Community Attitudes regarding Police Responsibility for Crime Control
| Date | 01 October 1996 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X9606900407 |
| Author | Richard C. Lumb |
| Published date | 01 October 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
RICHARD C. LUMB, Ph.D.
Director, Research, Strategic Planning
and
Crime Analysis,
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, North Carolina, USA
COMMUNITY ATTITUDES
REGARDING POLICE
RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIME
CONTROL
Introduction
The current concept of community problem-solving policing has emerged
during the past decade, based on shared police-citizen responsibility for
crime control and order maintenance with emphasis on crime prevention,
shared effort in solving neighbourhood and community problems, and
improvement in the public's willingness to cooperate with the police.
Determining what constitutes public acceptance of this concept is
difficult. Packer (1968) describes crime control as falling into one of two
conflicting paradigms which delineate two different methods of managing
deviant behaviour. On the one hand, crime control is an efficiency
oriented model that assumes freedom from crime is so important that
every effort must be made to suppress criminal behaviour. The goal is
to arrest law violators, determine their guilt, and apply appropriate
punishment. The system is regarded as an assembly line where the
accused enter the system via police action and are processed through by
the other components in an efficient and effective manner. On the other
hand, the due process model places emphasis on the rights of the accused
during their movement through the system.
The American system of justice emphasized the crime control model
(Peak, 1993). Applying Packer's definition, crime control is defined as
the efficient apprehension and prosecution of law violaters for the
purpose of imposing a fitting punishment on those who are found guilty
of the alleged offence. Historically, the law enforcement community has
stated that crime control calls for professional skills, which by design,
has excluded the public from this process. Suddenly, we are told the
public must share theresponsibility for controlling crime and maintaining
safe neighbourhoods.
Public acceptance of shared responsibility signifies awillingness of
the citizenry to accept some portion of the responsibility of crime control.
When used in combination with community policing this extends the
meaning from a mere concept to include active participation. The public
must be willing to empower themselves by actively engaging in the
criminal justice process, utilizing a cooperative partnership with the
police as the means to achieve this. Active participation by citizens, with
the police, to reduce the incidence of crime is an essential element of
October 1996 The Police Journal 319
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