Crime and Social Organization by Elin Waring David Weisburd

Author:Elin Waring, David Weisburd [Elin Waring, David Weisburd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780521771627
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2001-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Reorganization in Western

The reorganization story takes place in three acts. In the first act, Chief W. set the reorganization in motion and created a dedicated CP unit. Tensions and envy were associated with this division of labor, and the CP unit was disbanded in 1996. In the second act, CP was replaced by a team policing approach. The third act, foreshadowed in the prologue, features the resignation of the chief and the hiring of his replacement. We begin at Act One.

In 1991, shortly after being named, Chief W. reorganized Western. To set reform in motion, Chief W. appointed a study group with officers from several ranks. He followed with an implementation group (mostly higher command officers) charged with carrying out the changes recommended by the study group. Several training sessions (1-2 days) introduced the concept of community policing to officers. An advocate of Trojanowicz-style community policing, Chief W. created a dedicated community policing unit, a network center, and targeted a few areas of the city for community policing experiments. Plans to further decentralize command began with the opening of the West precinct in the spring of 1996. The East Precinct is presently in the headquarters building, but has been scheduled to move into a separate facility for the last three years (in December 1998, renovations were unfinished).

This first reorganization, partially based on financial pressures and the loss of some thirty-five officers through retirement in recent years, created a set of tensions and declining morale within the force. Sharp conflict between patrol officers and CP officers arose, punctuated by discrimination and affirmative action suits and a nasty racist drawing displayed on a bulletin board in a patrol office. The conflict was based in part on stereotypic ideas and beliefs—the notion that CP officers shirked work, went to amusement parks with kids on duty, attended neighborhood meetings and ate cookies and drank punch, and were not crime-oriented. The “road officers” saw themselves as the backbone of the department, overworked and under-rewarded, and at the front line of crime control. The work of the CP officers, they felt, was not only counter-productive and irrelevant socially, but their absence from the patrol rota meant additional work for the present patrol. Other sources of conflict were more accurate. CP officers were seen as autonomous (they set their hours) and as carrying a low workload. The CP officers were a political force, or clique, who had the chief’s support. A rallying point for opposition to community policing was the national success of one CP officer in an experimental area in the city in the first few years of the reform. The sergeant working there was personable, immensely successful and popular in the neighborhood. He was featured in several national television and radio programs, was referred to in local newspapers as a success story, and symbolized visible accomplishment for community policing. In summary, in a theme that remains viable in Western, the dominant political segment in Western, “road officers,” see real police work as crime-related, and reject CP as non-crime-focused.

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