The Community Problem-Solving Era

In the beginning policing was considered the civic duty of members of a community. These “drafted” officers were not paid or trained. Appointed Sheriffs were motivated by money, and lost focus on enforcing the law. This began to change as did society, and industrialism. Urbanization brought with it a rise in crime, causing police to shift towards a more proactive approach to law enforcement. Police agencies have evolved since the early 1600’s to become a highly organized group that strives for crime prevention, preservation of citizen’s rights and professionalism. The 1970s started a new era in policing known as the Community Problem-Solving Era. This era is characterized by the authority coming from the support of the community, law, and professionalism. A broad range of services provided a better hold on crime control in the community. Having a decentralized organization gave more authority to patrol officers and let them become more intimate with their community relationships. This era increased the use of foot patrols and an increased knowledge of problem-solving. Law enforcement became more concerned over citizen satisfaction. Today, it is known as Community Policing. Its basis is simply trying to work with the community to identify its problems and fixing them before they escalate or lead to crime. Community policing is far different than any other philosophy seen in policing. Community based policing provides hope for the future of law enforcement.

In the late 70s, the communities had become a diverse pool of nationalities, subcultures, and attitudes. People identified themselves as parts of separate groups and at times the police was not part of what they called “us”. During this time, a burst of new ideas and changes in the sociopolitical and economic structure began to occur, that would eventually bring about a new kind of police officer (Gaffigan, 1994) police leaders felt the need to reflect on these problems and their overall image with the public. In their attempts to understand what was going wrong, many studies and experiments were sponsored. One of them, the Kansas Study proved that, no matter how many police officers are devoted to random patrolling, there is no effect on the actual crime rate (Peak, 2009).

The government had recognized the problems of crime fighting and the problems of police and community relations as far back as 1967. However, it took years later for that idea of a "new kind of police officer" to develop and this has provided a whole new model for policing. It’s an evolutionary philosophy that attempts to refocus the essence of policing that tries to do two things: bring police officers and citizens together in neighborhoods, and give the police responsibility for solving problems in the community (Allender 2004). This new policing ideal incorporates into two elements: community partnership and problem solving. These two elements are the cores of the policing strategy