Community Oriented Policing (COP), Community Economic Development (CED) and law enforcement legitimacy

Abstract

In 2014 and 2015, a series of fatal police shootings, many that were recorded on video, captured the public's attention, and raised troubling questions about the quality and nature of police practices in America. Community Oriented Policing (COP) became an accepted policing approach in the early 1990s to increase trust between communities and their police departments by assisting those communities in addressing conditions at the root of criminal behavior. Central to the complaints is that police departments do not have the internal expertise to affect community socio-economic conditions. Congress established Community Economic Development (CED) initiatives focused on developing housing and business opportunities for low-income citizens through public/private partnerships accountable to residentially defined communities. The research focused on St. Johns County Florida and sought to explore how St. Johns County Board of Commissioners, the City of St. Augustine, and the City of St. Augustine Beach coordination of Community Economic Development activities influenced the St. Johns Sheriff's Office, St. Augustine Police Department, and St. Augustine Beach Police Department Community Oriented Policing implementation and their community's perception of law enforcement legitimacy? The St. Johns County Community Economic Development network provided law enforcement a framework to execute their Community Oriented Policing partnership and problem-solving efforts. Community members were satisfied with their law enforcement agency's Community Oriented Policing activities, which mitigated tensions with county staff on Community Economic Development efforts.--Author's abstract