Problem Solving in Practice - NCJRS

1 Research Department of JusticeOffice of Justice ProgramsNational Institute of JusticeProblem Solving in Practice :Implementing Community Policing in Department of JusticeOffice of Justice Programs810 Seventh Street , DC 20531 Janet RenoAttorney GeneralDaniel MarcusActing Associate Attorney GeneralMary Lou LearyAssistant Attorney GeneralJeremy TravisDirector, National Institute of JusticeOffice of Justice ProgramsNational Institute of JusticeWorld Wide Web SiteWorld Wide Web Site photographs copyright 1998 Digitalstock, and background photo 1994 PhotoDisc, Solving in Practice1 Problem Solving in Practice :Implementing Community Policing in ChicagoWesley G. Skogan, Susan M. Hartnett, Jill DuBois,Jennifer T. Comey, Marianne Kaiser, and Justine H. LovigInstitute for Policy ResearchNorthwestern UniversityApril 2000 NCJ 179556 Jeremy Travis, MockProject MonitorThis program was supported under award numbers 94 IJ CX 0046 and 95 IJ CX 0056 to Northwestern University by the National Institute of Justice,Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice.

2 Findings and conclusionsof the research reported here are those of the authors and do not necessarilyreflect the official position or policies of the Department of National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of JusticePrograms, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau ofJustice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,and the Office for Victims of Solving in PracticeIIIC ontentsSummary.. 1 Chicago s Problem - Solving Model.. 3 The Neighborhoods and Problem Solving .. 5 Measures of Problem - Solving capacity .. 7 Social and economic factors .. 10 Challenges to community policing effectiveness .. 12 Police Problem Solving .. 15 Rating the beats .. 15 Categorizing the Beats.. 21 Excellent programs: Solid leadership .. 21 Reasonable programs: Underdeveloped aspects .. 23 Struggling programs: Little meaningful Problem - Solving activity .. 23 Failing programs: Little implementation .. 24 Leadership Is Key.. 25 Community Capacity and Police Effectiveness.

3 27 Study findings: No direct association between community capacity and program implementation .. 27 Enhancing Program Implementation: Recommendations for the Future.. 31 Training.. 31 Knowledge bases .. 32 Self-assessment .. 32 Leadership capabilities.. 33 Suggested Reading.. 34 Notes.. 34iiiProblem Solving in PracticeSummaryThe Chicago Police Department has adopted a Problem -solvingapproach to crime and disorder the Chicago Alternative PolicingStrategy (CAPS) as part of a move toward community-orientedpolicing. With more than 16,600 employees, Chicago s police depart-ment is the second largest in the United States, serving nearly 3 mil-lion people and responding to calls over a 225-square-mile area. Thesize and complexity of the CAPS initiative have generated significantchanges in the department s structure and goals during a multiyearimplementation effort. NIJ has funded a long-term evaluation of thisorganizational transition. This report presents one aspect of the NIJevaluation the findings of a study conducted in a small sample ofbeats to determine howChicago s Problem - Solving model has actuallybeen implemented.

4 It is hoped this report will serve as a resource forpolice and civil leaders who are interested in moving beyond therhetoric of community policing and into the reality of making it studies are important because the policing field islittered with failed efforts to change police organizations. Translatingthe abstract concepts of community policing into day-to-day stepsthat police officers can follow is complicated, and motivating officersto follow those practical instructions is difficult. It is just as difficultto rebuild the collective efficacy of communities that have lost it andto involve residents of poor and previously disenfranchised neighbor-hoods in partnerships with the police. The Chicago study examinessuch issues in detail, isolating some of the factors that explainimplementation success and study beats were selected to reflect the diversity of the city andvaried greatly in their level of community involvement and their abil-ity to respond to local problems. To assess the capacity of these areasto help themselves through Problem Solving , residents were surveyed,neighborhood meetings were observed, and activists were study found that poor and internally divided beats experiencedgreater difficulty in translating their aspirations into Practice than didbetter-off and racially homogeneous areas.

5 Residents of higher capaci-ty areas were better at Solving their own problems and experienced far1 Implementing Community Policing in Chicago2fewer problems, turned out in greater numbers for beat meetings,and were more likely to become involved in a broad array of Problem - Solving efforts; also, neighborhood activists in these areas more accu-rately reflected the racial and class composition of the based on interviews with police of all ranks, observingofficers at work, attending staff meetings, studying police records, andinterviewing knowledgeable individuals indicated widely varyingimplementation of Problem Solving on the police side some beatsfielded excellent programs, and others made little progress. The studydata were used to rank the beats in terms of how closely their activi-ties corresponded to the department s plan. The evaluation found that the factor most closely associated with suc-cessful program implementation was effective leadership, particularlythe leadership of beat sergeants.

