Teamwork – not making the dream work: Community policing in Poland

In January of 1999, following the philosophy of community oriented policing, the Polish National Police restructured its organization. This article presents results of two phases out of a larger research project conducted with the Polish police and community members representing diverse environments including college students, politicians, and media representatives. Our results represent an analysis of over 2,000 questionnaires distributed to the members of the Polish police and contrasted against data collected from hundreds of questionnaires answered by college students in three cities. The questionnaire was designed to measure the degree of understanding of the role of the police in a democratic society, as perceived by both the public and the police. Some of the main principles of community‐oriented – problem‐solving policing are revisited in the questionnaire, providing a baseline for discussion about the feasibility of implementation of a philosophical paradigm in real‐life environments, when the actors involved have no clear concept about the roles they are supposed to play.