The Magic of Patrol : The new LAPD: The power of positive policing

The Los Angeles police-reform measure on the June 2 ballot goes to the heart of what’s needed in a democracy. If voters pass this historic reform, the chief will be limited to two terms and made more accountable to the public. That’s the high-profile part of the charter reform.

The equally important other part empowers the public in a second way. The civilian-only Board of Police Commissioners will gain new power in overseeing the department, and police disciplinary boards will be required to have a citizen member involved in proceedings. That’s revolutionary--and vitally needed.

None of these measures touches directly on the often bandied-about term community policing. But they are essential to the LAPD’s reorientation. Community policing is more a philosophy of law enforcement than a blueprint--a sense of priority rather than a computer program. The term encapsulates a value system.

COMMUNITY VALUES: That value system is the primacy of the citizen-police relationship. Without that, the war on crime is lost. Without that special relationship, the police become an occupying army rather than intimate allies of communities.

In this context, the key word is patrol , and it is heartening that Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams has already emphasized it since his appointment less than two weeks ago.

Patrol is more than police presence; patrol is police emergence. Patrol is officers coming out from behind the desks and into the communities.

Patrol is not cops spending eight hours in police cars and never rolling down the windows, as if in low-hovering flying saucers surrounded by dangerous aliens. It’s proactive policing--it’s working with the people who want to help cops fight crime.

One of the great myths about Los Angeles, or any other crime-troubled metropolis, is that some neighborhoods are “lost” to the criminal element. Nothing could be further from the truth, and to think that is to admit defeat. On the contrary, every neighborhood consists mostly of good people, eager to help the police.

Many police studies over the last 20 years show what is at stake. In cities where the police emphasized basic meat-and-potatoes patrol, there were proportionately more citizens spotting crime and more officers making arrests. By contrast, studies show a low correlation between entrepreneurial investigations--the efforts of special unit or detective divisions--and arrests. The bottom line: Citizens, more than cops, crack cases.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Almost all good cops agree with this. They realize that the officer who knows the neighborhood--and is known and trusted there--is invariably the primary recipient of citizen intelligence information: Who are the troublemakers? Where are the gangbangers tonight?

Good cops--and the LAPD has many--also know to avoid overreliance on the patrol car. That’s not easy in Los Angeles; the city doesn’t have enough officers as it is, and those it has are spread thin over a huge area. Even so, a cop has to get out of that car. A Miami Police Department study years ago showed that on average an officer in a patrol car has only four contacts with citizens per eight-hour shift. That’s not enough.

The hope offered by community policing--and Williams’ embracing of the patrol philosophy--lies in the fact that the department can make it work well, despite not having enough officers. The LAPD has many of America’s best-educated, brightest cops. All they need is a management philosophy that exploits this wealth of talent. That’s what full, properly nuanced implementation of community policing--combined with passage of Charter Amendment F--promises.