Community oriented public safety: the Long Beach experience

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Jan, 2006 by Cynthia Renaud, Anthony Batts

As policing continues into the 21st century, agencies worldwide plot uncharted courses in their search to provide the enduring core services expected of police organizations: reducing and preventing crime in communities. In this regard, most departments now know the community oriented public safety (COPS) philosophy, a concept that evolved out of the order maintenance theory of the 1980s and community policing concepts of the 1990s. (1) It relies upon partnerships and communication between officers and citizens. However, agencies in large urban areas--where, perhaps, the police force can number 1,500 and the citizens 500,000--find these relationships difficult to cultivate. This problem compounds itself when the city has a high level of police activity that keeps its officers in response mode. Patrol officers in such areas continually address calls for service and detectives handle exorbitantly high case loads.

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The city of Long Beach, California, serves as an example. But, in spite of the obstacles, its police department, in a quest to better customer service, reduce crime, and improve quality of life, has been successfully integrating the COPS philosophy at all levels of the organization. COPS provides a way for the Long Beach Police Department to maximize resources through partnerships with community residents and other stakeholders to provide long-term problem solving, sustain neighborhoods, and reduce crime.

CHANGE

A recent survey of Long Beach residents identified what they thought about their police department, how safe they felt in their communities, and what issues they considered most important. The top six problems, in rank order, were 1) unkempt neighborhoods, 2) drugs, 3) graffiti, 4) gangs, 5) shootings, and 6) prostitution. (2) This ranking illustrates the importance of quality-of-life issues among communities. Further, it delineates the two concepts of being and feeling safe. Consistent with the broken windows theory, (3) citizens reported that an unkempt neighborhood with graffiti, trash strewn throughout the streets, and residents who do not take pride in their homes results in a feeling that illicit activity is afoot. Officers who can galvanize those citizens into action and help them form a community where they police their own quality-of-life issues have a measurable effect on the neighborhood and its crime rate.

Even though for years the Long Beach Police Department has focused efforts on community policing, these usually involved only a team of officers per patrol division who networked with neighborhood stakeholders and formed important relationships with citizens. As the agency continues to embrace the COPS philosophy, a main focus is institutionalizing its practices at all levels of the organization, as well as the city of Long Beach and the city prosecutor's office. By doing so, the department will reap the most benefits possible from line-level ownership of issues and collaborative problem solving among officers, civilian employees, other city departments, the city prosecutor's office, citizens, and businesses. The agency is accomplishing its move toward departmentwide COPS practices through structural changes, training courses with all employees, and a redirection of command staff focus to support efforts at the line level.

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Structural Revisions

While any organization finds structural changes painful, the Long Beach Police Department has benefited from its recent modifications. For instance, in recognizing the importance of attacking specific community problems in a multiprong approach, the city transferred its nuisance abatement officer from a position in city hall to one within the patrol bureau of the police department. Bringing this position into the agency's chain of command affords a quicker response to issues and a better ability to share information with street officers. Another move has involved decentralizing crime analysts from a main office downtown. Now, they work directly out of police divisions, helping officers review crime trends in their assigned areas and examine best practices for impacting those areas.

In addition, the Long Beach code enforcement and city prosecutor's offices have undergone organizational restructuring designed to emulate the four geographic police patrol divisions. A team of code enforcement personnel, including code enforcement inspectors and health inspectors, is assigned to each respective patrol division. The city prosecutor's office also has dedicated a deputy city prosecutor to each division. Now, problems, such as absentee landlords, vandalism, and drug sales, are addressed through a team approach.

To address one of the main concerns for Long Beach citizens--graffiti--the department's Gang Enforcement Section has dedicated two detectives to investigate these crimes. And, the agency has recently purchased computer software to track graffiti throughout the city. This software will provide a better, more efficient way to establish a comprehensive criminal case against vandals engaged in this activity. Further, it will provide the city prosecutor, or district attorney in more serious cases, with the evidence necessary to secure a conviction in these incidents of vandalism.