ABSTRACT

The preceding quote does not originate from England, where a considerable effort is being made to provide high-quality service to the community, but from the biography of Daryl F. Gates, retired chief of police of Los Angeles. The use of the terms “Quality of Service,” “customer satisfaction,” and “¡nd out what the customer wants” illustrates the argument put forward in this chapter. Gates appears to have made the link between service and disorder, connecting action with community consultation and the identi¡cation of customer needs, although he gives ¡nal primacy to the agreement of expectation. Here, then, are our central themes-namely, that consultation will affect the quality of service and standing of the police force in the community, which will lead, in turn, to shared responsibility for policing the community and a reduction in the levels of disorder. The evidence for this hypothesis comes from research undertaken by this

writer in 1992 and from data collected from American police departments and English police forces.