74 3 Police and Law Enforcement—C'ivil ForeiisicsHowever, the 1980s saw the rise of community policing. Despite the ambiguity
of this concept, common themes are mentioned by Rosenbaum (1988), which in-
clude "an emphasis on improving the number and quality of police—citizen contacts,
a broader definition of'legitimate' police work, decentralization of the police bu-
reaucracy, and a greater emphasis on proactive problem-solving strategies" (p. 334).
Typically, this approach has been utilized in specialized units and within specific
police districts. It has yet to be implemented depar.tmentwide throughout a large
police organization (Rosenbaum & Lurigio, 1994).
According to Cordner (1997), community policing has become the dominant
strategy of policing in the 1990s. In fact, the 1994 Crime Bill mandated that 100,000
newly funded police officers must be involved in community policing. However,
Cordner points out the difficulty of producing reliable knowledge regarding the
effectiveness of community policing. He maintains that most community policing
studies have considerable research design limitations that include lack of control
groups, nonrandom treatments, and the tendency to only measure short-term ef-
fects. While very few studies have used experimental designs and victimization
surveys to evaluate the effect of community policing on crime, many studies have
utilized before-after comparisons and single-item victimization questions taken
from community surveys (Cordner, 1997). Due to methodological limitations, re-
searchers argue that credible evaluations of this approach do not exist, leaving police
officers, citizens, and forensic psychologists to debate whether community policing
works.
Although the results are mixed, the fear of crime and calls for service are reduced
due to the police-citizen contact with community policing (Cordner, 1997). In ad-
dition, the overwhelming number of studies suggest that community relations are
improved. Residents in Sandra's neighborhood need to obtain a better perception
of the police in order to create a productive alliance. According to Skogan (1994).
9 of 14 areas in six cities using community policing demonstrated improvement in
the community's perception of the police. In addition, seven areas had a decrease
in the fear of crime, six areas reduced their perceptions of neighborhood disorder,
and victimization rates were lower in three areas. Critics maintain that these re-
sults should be viewed with caution as they only represent short-term results and
questionable methodologies.
Studies investigating officers' job satisfaction have generally shown positive re-
sults. However, these results do not represent long-term effects or all officers, just
those in specialized units (Cordner, 1997). Conflict between officers in these spe-
cialized units and those in the rest of the department has been consistently found.
Research indicates that many officers who are not working in a substation or on
another beat utilizing community policing view these assignments as social work
rather than as real police work (Rosenbaum & Lurigio, 1994). T. M.Joseph (1994)
maintains that the collapse of social institutions such as the deterioration of the
traditional family structure, the lack of affordable housing and health care, and the