Police as Problem Solvers

Police as Problem Solvers

Hans Toch Distinguished Professor

State University of New York Albany, New York

and

/. Douglas Grant President Emeritus

Social Action Research Center Nicasio, California

Plenum Press • New York and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Toch, Hans. Police as problem solvers I Hans Toch and ~. Douglas Grant.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and Index. 1. Police. 2. Police social work. 3. Pollce--Unlted States.

I. Grant, ~a.es Douglas, 1917- II. Title. HV7921.TS3S 1991 362--dc20 91-10S19

CIP

ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-5918-0 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-5916-6 DOl: 10.1007/ 978-1-4684-5916-6

© 1991 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation

233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,

recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher

To the memory of Donald J. Newman

This cardinal, Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashion'd to much honour. From his cradle, He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one; Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading: Lofty, and sour, to them that lov'd him not; But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.

-Shakespeare, King Henry VIII (Act IV, Scene II)

Preface

This book is about police and police reform and about a movement called "problem-oriented policing," which is sweeping the country.

The problem-oriented approach has been labeled "a philosophical revolution" and "the cutting edge of policing" (Malcolm, 1989). Two observers, Wilson and Kelling (1989), have written that the approach "con­stitutes the beginning of the most significant redefinition of police work in the past half century" (p. 48). Such an esteemed development matters, and one expects knowledgeable persons to observe it and think about it.

Our mission in this book is different from that of some observers, those concerned with management practice and philosophy. Ours is a more person-centered book, which views the problem-oriented move­ment from the trenches where battles, not wars, are waged. We are concerned with what an erstwhile colleague of ours dubbed the "nitty­gritty" and what others have called the "human equation." This is so because the core of our interest is on the experience of being problem oriented and how one engenders this experience. Coincidentally, such grass roots analysis happens to fit problem-oriented policing, which delegates thinking and planning to those on the frontlines.

In the battles won by problem-oriented policing, ordinary police officers become generals or, at least, strategists of policing. The jobs that such men and women do are expanded, and we shall center on this expansion of the job.

Over the years we have been interested in human service work as work that we thought could be enriched. We became involved in prob­lem-oriented policing before its broader, community-centered conse­quences were recognized, but service to the public always seemed to us the most likely arena in which police could be more inventive so that they and the public would benefit.

vii

viii PREFACE

Outsiders have long been obsessed with the need to "control" the police and reduce their discretion to keep them from abusing their power. What we thought should be done, and what we think should be done now, is that the role of police officers be professionalized by en­hancing their discretion. We see professional judgment exercised when persons are trusted to think about what they do after learning contex­tual facts. We feel that officers do a better job by making informed decisions about policing, and we know from experiences (such as those we shall record) that police find mindful work more meaningful and enhancing than the standard routines that occupy their time.

Though these views are key assumptions of problem-oriented polic­ing, the approach evolved from a different perspective. First, questions centered on the definition of police work and its increasingly question­able effectiveness. The problem was to change organizational goals, and approaches to goals, so that police could make more of a difference.

Concerns about who was to plan and implement this process came later. To the student of policing, however, process-related concerns matter, because they bear on the question of whether one's goals are achievable. If one is to take a trip, it helps to anticipate one's mode of transportation and prospective itinerary, which is the way one gets from here to there.

This book pays attention to these details. This is not to say that our presentation will be devoid of conceptual content and empty of ideas. We shall be concerned with issues-some even substantial issues-but our main interest is in making the process of problem-oriented activity come alive and make sense. We feel that practitioners and interested observers of police might benefit from getting a sense of what problem­oriented policing means to those who engage in its exercise. To convey such feeling, we have drawn on some of our previously reported experi­ences, which we can now see in a new light. We have also drawn on reports by pioneers in problem-oriented policing who confirm our im­pressions of why the process works and why it matters that it works.

The experiment we have reported in Chapters 6-10 of this book was an exercise in problem-oriented police reform conducted by ourselves and a group of police officers. We published this study 15 years ago and reprint parts of it now. The work was supported by the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency (now the Center for Studies of Anti­social and Violent Behavior) of the National Institute of Mental Health. The opinions expressed, however, are ours, and we hope that some of these impressions will continue to stand the test of time.

Albany, and Nicasio, CA

Hans Toch J. Douglas Grant

Acknowledgments

We would not have written this book if we had not been involved in a police intervention and if this experiment had not succeeded. We owe much to our colleagues in this project: Raymond Galvin (the coauthor of our original report) and Officers John Dixon, Roy Garrison, Carl Hewitt, Larry Murphy, Mike Nordin, Robert Prentice, and Mike Weldon. Our sponsor was Chief Charles Gain, who was a chief of vision and a re­former ahead of his time. Dr. Saleem Shah of NIMH monitored the project and was a source of helpful advice.

Given the passage of years since our involvement, we have had to restudy the police field. Among our tutors were Herman Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin, John Eck of the Police Executive Research Forum, and James Fyfe of American University. All three have reviewed our chapter drafts and have helped improve them. We have also learned from key written sources, which we have quoted freely. We are ex­pecially grateful to the following for permission to reprint excerpts from their works:

The American Sociological Association and Egon Bittner for text used from liThe Police on Skid Row: A Study in Peace Keeping," pub­lished in American Sociological Review, Volume 32, 1967.

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency and Herman Goldstein for excerpts from "Improving Policing: A Problem-Oriented Approach," which appeared in Crime and Delinquency, Volume 25,1979.

Police Executive Research Forum and John Eck for permission to excerpt Eck and Spelman, Solving Problems: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News, and Taft, Fighting Fear: The Baltimore County C.o.P.E. Project, and to reproduce Key Elements of Problem-Oriented Policing.

ix

x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Praeger and the Greenwood Publishing Group for quotes from Commu­nity Policing: Rhetoric or Reality, edited by J. R. Greene and S. D. Mastrofski, published by Praeger Publishers in 1988.

