ABSTRACT
Crime prevention is dialectical in nature, that is, “being pulled in two different ways at once” (Rappaport 1981, 1) by the interests of the police and by those of community residents. However, as Rappaport (1981, 6) submits, “if we are dealing with problems that are dialectical by nature, then they will necessarily yield many divergent rather than one convergent solution. . . .” Therefore, solutions to crime may not be found in the “bowels” of policing but may reside in the communities. This research was conducted as part of a larger national study to analyze the level of community involvement in the policing process in Trinidad and Tobago. Additionally, the study aimed to understand and reduce the nature/level of the dialectic in the policing process in the island. The results were then used to answer the call for increased levels of community involvement in the policing process. This call led to the creation of the Community Involved and Planned Policing (CIPP) model as an alternative construct to the traditional method of policing in the island. The research as well as the CIPP model is elucidated in this chapter.
