Confronting Community Policing : Minimizing Community Policing as Public Relations

The process of community policing as public relations has a series of causes and effects that are detrimental both to the police, and constituencies they serve and protect. This process subsumes three interrelated interpretations: more energy is expended on public relations efforts promoting community policing than in the implementation of actual community policing programs; public relations methods to promote community policing are used instead of implementing community policing initiatives; and the practice of community policing is simply a public relations exercise. In this chapter, the author reviews the literature and evidence that support the position that community policing is a manifestation of all three interpretations of the relationship between community policing and public relations; explains how community policing is implemented as a public relations tactic; posits some of the effects of community policing as public relations; and, suggests a number of strategies to minimize community policing as public relations, in order to maximize what the framers community policing conceived that it would achieve