| The purpose of this research is to provide an understanding of the factors related to the successful implementation of community policing where the unit of analysis is the organization and not the individual. Conceptually, attention will be given to defining and identifying the specific features of successful community policing programs from a review of the related literature. Empirically, two general tasks are undertaken. The first task is to use the conceptual analysis of community policing to devise a measure of successful implementation and to examine the range of scores. This measure is the Successful Community Policing Scale (SCPS). The second empirical task addresses the central purpose of the dissertation, which is examining the correlates of successful community policing.;Using the SCPS, practitioners will be able to systematically characterize and document degrees of success across a variety of different police departments. They will also be able to identify the characteristics of the police departments that are associated with successful community policing. Since the variables that were examined are structural, some are subject to manipulation by command staff. From a practical and policy standpoint, knowing which organizational features are associated with successful community policing offers the opportunity---in organizations beginning community policing or those with less successful programs---to alter these features in a way that enhances success.;A questionnaire was mailed to 150 municipal police departments in the Western United States with 50 or more sworn officers. One hundred thirty (87%) of these questionnaires were returned after two mailings. Thirteen of the items on the questionnaire were used to create the SCPS score for these police departments. The distribution and scores along this scale were examined and compared to each of the correlates believed to be related to the successful implementation of community policing. These bi-variate analyses were examined and most of the research hypotheses were supported. A regression analysis is also used to examine the collectivity of independent variables and their relationships, both to one another and to the dependent variable (successful community policing). |
