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Community Policing and Zero-Tolerance Policing: Definitions, History, and Strategies
Criminology · Chapter 19: Policing in AmericaSection 19.4 · lesson 81 of 91video coming soon
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In this lesson
4 strategies, the assumptions behind them, and what the evidence shows.
- Describe community policing and its core components.
- Explain order maintenance, zero-tolerance, and the theory behind them.
- Distinguish hot spots policing and focused deterrence.
- Compare the models on assumptions, evidence, and costs.
Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,479 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
Which Strategy Fits a Distrustful Neighborhood
A neighborhood has heavy disorder complaints and very little trust in the police. Which strategy should the chief choose? Few debates in policing are as heated as the one over how police should approach a neighborhood. This lesson compares four strategies, and keeps their evidence honest.
Roadmap
Four Strategies and Their Assumptions
We begin with community policing and its three components, and with problem-oriented policing as a method. Then we turn to order maintenance policing and the broken windows hypothesis behind it. We separate zero-tolerance policing from order maintenance, since the two are often confused. We weigh the mixed evidence and the documented costs of intensive enforcement. Then we add hot spots policing and focused deterrence. Finally, we ask what each model assumes about the causes of crime.
Definition
Three Components of Community Policing
Community policing is defined by three components. Partnership means building collaborative relationships with the people and organizations in the areas police serve. Problem solving means addressing the underlying conditions behind recurring calls, so the department works on causes, not isolated incidents. Organizational transformation means restructuring the department itself, so it actually supports the first two components. That includes training, evaluation criteria, and decentralized decision-making. Here is the key observation: the community policing label is frequently applied to programs containing only the first component, outreach and relationship-building. They lack the problem solving and organizational change that the full model requires. That gap between label and model will matter when we read the evidence.
Method
Four Stages of Problem-Oriented Policing
Problem-oriented policing turns the problem-solving component into a structured method, often described in four stages. Scanning identifies recurring problems, rather than isolated incidents. Analysis examines the underlying conditions that produce the problem. Response develops and carries out an intervention aimed at those conditions, not only the individual incidents. Each stage feeds the next, so a weak analysis produces a poorly targeted response. Assessment evaluates whether the response actually reduced the problem, and if it did not, the process loops back to scanning. That final stage makes the method self-correcting, rather than a one-time fix. This is a method, not any specific program, and its application can vary considerably depending on the problem it is applied to.
Evidence
Why Community Policing Evidence Is Mixed
The evidence on community and problem-oriented policing should be described honestly. Findings vary considerably with implementation quality. Across evaluations, a consistent pattern appears: fear of crime and satisfaction with police improve more consistently than crime rates. So these approaches reliably improve public perception and relationships, even where effects on measured crime are harder to detect. Organizational transformation is the component most often left out, for identifiable reasons. It requires the deepest change, touching training, promotion and evaluation criteria, and decision-making authority. Partnership, by contrast, can be added through outreach layered on top of otherwise unchanged practice. That omission helps explain the mixed evidence. A program carrying the label, without real transformation, is not fully testing the model the label claims to represent.
Hypothesis
Broken Windows and Order Maintenance
Subchapter fifteen point three introduced the broken windows hypothesis. It proposes that visible disorder signals reduced social control, and can set in motion a sequence toward more serious crime. It is important to state this accurately: it is a hypothesis about a causal sequence, not a settled finding. The proposed sequence runs from visible disorder, to reduced informal social control. Next comes a perception that the area has been abandoned by conventional authority, and finally, an increase in serious crime. Each step in that chain is a separate empirical claim, and each can be tested. Order maintenance policing is the applied strategy built on this hypothesis. It means consistent police attention to low-level disorder, intended to interrupt the sequence before it reaches serious crime.
Diagram
The Proposed Disorder-to-Crime Sequence
Let's draw the proposed sequence as four steps. Visible disorder leads to reduced informal social control. Reduced control leads to a perception of abandonment. And perceived abandonment leads to serious crime. Two of these links rest on the most contested evidence. The first is the link from disorder to reduced informal control. The second is the final link, from perceived abandonment to serious crime. If either link fails, the strategy's rationale weakens, even if the other steps hold.
Distinction
Zero Tolerance Is Not Order Maintenance
Zero-tolerance policing is a distinct and more aggressive strategy. It emphasizes strict, uniform enforcement of minor violations, with little discretion for leniency. In public discussion, it is frequently conflated with order maintenance policing, but the two are conceptually distinct. Order maintenance is built around consistent attention to disorder, as a signal of reduced social control. Zero-tolerance is built around strict, uniform enforcement as a strategy in its own right. It does not depend on any particular theory of how disorder causes serious crime. Keeping them separate matters, because a department can adopt either one without the other. And evidence about one is not evidence about the other.