Transaction Publishers for excerpts from Two Cultures of Policing: Street Cops and Management Cops, by E. Reuss-Ianni.

Parts of Chapter 10 of this book have been adapted (with permis­sion) from J. D. Grant, J. Grant, and H. Toch, "Police-citizen conflicts and decisions to arrest," in V. J. Konecni and E. B. Ebbesen (Eds.), The Criminal Justice System: A Social-Psychological Analysis, San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1982. Other portions of Chapter 10 and Chapters 6-9 are drawn from H. Toch, J. D. Grant, and R. T. Galvin, Agents of Change: A Study in Police Reform, Cambridge: Schenkman Pub­lishing Company, 1975. This case material describes a process now known as problem-oriented policing.

We are finally indebted-as usual-to Joan Grant; also, to Sally Spring, the best book typist in the country.

Contents

1 The Advent of Problem-Oriented Policing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The "End Product" of Policing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Problems as Behavior Patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Evolution of the Problem-Oriented Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Timeliness of the Problem-Oriented Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Old Wine with New Label? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 From Native Wisdom to Problem Solving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A Hypothetical Example. ..... .... ... ... ....... ... ...... 20 Building on a Foundation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

2 Police Officers as Applied Social Scientists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

The Newport News Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The Battle of New Briarfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Expanding the Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Applied Social Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Science and Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Finding Researchable Problems ......................... 43

3 Participation and Work Enrichment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

The Human Relations SchooL .................. '" .... .. 46 Climbing Maslow's Hierarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Enriching Jobs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The Work Reform Movement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Who Does the Thinking and Planning? .. ...... .... .... .. 56

xi

xii CONTENTS

The Police Officer as a Problem Solver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 The Officer as "Intrapreneur" ........................... 62

4 Problems of Planned Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Problems and Obstacles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Sources of Resistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Force Field Analysis as a Requisite for Change. . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Garnering Community Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Harnessing Human Resources ...................... , ... 69 Supportive Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Evolving a Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Toward an Epidemiological Science of Problem-

Oriented Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

5 The Oakland Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

The Oakland Police Department. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 From Research to Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Inception of the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

6 Defining a Problem: First-Generation Change Agents. . . . . . . . 87

Evolving a Joint Frame of Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Facing Larger Implications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 The Inadequacies of the Academic Approach... .. ...... .. 94 Prelude to Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 The Travails of Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 The Fruits of Labor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Review of Aims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Two Steps Forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 A Happening....... ................ ..... .............. 101 A Rebirth of Anxiety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 An Identity Crisis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Task Force Activity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Diminishing Returns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 The Feel of Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 The Group Has a Guest....... ............ .... .......... 111 An Unsuccessful Exercise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Intensive Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

CONTENTS xiii

Stage Fright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 A Full Measure of Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 A Profile of Morale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

7 Addressing the Problem: Inventing the Peer Review Panel . . . . 121

The Interview Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Foundation Building. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Germination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 A Side Trip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Defining the Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Constructive Conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Tooling Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 The Opening Night.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .. .. 143 The Man Who Came to Dinner.......................... 147 A Command Appearance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 A Study in Complexity........ ... . ........... .... ...... 153 Back to the Drawing Board. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Running Out of Steam. .. .... .... .... ...... . ... .. .. .... 158 Accomplishment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 An Interlude of Alienation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 The Interviewer as Theorist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 An Activity Profile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 168 A General Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 A Concluding Note ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

8 Addressing the Problem: Designing Family Crisis Teams. . . . . 171

Preliminary Explorations ............................... 173 Tooling Up........ .... .. .... .... ...... .... .. ...... .... 174 Shaping a Group Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 A Data-Processing Session.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Foundation Building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Forging Links with Other Agencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Loveless Labor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Fertilization and Cross-Fertilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 A Spontaneous Review Panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Process and Product .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 A Tortuous Interlude: Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 A Tortuous Interlude: Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 The End of the Tunnel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

xiv CONTENTS

A Loose End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Final Comment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

9 Implementing a Solution: Family Crisis Management ....... 195

Caveats and Rejoinders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . .. . 196 Group Problem Solving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Peacekeepers as a Happy Breed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Consumer Reaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 The Referral Agencies: A View from the Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . 207 The Police as Referral Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

10 Implementing a Solution: The Peer Review Panel. . . . . . . . . . . 213

The Walls ofJericho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Kill and Overkill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 The New Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 The Change Sequence: A Retrospective View..... ... ..... 217 From Changee to Changer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 The Importance of Being Perfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 The Belated Rehabilitation of Officer White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 More Convincing Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 The Incidence of Conflicts .............................. 232 Injuries to Officers and Citizens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Complaints against the Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 The Initiation of Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 The Type of Arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Individual Productivity and Violence .................... 240 The Peer Review Panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 What Could We Conclude?............................. 244 But Was It Problem-Oriented Policing? . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 245

11 Community Problem-Oriented Policing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Being One's Own Police Chief. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Autonomy in Problem-Oriented Policing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Autonomy and Morale.................................. 253 But What of Quality Control? . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Composite Strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 How Does It Work? .................................... 258

CONTENTS XV

Studying Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Linking Backyards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

12 A Problem-Oriented War on Drugs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Toward a Problem-Oriented Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Levels of Causation and Intervention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Barriers to Cumulating Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 A War on What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Formal Problem-Oriented Interventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Sequencing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Choice of Problem-Oriented Interventions. . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . 279 Choice of Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 The Political Context of Problem-Oriented Drug Policing. . . 283

Postscript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Author Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301