Among the features of such a program are integrated investigations, team and neighborhood rather than a shift and divisional basis for officer deployment, foot patrols, and community service as a focus along with problem-oriented policing instead of mere crime-fighting. Programs of this sort mean a different structure for the police as well as altered functions, allocations of resources, and general attitude. This can be a challenge to traditional police department structures because the traditional method is to respond to citizen demand rather than to try to ascertain the underlying forces creating patterns of problems. The community policing method is proactive rather than responsive. The approach also calls attention to the degree to which the police are dependent on the public for support, information, and cooperation. A recent study suggests that the benefits of community policing may have been oversold to the public, but there are also indications that community policing needs to be given time to work and that the police and the community must become more comfortable with one another to create a better atmosphere (Moran and Bucqueroux 1057). Requiring officers to live in the community is seen as a way of enhancing the community policing effort in a variety of ways and of adding to the comfort level on both sides.
A recent study addressed the question of how certain neighborhoods help keep the crime rate down, and it was found that certain collective characteristics in these communities served this purpose:
Murders, physical assaults, and other violent acts occur less frequently in neighborhoods where residents know and trust one another, show a willingness to supervise children in public places, and take other steps to maintain social order. . . (Bower 101).
The study was conducted in 1995 and used a group of 8,782 adults from 343 Chicago neighborhoods as its sample base. the researchers found that efforts a...