Community Policing: Who is to Be Blamed for Poor Results?
It seems that (Wilson & Kelling 1982) prove that even though people feel safer with the foot patrol system, the results in practice, in terms of crime rate, are the same. A fundamental quote from their text is “ citizens complain to the police chief, but he explains that his department is low on personnel and that the courts do not punish petty or first-time offenders. To the residents, the police who arrive in squad cars are either ineffective or uncaring: to the police, the residents are animals who deserve each other. The citizens may soon stop calling the police, because "they can't do anything.” That points at community policing being even worse, since the community then depends on the police, the police will be notified when something happens, and, according to the above extract, they don’t care. That is the feeling that I myself have since 2001: both in Brazil and in Australia the police does not care about what they should and does very little...