigning department infrastructures, training systems, evaluation methods, and strategic planning activities to accommodate community input. The department also must engage community members by soliciting their opinions, building trust, fostering relationships, participating in community groups, and developing programs that allow citizens to actively assist in policing responsibilities. For example, police officers might establish or join a parent-teacher association or other neighborhood organization, form a task force with residents to solve a particular problem, or invite citizens to sit on an internal board, such as an advisory group or a research and development team.

After readying the infrastructure to support community involvement, the department must identify community organizations that reflect the varied interests and concerns in the jurisdiction and that represent the full range of characteristics and behavior patterns in the region. To do this, the department should obtain a list of registered organizations and groups from a state or local corporations commission, city hall, or the courthouse. Organizations with a viable track record and, at a minimum, neighborhood-level membership, could be selected for further consideration.

The next step would be to obtain a complete description of the community from official records available to police departments and other local government agencies. This includes features such as racial composition; children living under the poverty level; the homeless, elderly and gay populations; gang membership; public housing residents; and other relevant features. Matching this information with the list of organizations will yield a selection of groups that represent the community and include a complete range of interests.

Third, the department should conduct a needs assessment to identify the most pressing problems in the community, the perceived obstacles and tensions that exist, and the proposed resolutions and strategies. The assessment should include input from the groups selected, the department staff, the mayor, school administrators, youth leaders, and other community representatives.

The assessment also should include an inventory of community strengths. Rather than focusing only on the risk factors and problems that plague a neighborhood, identifying assets enables the police and their coalition to develop an inventory of key residents, associations, and institutions from which to build relationships and partnerships. These assets serve as protective factors; that is, they improve residents' resistance to risk factors. Protective factors may include extended family situations, availability of apprentice-type jobs, social cohesion, stability in housing arrangements, or the presence of strong neighborhood groups.

This prevention framework, or asset-based strategy,(1) defines both risk and protective factors in a target area in order to direct the problem-solving capacities of relevant players. This way, officers do not start from scratch; they can tap into existing resources, no matter how high risk the neighborhood appears. Through this assessment, police and other agencies become intimately familiar with the community. They have the knowledge at hand to engage community leaders and solve prevailing public safety problems.

Proactive Approaches

Proactive approaches represent the second principle of the comprehensive care model. Rather than simply reacting to a crime that has already been committed, police officers attempt to identify conditions that generate criminal activity. The ultimate goal of comprehensive care is to reduce crime and disorder by carefully examining the nature and extent of neighborhood conditions that contribute to these maladies and then create and apply appropriate remedies. Individuals and groups are affected in different ways by problems and have different ideas about solving them. For this reason, problem-solving initiatives must be innovative and focused. They must represent a coordinated effort by the police, the community, and other players, including policy makers.

Problem-solving approaches involve several steps. First, the community partners must identify the problems and priorities in their neighborhoods by conducting surveys; analyzing crime patterns, trends, and offender behaviors; holding community meetings; establishing task forces; and familiarizing themselves with the many causes of crime. Second, the police should pinpoint the "hot spots," areas where crime and its underlying problems are most concentrated. Third, the partners should develop, or tailor from other sources, innovative solutions with the highest potential for eliminating or reducing the problems. Once implemented, these solutions must be evaluated and modified, if necessary. Objective evaluation requires collecting data before and after the remedies are implemented.

Comprehensive Strategies

Third, the comprehensive care model calls for comprehensive strategies. Crime prevention programs work best when addressed by a multidisciplinary team of individuals capable of thoroughly assessing the problem and offering solutions. For example, a community experiencing problems with youth handgun activity would need to pool the expertise of school administrators, teachers, parents, police, medical and psychological professionals, community organizations, juvenile services, and district attorneys. Only in this way can the underlying problems of juveniles who carry handguns - which may include anything from a psychological or psychiatric disorder to the presence of child abuse or a lack of supervision - be thoroughly addressed.

In Oregon, for instance, programs exist to prevent juvenile conduct disorders that often lead to delinquency and drug abuse. Previous efforts had yielded positive, yet short-lived, results. These programs helped children in only one or two problem areas. For example, an intervention that improved the children's relationships with their parents may not have overcome problems at school. To address a broader scope of problems, program designers have developed an approach that works with troubled youngsters at home, in class, and on the playground. Called Universal Interventions, the program involves parents and schools in a wide range of activities, including skill and academic development, parenting techniques, conflict resolution, supervision, and a variety of other techniques that target the multiproblem lifestyles of many youngsters with conduct disorders.

While this program does not specifically include police, similar strategies can be employed by including local government and the police to expand the support network. The School Resource Officer (SRO) program, for example, offers a great deal of promise. An SRO integrated into the fabric of a school's administration can link school-age children with their community and local government, as well as provide essential services and referrals to their families. Research shows that this approach can prevent both drug abuse and school violence and channel students' activities in productive ways.(2)

Another comprehensive effort began in Washington, DC, as an effort to reduce violence among inner-city youth. Known as the Howard University Violence Prevention Project, the program creates a safety net and provides legitimate options for at-risk children, as well as encouraging identification with a value system that will protect against prevailing social risk factors. Integral to this strategy is a team approach that involves parents, teachers, mental health professionals, business owners, and local police.

