Community Policing: Restoring Justice?

Community policing, the new term for problem-solving, accountable to community policing, now the dominant paradigm of policing in the United States is rapidly becoming a preferred policy of policing internationally. This policing approach has been employed in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, India, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Malawi, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, South Africa, Trinidad, Zambia—and more.

Multiple policing practices which are essentially anti-bureaucratic, decentralized, responsive to the public, attentive to crime prevention and problem-solving have become known as "community policing." The theory and method followed early disparate practices. Although many suggest that this approach is essentially a return to earlier forms of policing, some argue that this represents a heightened stage of the modern evolution of policing. Nonetheless, begun in various jurisdictions in the United States and quickly embraced by the National Institute of Justice, this style of policing has rapidly replaced previous types of policing activity in the United States to the level that more than 85 percent of the US population is now served by some type of community policing force.

But important questions need to be asked. How will this new paradigm of policing survive export? How does community policing fit for the special challenges of policing divided societies? And importantly, is community policing congruent with or contradictory to principles of restorative justice?

Community policing differs from recent traditional American policing in its goals, accountability mechanisms, processes, and values. American policing until the late 1980's operated as an arm of the justice system concerned with crime solving, apprehension of law breakers and the promotion of law and order. The organizations were accountable to the executive branch of government, often shaped by political processes and sentiments. Organizationally, police departments valued authority, loyalty, efficiency, managerial and technical competence. This new approach to policing took hold at a time in the US when fear of crime continued to climb, while the crime rate leveled off and then receded.

A new or renewed focus on developing knowledge about and relationship with neighborhoods and communities emerged. This new approach to policing highlighted the importance of knowing the community, not just to solve crimes, but to actively prevent crime and to solve social problems that are associated with crime. Community policing was to promote a heightened quality of life. Accountability broadened to include sanction from representatives of the community and its various interests. Acceptance required more transparency in police operations, openness in communication, and values that supported these new structures and processes. Perhaps most importantly, the community policing philosophy necessitated values change that included respect for diversity, power sharing, collaboration and problem-solving.

But how does this fit with restorative justice, another emerging paradigm in the US justice system? Restorative justice emerged from the victims’ rights movements and very early approaches to offender rehabilitation, but ultimately reject punitive, retributive policy and practice to embrace peacemaking and meeting human needs. Restorative justice approaches seek to make whole the victims of crime but also to assist offenders in restoring their humanity, lost too in the process of crime. Restorative justice approaches move beyond the individuals affected by crime, to include understanding of the structural aspects of society and communities that create harm and foster violence. Restorative justice is an active, collaborative strategy to promote human well-being and equality, as well as prevent injury and harm.

The Risks

Although there may appear similarities in the values of both community policing and restorative justice there are significant challenges to integrating the philosophies of each in practice. Can community policing truly promote just and equitable change and community control? A primary question for critical criminologists is whether it is possible for agents of the state to challenge the state, especially when the state apparatus of criminal justice is retributive and punitive. From this vantage point, it is theoretically impossible for community policing to be restorative as the state itself promotes the interests of the powerful and does not challenge the structural basis of inequality, structural violence or and the lack of attention to meeting human needs. In practice, if the focus of community policing is on new approaches to offender apprehension, leaving the offender to be processed through a punitive criminal justice system, this cannot be restorative.

A most provocative challenge to community policing is that this is a new means to regulate the poor and promote a self-feeding state mechanism of social control. With greater community trust and opportunities for surveillance, police have greater ability to identify then "solve crime," arrest, then process defendants through the criminal justice system, and when offenders return to the community, monitor, and begin the process again. Even without employing formal mechanisms of arrest, community police control behaviors and shape attitudes. Some critics of community policing argue that it is essentially a process of postindustrial apartheid.

Community policing may be anti-community in another way. In practice, police engagement with the community is focused on "the law abiding community" which segments, isolates and labels members of communities rather than promotes a true, inclusive community. Many members of minority communities are already suspicious and distrustful of police. Police are not uniformly respected or seen as positive resources in all communities. In divided societies police are often seen as representative of illegitimate power or state corruption. In some communities in US they are seen as tools of the oppressive state. Police action may be contrary to community building for arrests and incarceration rates are not associated with lower crime rates or safety in neighborhoods. Rather higher arrest and incarceration rates are associated with decreased levels of participation in and attachment to community.

