Community and problem-oriented policing in the context of restorative justice

Abstract

The traditional style of policing was to keep public peace and order, to enforce laws, make arrests, and to provide short-term solutions to problems which occurred. This concept stood in contrast to the policing style proposed by Sir Robert Peel for a professional police force in Great Britain which was passed by the British Parliament in 1829 and which stressed the preventive nature of the new law: ‘The principal object to be attained is the prevention of crime. The security of persons and property will thus be better effected, than by the detection and punishment of the offender after he has succeeded in committing the crime’ (Radzinowicz 1968: 163). The principles of Peel’s policing can again be found since the early 1980s, when community policing emerged as the dominant direction for new ways in thinking about policing. Parallel to the reintroduction of the concept of community policing, Goldstein (1977 and 1979) and later Eck and Spelman (1987) developed the concept of problem-oriented policing. Even though these two concepts, community policing and problem-oriented policing, are analytically separate and distinct, Peak and Glensor (1996: 69) convincingly argue that they are complementary in substance and can be operated together. Peak and Glensor (1996: 68) coined the term ‘community oriented policing and problem solving’ (COPPS) in which they tried to integrate the two concepts. One importantaspect so far is the community and the citizens’ welfare and their working together with the police. This is in line with an argument already put forward by Sir Robert Peel: ‘The police are only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interest of the community welfare’ (cited in Melville Lee 1901: ch 12). One may ask, however, how well, even whether at all, this cooperation between communities and the police works in modern, industrialized and socially more or less fragmented societies. In this chapter, we therefore take a rather broad view. We will consider what the core concepts of community and problem-oriented policing are, how the public views and perceives the police and their work in general, and how restorative justice models can incorporate community and problem-oriented concepts, thus leading to better communities and more satisfied citizens.