6 Influence on Problem Solving dimin-ished as rank increased the closer managers were to the field, themore their leadership counted. Although district commanders playedan important legitimizing role by providing visible support for the pro-gram, program acceptance was more varied at levels below them. Thebest beat sergeants pushed their officers to focus on the key problems,stressed Problem Solving , clarified the importance of following depart-ment protocols, held productive police beat meetings, and encouragedinnovative thinking and actions among team members. Moreover,the best sergeants expected their officers to support the program andworked hard to involve individuals in the community and to respondto their concerns. They kept track of issues raised at beat meetingsand ensured that something was done about this study, police efforts to involve the community in problemsolving were assessed independently of their success because thebeats varied significantly in their capacity to become organized andinvolved.

7 No direct association was found between community capaci-ty and program implementation. In addition, survey-based assessmentsof police service appeared to be unrelated to the actual quality ofpolicing, as observed in the the recommendations for enhancing program implementationis more training for beat officers, who find it difficult to translate theProblem Solving in Practiceabstract concept of Problem Solving into their daily routines. Chicagois also typical in needing to find ways to become more creative in itsproblem- Solving efforts by learning from its own experiences anddeveloping mechanisms ( , knowledge bases of successful prac-tice) to document recurring problems and effective solutions . The cityneeds to develop practical ways to measure and monitor the Problem - Solving efforts of units, teams, and individual officers and to assesstheir effectiveness. In addition, the department needs to develop aleadership cadre that effectively supports community-oriented prob-lem Solving from the level of street sergeants to the very top of theorganization, where managers must provide vision for the programand define the extent to which community-oriented work will be acentral report first summarizes Chicago s community-oriented programand then describes the Problem - Solving roles of both citizens andpolice.

8 It identifies some important obstacles affecting both citizeninvolvement in and police commitment to the program and presentsgeneral strategies for implementing a Problem - Solving approach basedon the Chicago observations. Additional details about Chicago sproblem- Solving program and the findings of this research may befound in the books and articles listed on page s Problem - Solving ModelThe Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy involves a significantexpansion of the police mandate. In Chicago s Problem - Solving modelfor policing, a Problem is defined as a group of related incidents oran ongoing situation that concerns a significant portion of those wholive or work in a particular area. A Problem is also persistent it isunlikely to disappear without active intervention of some magni-tude and must potentially be solved using police and communityresources, because not everything is within their power. A problemneed not be a serious criminal matter. Although dealing with crimeremains at the heart of the police mission, it was envisioned from thebeginning that the police mandate would coordinate responses to a3 Implementing Community Policing in Chicago4broad range of community concerns, including social disorder, munici-pal service problems, and code enforcement matters previously han-dled by civil courts.

9 Frequently, problems are not legal offenses at alland can range from noise to people repairing their cars at the curb tothe dilapidated condition of many of the city s modest bungalows. To implement Problem Solving , police and neighborhood residentswere trained to handle problems using a five-step and prioritize them incorporating about offenders, victims, and crime that address the chronic character of priority prob-lems by thinking outside the box of traditional police enforce-ment tactics and using new resources that were developed by thecity to support Problem - Solving strategies, a step requiring special skill and effort bythe community, police, and other city departments as they attemptto actually put plans in through self-assessments to determine howwell the plan has been carried out and what good has beenaccomplished. In Chicago, important aspects of the police organization werereengineered to support Problem Solving . The patrol division wasreorganized, and turf-based teams of officers were trained to deal withproblems in their areas.

10 The 911 system was redesigned to ensure thatthe new teams could answer most calls for service within their desig-nated beats. The department also changed its supervision system toencourage teamwork among beat officers. Beat sergeants were respon-sible for coordinating their efforts across the 24-hour clock. Onemechanism for doing so was beat team meetings that brought togetherall of the officers serving the area on all watches. Beat sergeants, inturn, reported to a lieutenant charged with coordinating their projectsacross a larger geographical area. Problem Solving in PracticeThe views of the community were represented in two ways: throughdistrict-level advisory committees where policies and strategies werediscussed with commanders, and through monthly community meet-ings held in every beat. During 1998, nearly 6,000 people attendedthese meetings every month. A new office set up in city hall toencourage participation and to coordinate the efforts of district-levelcommittees mounted a marketing campaign to spread program aware-ness and to spark involvement in the Problem - Solving effort.