PERSPECTIVES ON COMMUNITY POLICING : At Last, Washington Recognizes Its Role : The flow of new funding should put more cops ‘on the block’ to develop citizen partnerships against crime.

Motorized “preventive” patrolling with minimal citizen interaction has been the almost-universal method of policing for 40 years. Research has shown it has no significant impact on crime. Yet it prevails. Myths die hard in a world that is not research-oriented.

The waste involved in unproductive patrolling cannot be justified. That time could be spent productively by becoming a friendly “member” of a neighborhood community, exchanging information with residents about crime and known criminals. Officers need the eyes, ears, information and influence of parents, neighbors, teachers, students and community leaders. The role of the police is to assist every neighborhood. The police alone cannot control crime. People control crime, mainly socially, while the police assist in a proactive manner.

Community policing works because it mobilizes the most necessary resource, the people. A village-sized neighborhood community is the crime-prevention machine. The best engine for empowering it is an individual patrol officer--”cop of the block.” A friendly officer of their own, assisting them to control their streets and protect their homes, motivates residents to learn crime patterns and the identities of criminals and delinquents. It is easier to report crimes and suspicious activities to a known officer than to a stranger.

Without community policing, people in poor, high-crime neighborhoods cooperate less in protecting themselves. With it, they are empowered to take back control from the pushers and improve their lot.

As valuable as the additional officers funded under the new federal crime law will be, the transformation of officers from strangers to “cops of the block” throughout the country will have an even greater impact. It will not overcome the poverty and high unemployment rates that generate violence and other crime. It will, however, favorably change the relationship between police and people, especially the working poor. It is easy for a middle-class officer to stereotype minorities when she knows them principally as suspects and 911 callers. On the other hand, an individual officer with responsibility for protecting 1,000 residents can empathize with them as law-abiding citizens.

We must never have a national police force. But 17,000 local departments cannot be effective without the assistance, coordination and leadership of the federal government. That support has never been given until now. For 30 years, the law-enforcement assistance programs have been too little and too late. Finally, with the recently passed law, some real money is coming from Washington. At last, a President has insisted on backup for the officers who will patrol the streets and alleys of every city and town tonight and tomorrow.