The Politics of Community Policing: The Case of Seattle

Community policing is "personalized policing" that involves the same officer patrolling the same areas on a permanent basis, operating from a decentralized ministation and working with citizens to identify and solve crime problems. Despite widespread public support for police department decentralization, permanent assignments, and the development of citizen/police partnerships with local communities, the issue remains a controversial one. Community policing necessarily requires a radical transformation of what police have traditionally done. Full adoption of community policing involves substantial organizational change, including the leveling of the bureaucratic hierarchy, and, unsurprisingly, there is considerable resistance to such changes within police departments. This book is an examination of the development of community policing in Seattle, Washington. Exploring the processes of legitimation, urban politics, and micro-organization, the author shows how one police department negotiated both the internal and external political pressures to create community policing -- and the level of success attained.