Defining community policing: practice versus paradigm

While many believe that community policing has advanced beyond the defining stage, conflict still exists between community policing as envisioned by academics and theorists and community policing as interpreted and practiced by police organizations. Why is there so much disparity between the theory and application of community policing? Part of the answer lies in the differing utility the concept holds for practitioners and researchers. Analyzed within the precepts of the Trojanowicz Paradigm, content analyses of community policing job descriptions and definitions were performed on data obtained during a 1994 national survey of police departments conducted by Trojanowicz, Woods, et al. Results were surprising, yet consistent with many case studies which trace implementation problems to the failure of the larger organization to incorporate the community policing philosophy.