ABSTRACT
In 1955, a competition within the Los Angeles Police Department asked members of the law enforcement community to state the core mission of policing in a few plain words. In 1994, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the US Department of Justice was created to encourage and support law enforcement service to communities, and to promote policing practices that give officers an interactive role within the community. Despite nationwide acceptance of the concept of community policing and the COPS effort, combining law enforcement with a helping hand for the community has proven difficult. Recent confrontations between "militarized" police and community protestors have entered America's living rooms through the 24-hour television news cycle. This chapter describes a policy research project that explores the need for communication channels and types of information that will improve communication between community policing efforts and community members. The organizational dimension includes internal structures to measure and evaluate community-policing performance.
