Chapter 1
Introduction
Introduction
Published in Monograph No 71, March 2002
Note Everybody's Business
Community Policing in the SAPS' Priority Areas
As indicated by a number of commentators, 'community policing' can mean different things to different people.1 So, for more conservative policy-makers, the phrase is likely to mean 'policing the community', that is, law enforcement to keep the community safe, while for the more liberal, the phrase is likely to mean 'policing with the community'—that is, problem-solving to help communities to keep themselves safe.
Although these understandings imply very different policing approaches and strategies, all may relate to community policing. As William Lyons puts it: "...the conceptual foundations of community policing range from nostalgic images [of the police and of communities], to management strategies, to visions of communities strong enough to police themselves".2
Such conceptual vagueness helps explain the popularity of the concept in recent discourse on police transformation. Indeed, a local analyst has attributed this popularity to the 'seductive quality' of its core tenets.3
What are these core tenets? Clifford Shearing provides a succint analysis:
- The first is a change in definition of the police from a 'force' to a 'service'. An important expression of this change has been the development of 'consultative forums' designed to permit communities to make their policing concerns known to the police and to provide a vehicle for holding the police accountable to them.
- Second, is the reconception of the police as people who enable communities to solve their own problems rather than as people who solve problems on their own. Policing for the state police has become 'everybody's business' rather than simply 'police business'.4