Whether intended or unintended consequences of the policies and practices, inequality may be the result. Community policing focuses specifically on partnering with the business community, which continues to bolster the interests of the propertied classes. Community policing may help the middle class more than the poor, and thus reinforce structural inequalities rather than promoting justice. In the US the federal government has directed millions of dollars to local community policing efforts. Many of the beneficiaries are suburban police departments and departments with similarly relatively low crime rates. Ironies abound in this situation, an example of which are university police departments which have access to many more police personnel and equipment per capita despite a relatively peaceful and safe environment, compared with the police resources available for their urban neighbors.

Community policing may ultimately detract from true restorative justice principles that seek to address the full range of human needs. Community policing is expensive, often added on to existing police functions. It does not necessarily create safer communities. In some locations, it may be more form than substance. Change can merely be "window-dressing" with public relations taking a major role in the transformations of some departments. Community policing has new sources of legitimacy and funding, but will the emphasis on this detract from meeting other human needs? Are we spending more on policing at the expense of other human needs and services, such as schools, social services, or health care, that directly promote community and have the potential to empower and challenge structural violence?

A final practical and ethical incongruity of community policing with restorative justice, is that the latter fits more with the social welfare institution in society than the social control apparatus. Requiring the police to take on the dual role of social control and social welfare agent raises concerns regarding the protection of civil and human rights, the adequacy of police training to problem solve, advocate, mobilize, and be culturally competent, and the ability of a person in such dual role to be effective in each. We may only review the difficulties faced by child welfare workers who play similar dual roles.

The Promise

But there is potential for the integration of community policing principles with the most idealistic visions of restorative justice. There is evidence that policing has, at least in some areas, become less coupled with the state and truly more democratic. The capacity for this democratization is enhanced as policing is often administered at the local level distinct from other aspects of justice systems. As an element of the new civil society approach to revising the relationship between government and a populace, community policing can play a central role. It can promote the values of civil society such as democracy, voice, access, transparency, and accountability to community. To the extent that community policing can be preventive of harm, it moves beyond the notion of crime to address the realization of human needs. To the extent that community policing is culturally competent, directed by communities, and inclusive it may be truly restorative. Some of its greatest potential may be seen from global perspectives, especially as it is applied to divided societies or communities in conflict.

Policing in divided societies presents special challenges—policing is more partisan, less accountable to multiple communities and interests, and often rife with abuse. The introduction of community policing in its ideal form could make the police accountable to community bodies, removing or reducing direct partisan involvement, promote engagement even with those most alienated, and require the tone, language, and behaviors of respect for multiple communities which may lead to greater understanding by police and greater access to safety by residents. In some areas this may mean replacing paramilitary policing with civil order. The term "community policing" in the Northern Ireland context had meant beatings and shootings by paramilitary groups in order to control deviant behaviors within neighborhoods where residents refrained from employing state police. Community policing by the Police Service of Northern Ireland has not yet eliminated paramilitary policing but it is attempting to develop the linkages and trust necessary through recruitment of minorities, new community relationships and accountability mechanisms.

Community policing may also introduce new human rights standards and accountability mechanisms into police services. With a new focus on accountability to people in a community, the approach requires a move away from managerial policing with its veneer of equality and bureaucratic rationality. Community policing can address the crimes and problems felt by the community—not necessarily those that administrators see as problematic. A component of the new ethos of policing required by community policing standards is to hold police accountable for misdeeds.

In Northern Ireland a police ombudsman office can investigate complaints about police misconduct and police policies and practices. In Sierra Leone citizens are encouraged to expect the police to be a "force for good" and to report corruption and abuse.
Global community policing practices may in fact be community building and supportive of restorative justice principles. Offenders and victims are brought together to resolve problems rather than employ punitive responses or to use formal mechanisms of control that isolate and label. In Malawi, community police officers are taught mediation skills to help parties understand the causes of conflicts and reach mutual solution to problems. In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu following sectarian violence, community policing was employed to mobilize neighborhood and community organizations to promote peace and harmony in the emotionally charged atmosphere following the killing of dozens people. The ostracism and divisions of the past may even begin to mend. Amid controversy in Northern Ireland, former prisoners (convicted felons) are now allowed to serve on community policing regional boards, "district police partnerships."

Community policing certainly poses new dilemmas if it is to be truly an equitable, empowering and accountable justice mechanism. As the first contact with a punitive and oppressive justice system police practices may replicate social inequalities. It may preclude meeting other vital human needs. Yet in many communities, perhaps especially for those in conflict, police as state actors, can play roles to insure safety and promote peace. Police can become more democratic and accountable agents of civil society and be elements of a restorative justice system.

by Margaret E. Martin (Eastern Connecticut State University, Connecticut, USA)