Greg Nickels, Mayor  SEATTLE POLICE DEPARTMENT R. Gil Kerlikowske, Chief of Police

June 18, 2003

"The End of Community Policing"

Speech Delivered by Chief Gil Kerlikowske at the 2nd Annual National Community Policing Conference Office of Community Oriented Policing, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington D.C .

I am the last speaker before you end the conference. Believe me, I know the importance of brevity. Let me begin by acknowledging Director Carl Peed of the Office of Community Oriented Policing for this invitation.

COPS and its dedicated employees have made a significant contribution to law enforcement. They have greatly improved the quality of police services in our country and the public's understanding of this complex profession.

That opinion is shared not just by me as a former member of COPS, but by colleagues and professionals throughout law enforcement and among community leaders. I also wish to recognize Attorney General John Ashcroft. Director Peed and the Attorney General have a daunting task as they deal with the difficult, challenging and changing environment we find law enforcement in today.

I know that many of you are concerned about the provocative title and focus of my closing remarks, "the end of community policing." That is, of course, what I hoped for. It is meant, like much of what has occurred at this conference, to inspire debate and dialogue. It is also meant to both illuminate a significant change in policing over the last 25 years and to place that change into context.

Let me draw on some historical perspective in order to provide some thoughts on where I think we have been and where we should be going.

First of all, I want to take this opportunity to declare that the era of community oriented policing is over, finished, through, done.

Secondly, for all who tenaciously cling to every popular article and, at times, esoteric piece of research on community policing, my message to you is: Get over it. That was a bit presumptuous, wasn't it?

Why do I say this? I say this, because I believe community policing (policing for the communities we serve) is the end, the result, and not a never-ending journey.

That does not mean that we have reached a point where continuous improvement and relevant and timely research are no longer important and should not continue in policing. What it does mean is that what we should be focusing on are improvements, basing them and fashioning them on useful research, rather than emphasizing the next new program.

And I know that many of you will say that community policing is a philosophy and not a program. Let me explain.

One of the most thoughtful participants and observers of policing over the years is retired University of Washington Chief of Police Michael Shanahan.

He believes that we have a 20-year learning cycle in law enforcement management, an institutional memory, after 20 years we forget the lessons we learned, the reasons for doing some of the things we do or did, and we move onto "the next new thing" in policing.

What Bill Moyers, I believe, has called "the arrogance of a short memory."

When I reflect on my past 30 years of practical knowledge, participating in research, reading, and teaching in policing, I am convinced that both gentlemen are absolutely correct. This may also reflect on the narrowness of my life. I should really have found time to think about something besides law enforcement.

I want to take a few minutes to go over some history. After WWII, two movements overlapped in policing. Military officers had been brought in to lead law enforcement agencies to remove the stigma of "politics." The politics being addressed was associated with corruption, ward bosses selecting personnel and providing services, and the lack of centralized control and decision-making in police departments.

As it happened, the emphasis on a paramilitary model of policing fit the economic structure as well. When the war ended many GI's applied to any civil service position available, many taking tests for police and fire and entering whichever service offered the position. They were seeking the long-term stability that a civil service position could provide.

Later the transforming influence of television influenced our profession. Many popular shows reflected policing in a new light. They were often based in LA and portrayed the stoic and professional officer: Dragnet and Adam 12 - aloof and removed from the community, and thereby "protected" from the untoward political interference of an earlier time.

Later, somewhat through the influence of the novelist former LAPD sergeant, Joseph Wambaugh, shows like "Police Story", "Hill Street Blues", and others portrayed a somewhat more realistic scenario. That era, often referred to as the professional era, was defined by top down management, organizations comprised of multiple specialty units and a central focus on crime, particularly the kind of crime we in law enforcement believed was of most concern to the community - serious and violent crime.

The model was neat and orderly, especially internally, and completely unprepared to deal with the social change and upheaval and the overwhelming demographic challenge of the 1960s. The thin blue line that had won wars abroad could not win peace or even calm in the neighborhoods wracked by exploding crime rates and deep social unrest.

Forgotten - see, there's the memory thing - in the professional model was the familiarity that existed between officers and the community in the earlier era, where officers were seen as neighborhood problem solvers and where their efforts attracted some levels of community support.

Professional officers were viewed as an occupying army. Winning hearts and minds was proving as difficult on the streets of many American cities as it was in the jungles half a world away.