Research Findings
A Mixed Picture and Confounding Trends
Research on these approaches presents a genuinely mixed picture. Some studies have found crime reductions associated with order maintenance strategies in specific settings. Other studies of similar strategies have not found comparable effects. And some influential early findings have not been consistently replicated in later research. A serious methodological difficulty runs through this literature: it is hard to separate the effect of the strategy from concurrent changes. A strategy adopted while crime is already falling, for other reasons, can look more effective than it really is. Isolating its independent contribution requires a research design that accounts for those trends. Not every study in this literature achieves that.
Costs
Documented Costs of Intensive Enforcement
Order maintenance and zero-tolerance strategies also carry documented costs. The first is a community relations cost: intensive enforcement of minor violations can strain relationships between police and the community. The second is a legitimacy cost, examined in Subchapter nineteen point one. It arises when residents see enforcement as unfair or inconsistently applied. The third is concentrated enforcement contact on particular populations. These strategies can be applied more intensively in some neighborhoods, and against some groups, than others. That raises the same disparity questions discussed in Subchapter seven point two. Any honest evaluation of these strategies has to count these costs alongside any crime effects.
Quick Check
Identify the Graffiti Strategy
Quick check. A department has officers clear graffiti, break up rowdy late-night groups, and get broken lights fixed. Its stated aim is to stop small disorder from growing into serious crime. Which strategy is this? Pause, and decide. Order maintenance. It targets low-level disorder because of a theory about where disorder leads; zero tolerance needs no such theory.
Comparison
Community Policing Versus Order Maintenance
Now, let's compare four strategies, two at a time. Community policing assumes partnership and problem solving reduce crime and build trust. Its evidence shows fear and satisfaction improving more than crime, and its cost is heavy resources and frequent incomplete implementation. Order maintenance assumes unaddressed disorder enables serious crime. Its evidence is mixed, and its costs fall on community relations and legitimacy.
Comparison
Zero Tolerance Versus Hot Spots
Zero-tolerance assumes strict, uniform enforcement deters offending generally. Its evidence is mixed and hard to separate from concurrent trends, and it concentrates enforcement contact. Hot spots policing assumes crime concentrates at specific, identifiable places. Its evidence is comparatively well supported, with possible displacement as its main cost.
Place-Based Strategy
Hot Spots and Focused Deterrence
Hot spots policing is a distinct, place-based strategy. It rests on the finding that crime concentrates at a relatively small number of specific locations. Police attention is focused on those identified high-activity places. It has comparatively stronger evidence across multiple studies, while raising the displacement question from Subchapter six point one. And it is compatible with either approach, partnership-oriented or enforcement-oriented, at the chosen locations. Focused deterrence, introduced in Subchapter ten point six, is another alternative. It targets an identified group linked to a disproportionate share of serious violence. It combines clear communication about consequences with access to support services, rather than broad enforcement.
Police Roles
What Each Model Implies for Officers
Each model also implies a police role. Community policing casts police as partners, order maintenance as a consistent presence, zero-tolerance as uniform enforcers, and hot spots as allocators of attention.
Practice
Genuine Programs Versus Label-Only Versions
Let's sort programs into genuine community policing and label-only versions. Restructuring training, evaluation, and decisions alongside outreach is genuine. So is applying the scanning-to-assessment method, decentralizing authority, and rewarding problem solving in promotion. Adding only an outreach officer, renaming a patrol unit, holding meetings with no follow-up, or handing out leaflets uses only the label.
Working Backward
What a Crime-Only Evaluation Misses
Now work backward: crime fell, but complaints about police treatment rose sharply. What did a crime-only evaluation most likely leave unmeasured? Pause, and decide. Most likely, public trust: a crime-only evaluation leaves the legitimacy cost unmeasured, even as complaints climb.
Back to the Case
Trade-Offs for the Distrustful District
Now back to the opening case: a district with heavy disorder complaints and very low trust. Order maintenance targets the disorder directly, but risks deepening the legitimacy problem. Partnership and problem solving build trust more reliably, but with less certain crime effects, and real resource demands. That is the trade-off the department faces.
Key Takeaways
Components, Hypotheses, Evidence, and Costs
Let's pull it together. Community policing needs partnership, problem solving, and transformation. Broken windows is a hypothesis, and zero tolerance is a different strategy. Evidence is mixed, and the costs are real. Hot spots has comparatively stronger evidence.
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