Summary
This study examines the concepts and practices of 'community policing' on the basis of a field study in a large urban centre in Canada. The focus of this inquiry was to understand 'community policing' as a governmental technology mobilized jointly by police and select social or 'community' resources and interests, and to investigate the empirical practices through which the concept's predominant 'reform' and 'empowerment' rhetoric materializes. Field observation and interview data have been collected with the divisional 'Community Response Unit' of the police force under study, as well as with a number of local 'neighbourhood' organizations acting as 'community' in these contexts. The central findings include that on a police organizational level, 'community policing' is established as an isolated add-on to existing police functions, rather than an organizational reform effort embracing the institution of police. Traditional organizational values, performance indicators and management strategies remain unchanged, while many officers suggest a lack of clear guidance or vision on how to 'do' 'community policing' on the side of their superiors. In terms of operations, the observed 'community policing' efforts concentrate heavily on street disorder phenomena, like prostitution, drugs, liquor offenses. The main operational tools are discretionary combinations of surveillance, informal control as well as criminal and non-criminal law enforcement activities, while 'problem solving' occurs predominantly through efforts of aggressive 'problem displacement' out of the local jurisdiction. 'Community' in the socio-economically diverse study contexts consists primarily of self-organized, selectively homogenous white, middle-class and property owning residents pushing for an elimination of street disorder phenomena from their locales. For these purposes, 'community' provide 'legwork' for police in terms of surveillance, but also put into operation their own effective local control schemes through the mobilization of exclusion mechanisms, by-law enforcement, licensing and regulatory schemes, etc. 'Community'/police contacts, however, predominantly limit 'community' to provide input, while decision-making on 'policing' remains a police matter. In essence, the practices observed maintain the police's central and hegemonic power role in 'community policing', while reinforcing it through marginal, facilitative and symbolic involvement of 'community'. 'Community policing' is recognized as a local governmental technology which 're-socializes' the police, and constructs 'policeable' communities.