Emerging liability issues in the implementation and adoption of community oriented policing

The adoption of community oriented policing (COP) is likely to have an impact on patterns of civil liability claims filed against police departments and officers. We hypothesize that COP practices may lead to an increase in civil liability claims by expanding the scope of police responsibilities and roles and by altering patterns of police citizen interactions which, in turn, could affect the clarity and uses of three legal standards which support civil liability claims: negligence in state tort claims, “color of law” under Section 1983, and the “legal duty” standard. We call for further research and suggest some managerial strategies to avoid the eventualities presented.