Would you enter into a partnership with someone you did not trust?  It's easy for police to form community policing partnerships with groups (merchants, home owners, etc.) who may already have a generally positive relationship with the police.   However, the true promise in the community policing philosophy lies in the formation of partnerships with groups who may be alienated from law enforcement.  These are often the same groups most frequently victimized by violent crime and, therefore, most in need of effective public safety services. 

For example, community policing philosophy would suggest that effectively addressing violent crimes committed by and against young men of color requires forming strong partnerships with this particular "consumer group" of public safety services.  Yet, too often law enforcement is willing to choose or condone tactics that exacerbate community suspicion of the police and contribute to a perception that young men of color are singled out for harassment.

There are both historical and present-day realities for some  communities' mistrust of law enforcement.  Until both are fully confronted and the deeply corrosive effect of this mistrust is addressed, community policing partnerships with the very groups who would benefit most will remain elusive. 

2.Police institutions remain, in many respects, closed and secretive institutions, overly protective of their image and reluctant to share negative information with "outsiders."

Would you form a partnership with an institution that you expect will not be fully open with you when problems arise?  The uniqueness of the powers we delegate to police officers -- the power to use deadly force, to deprive us of our freedom, etc. -- almost guarantees that their use will generate controversy from time-to-time.  Yet, many police agencies still react to inevitable controversy with unnecessary defensiveness and secrecy.  The public skepticism and cynicism that result act as barriers to the creation of community-policing partnerships. 

In a similar fashion, few agencies are truly committed to rooting out the "code of silence" and other institutional pressures that shield officers' actions from full scrutiny.  Few agencies provide much-needed "whistle-blower" protection for officers who are courageous enough to report misconduct by fellow officers.  While nearly all agencies emphasize role-play training so officers can actually practice handling difficult situations that arise in the field, it is telling that no agency (to the ACLU's knowledge) uses role-play training to show officers exactly what to do when they observe, for example, an act of brutality by their partner or supervisor.  The institutional message is that officers' obligations to "protect" fellow officers fully trumps any broader obligation to their community-policing "partners" in the public.

3.There remains significant police resistance to the establishment of independent, civilian review mechanisms designed to provide direct accountability to the public

Would you form a partnership with someone who refuses to be directly accountable to you?  Often the same police agencies who are eager to extend the hand of partnership to communities are also quick to pull that hand back if the community wants direct accountability in an effective form of civilian review.  Police agencies that resist civilian review are saying, in effect, that if problems arise between the community policing partners only one partner -- the police partner -- should be allowed to investigate and issue findings and recommendations. 

Of course, it is becoming more difficult for agencies to fully resist the growing trend towards the establishment of civilian oversight mechanisms.  Fourteen civilian review mechanisms already exist in California and 75% of the 50 largest U.S. cities have some form of civilian oversight in place.  Increasingly, communities are adopting civilian review systems as a common sense element of "good government" notwithstanding  generally positive attitudes about police services. 

In response to this trend, police are now often touting the weakest forms of civilian review lacking the power to investigate, hold hearings or issue findings on complaints.  These systems -- often called monitoring or auditing systems -- usually only allow civilians to review the investigation conducted by police internal affairs bureaus.  The result is the illusion of oversight without the reality.  Instead of direct civilian review of police conduct, the public is left with civilian review of police review of police conduct.  While this approach may be better than no civilian review at all, bringing in selected civilian "insiders" to look over police shoulders during a process that remains shrouded in secrecy does little to address the wider community skepticism about police ability and willingness to police themselves. 

4.True power-sharing is a foreign concept to many police commanders and represents a threat to various institutional prerogatives currently protected from outside influences.

Would you enter into a partnership where the other partner made all of the decisions and strictly controlled access to the information upon which the decisions were based?  The purpose of a community policing partnership should not be to provide a mechanism for law enforcement to obtain community endorsement or  political "cover" for the decisions it makes unilaterally.  A true community policing partnership would involve full exploration of all possible options with the community and joint decision-making about priorities, deployment and tactics. 

While law enforcement certainly brings unique expertise to the community-policing partnership, this expertise can be misused if it is not fully shared with the community side of the relationship.  By limiting the options presented to the community or by providing only partial information, police can manipulate their partners into endorsing decisions that are in law enforcement's narrow interests.  For example, tactics should be selected because they produce lasting results, not because they are more fun or exciting for the officers who carry them out.  Deployment of officers should be driven by need not by the desire to increase overtime pay. 

The ACLU has seen community policing philosophy grossly distorted in circumstances where police present only limited options to communities understandably desperate for effective public safety services.  The police then claim "the community" has endorsed over-aggressive tactics that produce controversy and allegations of misconduct.  In fact, "the community" was given no choice.  It was not presented with alternative strategies that may have been more effective and more in tune with community values and goals.  Partners who feel "used" quickly look for a way out of the partnership.