George Kelling and Mark Moore (2002) argue that American police agencies entered a new “community era” of policing over twenty years ago. Constant changes to the way police operate has been a constant theme from the beginning of policing history. Kelling and Moore (2002) examine the progression of police strategies in detail dividing them into three distinct eras: the political era, the reform era, and the community era. The community era emerged around the same time James Wilson and George Kelling (1982) proposed the “Broken Windows” theory linking disorder and incivility to subsequent occurrences of serious crime, a major implication of the community era’s organizational strategy. Wilson and Kelling’s (1982) theory influenced American policing
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In 1982 James Wilson and George Kelling published the Broken Windows theory that identified seemingly insignificant public disorder as major implications for violent crime. The theory was a metaphor to describe the concept that “if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken (Wilson & Kelling, 1982, pg. 377).” This theory built the framework for the community era strategy and its mission to build positive relationships with the neighborhoods and their residents (Walker and Katz, 2002). Community policing renewed faith in foot patrol, and implemented other tactics including information gathering, victim counseling, education, and other community organizing. Kelling and Moore (2002) referred to community policing as a strategy, rather than a tactic, because it relied on a complete organizational overthrow of the policing institution as a whole, rather than just an add-on to the classical theory of policing. Samuel Walker (1984) criticized Kelling and Moore (2002) claiming they were clinging onto a traditional theory of police, such as that during the political era, and it would lead to nothing but corruption. Community policing still had promise, especially with its emphasis on public feelings of safety, but it would be difficult to assess the extent of which the strategy would be implemented in a police agency. This rang true when the Federal government handed out grants to policing departments as an incentive to implement community policing. Some police agencies claimed to be a community-police oriented, but their claims were often hollow (Walker and Katz,
In 1982 James Wilson and George Kelling published the Broken Windows theory that identified seemingly insignificant public disorder as major implications for violent crime. The theory was a metaphor to describe the concept that “if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken (Wilson & Kelling, 1982, pg. 377).” This theory built the framework for the community era strategy and its mission to build positive relationships with the neighborhoods and their residents (Walker and Katz, 2002). Community policing renewed faith in foot patrol, and implemented other tactics including information gathering, victim counseling, education, and other community organizing. Kelling and Moore (2002) referred to community policing as a strategy, rather than a tactic, because it relied on a complete organizational overthrow of the policing institution as a whole, rather than just an add-on to the classical theory of policing. Samuel Walker (1984) criticized Kelling and Moore (2002) claiming they were clinging onto a traditional theory of police, such as that during the political era, and it would lead to nothing but corruption. Community policing still had promise, especially with its emphasis on public feelings of safety, but it would be difficult to assess the extent of which the strategy would be implemented in a police agency. This rang true when the Federal government handed out grants to policing departments as an incentive to implement community policing. Some police agencies claimed to be a community-police oriented, but their claims were often hollow (Walker and Katz,