The Continuing Evolution of Policing: Community Oriented Policing in the Civilian Sector and its Applicability in the Military Environment

The history of urban policing paints an evolutionary picture describing the various forces that impinged on society's earliest efforts at public policing and led to numerous reforms culminating in what has been termed the professional model of policing. The dynamics of an ever-changing urban society continued to present new challenges to policing and have driven police administrators and politicians to seek new methods of responding to society's criminal element. The evolution continues today with our latest response to the problem of crime; namely, Community Oriented Policing. By far the most popular movement in policing today, COP attempts to change the very culture of the modern urban police department through a structural as well as functional reorganization of that department. The goal is to tighten the bonds between police officer and citizen thereby involving community residents in solving their particular neighborhood problems. Initial results depict a broad mix of successes with intermittent failures; yet, the movement continues to gain popularity in nearly all quarters including many of the nation's Air Force communities. while numerous installations begin implementing components of COP, there is some concern they are doing so without questioning the applicability of COP in the military community. Several unique characteristics of the Air Force community diminish the need for COP while at the same time making those communities ideal for implementation of COP tactics. In particular, the strong informal social controls existing at most AF installations strongly reduce the need for formal police controls.