The police component of the project, called the Youth Trauma Team, serves as an excellent example of community policing. Along with psychologists, the police respond to violent incidents that occur at night. They talk to children who have been a part of or have witnessed violence. The following day, they link youngsters with services as needed. Police officers receive training in conflict resolution, cultural sensitivity, and crisis deescalation. They also have networked or partnered extensively with existing services in their community in a multidisciplinary team effort to provide comprehensive care.

Although these programs all focus on youth, the comprehensive care model is designed to meet the unique needs of every community. By joining forces with a wide range of partners, an agency can address the problems that concern its citizens. Moreover, a truly comprehensive effort requires that conventional boundaries expand between offices, agencies, and seemingly distant parties in the community. All parties involved must recognize their overlapping roles and common objectives. Turf building, territoriality, competition, budgetary battles, vested interests, and the like must be put aside in order to work collaboratively. The comprehensive care model does not simply entail enhanced communication; it can only work when its principles are applied systemically and previously established boundaries are comfortably expanded. Traditionally, the parties sign a memorandum of understanding to identify the exact roles and responsibilities of each and to avoid confusion and disagreement later.

THE REWARDS OF COMPREHENSIVE CARE

The return on investment for comprehensive care programs promises to be substantial. In addition to the immediate effects on the neighborhood environment, the use of community policing officers in a comprehensive care capacity can prove cost-effective for the criminal justice system and society at large. There are fewer court cases because fewer incidents make it that far; officers handle many cases at the street level. The cases that do go to trial are better prepared because officers can draw information from their established community partnerships. They also know offenders better, and as a result, offenders receive more fitting sentences and may possibly avoid prison. A reduced need for correctional facilities and training schools (once called reform schools) could provide significant savings. For those who face imprisonment, an aftercare component, sometimes called reintegrative policing,(3) can identify inmates in need of services and provide sufficient community resources to help them make a smooth transition back to the community and make positive lifestyle changes.

Additional cost savings may come from a decreased need for health care, as fewer crime victims need treatment. There also may be a reduced need for psychological and educational services to deal with the trauma associated with witnessing violence and the academic difficulties that hamper the children of criminal offenders. Finally, fewer cases would involve law enforcement, legal and judicial systems, and social services. Indeed, the financial and personal costs of managing entrenched delinquent and criminal behavior are astronomical compared to the costs of comprehensive care programs designed to prevent their onset.

CONCLUSION

For a crime prevention strategy to have long-term effects on reducing criminal behavior and improving the quality of life, community members must work hand in hand with local government to identify underlying problems and devise solutions through cooperative problem-solving activities. In the past, the police have shied away from duties that many of them viewed as the responsibility of social workers. Yet, today's community policing officers have the unique advantage of having direct access to individuals in need and having experiential knowledge of the problems that plague these individuals. Although administrators may need to rethink their organizational philosophies to promote partnerships, proactive problem solving, comprehensive strategies, and community engagement, the principles behind a community policing philosophy apply easily to the comprehensive care model.

Experts have linked criminal behavior to a variety of causes, including social disorder and isolation, a lack of resources and alternatives, and an inadequate support network.(4) A concerted and comprehensive effort by all members of the community can minimize the risks and increase resiliency and, in turn, may help to prevent crime.

Endnotes

1 S. Stout, J. Sushinsky, M. Davila, A. Ross, and J. Harris, "Mapping the Course for Community Building," Montgomery County Prevention Coalition Forum, Johns Hopkins Center, Rockville, Maryland, October 1996.

2 J. Klopovic, J. McDaniel, B. Sullivan, M. L. Vasu, and E. S. Vasu, Preventing School Violence by Helping Communities Help Children: School Resource Officers: An Analysis Overview, North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission, 1994; J. McDaniel, B. Sullivan, E. S. Vasu, and M. L. Vasu, Starting a School Outreach Program in Your Community: An Effective Practices Outline for the School Resource Officer Approach, North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission, 1995. For additional information, contact James Corbin, executive director, National Association of School Resource Officers, 4222 Old Dominion Road, Orlando, FL 32812.

3 S. Guarino-Ghezzi, "Reintegrative Policing: A Model for Urban Juvenile Offenders," Corrections Today, December 1994, 141-153; and K. P. Haggerty, E. A. Wells, J. M. Jenson, R. F. Catalano, and J. D. Hawkins, "Delinquents and Drug Use: A Model Program for Community Reintegration," Adolescence, XXIV (94), 1989, 439-456.

4 L. Krivo and R. D. Peterson, "Extremely Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Urban Crime," paper presented at the 47th annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Boston, MA, 1995.

Dr. Fishbein is a research scientist at the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program of the University of Maryland in Greenbelt.