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Abstract

Police departments across the United States are moving towards community policing as a means of addressing problems of crime, citizen fear, and the provision of public services in the communities they patrol. In order to achieve this new type of policing, the role of patrol officers must be re-evaluated and restructured. This article focuses on the relationship between community, policing, and discretion in presenting a model of street-level leadership that the authors developed in over 800 hours of observational research with patrol officers in two police departments. Drawing on models of both situational and transformational leadership, the model of street-level leadership offered here is shown to provide explanatory and evaluative criteria by which police departments and communities can understand what patrol officers do and how those roles can be integrated into a community policing context. Viewing patrol officers as street-level leaders may thus make it possible to design policing programs that combine community and officer actions to reduce crime, reduce citizen fear, and promote the effective provision of public services.

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Street-Level Leadership: The Role of Patrol Officers in Community Policing

Abstract

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References