The extraordinary challenge of crime lead to extraordinary responses: Enter LEAA, and the whole new era of experimentation in policing, as government tried desperately to leverage its resources in creative and innovative ways to make the streets safe again. Remember what they were called? The Safe Streets Act, Model Cities, Impact Cities, LEEP, law enforcement education program.

By the early 1970s, some very forward thinking administrators entered into experiments, experiments were very popular back then, like team policing. St. Petersburg, Rochester, Cincinnati, and others tried various forms.

Geographical responsibility was stressed, such as occurred in St. Petersburg where officers responded and handled almost any case that was assigned to them, from beginning to end.

They also worked at community relations and invested in organizing neighborhoods in order to prevent crime. Everyone had a community relations unit, and crime prevention or "target hardening" programs were quite popular. Much of what I am talking about was the result of the LEAA program under President Nixon, which also resulted in the seminal publications on criminal justice, true random experiments, and a level of energy and enthusiasm about the "calling of our profession."

Those involved in policing had been influenced by the Camelot years of JFK and by the opportunities for higher education that LEEP provided and encouraged. They approached policing with a focus on what they could give back to their community.

And the popular police shows didn't hurt.

We also wanted to show that the negative effects of the Vietnam War and the cynicism that pervaded the country could be overcome. Of course, the kind of officer and the kind of organization required in this era was different. The buttoned down mind and demeanor of Joe Friday didn't fit this model very well.

Instead, we were looking for flexibility and agility. The ability to be adept at achieving compliance, to be proactive and to be able to think on your feet were all attributes being prized now. Forgotten - memory again - was the value of the stoic devotion to duty, that doggedness and determination that attended to the little things, the simple things that made a difference in people's lives.

We were too busy being innovative and professional to notice. Our communities, however, had become weary, weary of being social experiments of interest to researchers and police administrators, but out of touch with the problems and needs affecting the community . . . which brings us to . . .

One of the most fascinating times in law enforcement. Community policing, as evidenced in Newport News by the work piloted by the NIJ and focused on understanding the concepts of problem-solving, decision-making being forced to the lowest levels of the organization, and the utilizing and leveraging of the community in, to use a vastly overused description, partnership.

It has in many ways combined the strengths of each of the cycles that have come before the community awareness of the old era, the attention to detail and to mission of the professional era, and the willingness to reach out and think creatively of the innovation era.

And despite its clear development and evolution over time, we persisted in labeling it "something new."

And now we are reflecting and discussing the "next new thing" in policing, something I was told was described by a panel member at another law enforcement conference: TOP, Terrorist Oriented Policing. What that means I am not exactly sure.

So, before we rush headlong into this, let's reflect on what was learned in this business since WWII.

It is important to recognize the influence of the military on civilian policing. It is particularly important to realize that in many ways the military has moved further and faster than we have.

Many police department are more military than the military and with the success of the Gulf War and the Iraq War and the focus by our military on stabilization and nation building. It is apparent we have a lot to learn while clearly understanding and recognizing the differences between us.

Let me list, in my opinion, the pros and cons of what has happened in police management as we went down memory lane.

Pros

Cons

Pros

Cons

Pros

Cons

And now we enter the post September 11 era of policing. And we are seeing decreased resources and increased crime.

This terrible tragedy in our nation should provide us with the chance to gain perspective to realize that rather than grasping for the next new thing, we need to cherish and nourish that which we have implemented.

Now, more that at anytime, the people in our cities and towns want to trust government; and the police are the most recognizable and visible sign of all the levels of government during these tense times.

What we say and how we communicate is critical, but we will be judged by our actions, not our spin.

So here is why I believe we should put to bed, the era of community policing and engage, instead, in policing. Let's not make the 20-year learning mistake. Let's take the best of what we learned in this business over the last half century and call it policing. What are those things:

I have never been more proud of the men and women of the Seattle Police Department than on September 11.

They responded quickly to the various areas of the city in need of protection, but as importantly they responded to the Mosques and places of worship to protect those individuals who could be subjected to retaliation.

They have continued and expanded in that role and developed a relationship to people that we did not know.

Watching what occurred in Seattle and learning of the other stories of how law enforcement, at all levels, went to extraordinary lengths to protect people fills me with confidence for our profession.

In closing, we have not just the opportunity, but rather the obligation to transition to policing in a systematic way that disdains the next new thing. Policing that provides a firm foundation of trust, open communication, acceptance of role and responsibility, and delivers what we promise without complaining.

Thank you,

Chief R.Gil Kerlikowske