Methods for Shifting and Sharing Responsibility for Public Safety Problems

The police can apply a variety of methods to get others to assume greater responsibility for public safety problems.2 The list of methods in Figure 1 is not intended to be exhaustive or definitive, but rather illustrative. One way in which the methods differ is the degree of coercion that police apply to achieve their objective. The list begins with methods that are generally less coercive and proceeds to those that are generally more coercive, although the degree of coercion may depend upon the specific context and not necessarily on the nature of the method applied.

In many instances, it may make sense to first employ the methods that are relatively non-coercive and to move to more coercive methods only if the former fail to achieve the desired cooperation. (See "Determining the Appropriate Degree of Pressure Police Ought to Bring to Bear to Shift Responsibility," below, for further discussion of this matter.)

In its ultimate form, the police effort to shift responsibility for public safety problems entails assisting others to develop the capacity to identify and rectify problems without further police intervention. A prime example occurs where police work at the neighborhood level helps residents develop what sociologists term collective efficacy, "the ability of neighborhoods to realize the common values of residents and maintain effective social controls."3 Short of a complete shift in responsibility, in most instances police look to shift or share part of the responsibility with respect to a specific problem or set of problems, bounded in time and space.

Figure 1. Methods for convincing others to accept responsibility for community problems

  • Educating others regarding their responsibility for the problem
  • Making a straightforward informal request of some entity to assume responsibility for the problem
  • Making a targeted confrontational request of some entity to assume responsibility for the problem
  • Engaging another existing organization that has the capacity to help address the problem
  • Pressing for the creation of a new organization to assume responsibility for the problem
  • Shaming the delinquent entity by calling public attention to its failure to assume responsibility for the problem
  • Withdrawing police services relating to certain aspects of the problem
  • Charging fees for police services related to the problem
  • Pressing for legislation mandating that entities take measures to prevent the problem
  • Bringing a civil action to compel entities to accept responsibility for the problem

Explanations and examples of the successful application of the various methods for shifting and sharing responsibility for public safety problems follow. For many of the examples, a more complete and detailed account can be found in the original source documents, many of which are accessible online via the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing website at www.popcenter.org.

In many instances, police and others employ a variety of methods to address a problem, thereby complicating efforts to understand precisely the effect that each method has had on the problem. The methods used are not mutually exclusive. For example, where the police succeed in encouraging another agency to confront the persons causing a particular problem, while at the same time they persuade a legislative body to enact a law imposing special fees for the relevant police services, a combination of methods has been employed.

Two important notes of caution are in order. First, many of the examples cited below are drawn from reports prepared by police agencies. Although such reports have been widely accepted and considered credible, few of these initiatives have benefited from rigorous and independent evaluation; consequently, the conclusions drawn should not be considered the sort of proof that is demanded by social science. The study of policing would benefit greatly by subjecting police initiatives to more rigorous assessment. Second, some methods that police may propose to persuade others to assume greater responsibility for addressing public safety problems, such as a newly-crafted ordinance, may will undoubtedly face legal challenges. Police should make full use of legal counsel where such challenges are likely. At the same time, however, counsel would be well-advised not to reflexively nix all initiatives that might face such a challenge. Proper legal analysis in the problem-oriented context may, on balance, conclude that the degree of coercion inherent in the new alternative may be less intrusive and more refined than is current practice. An ordinance controlling solicitation for prostitution, for example, may be preferable-in both the resulting fairness and effectiveness-than continued overuse of less discriminate arrest and prosecution.

Educating Victims and Offenders

Police have long been involved in systematically conveying information to the public on how to prevent crime. They do this through presentations, brochures, and a variety of other programs. Some of these efforts are aimed broadly at the general public; others are targeted at specific constituencies. Educational messages and programs are directed either at potential victims, instructing them on how to avoid being victimized, or at potential offenders, instructing them on how to avoid offending. Central to all of these efforts, however, is the fact that those to whom the message is directed are in a position to take actions that will protect themselves from either victimization or arrest. Such educational materials and presentations are generally low-key; one can take the advice or ignore it. Educational messages to potential offenders adopt a helpful rather than a warning tone: they are aimed at people who are inclined to obey the law, but who might offend out of ignorance or carelessness.

Making a Straightforward Informal Request

The use of straightforward requests is a natural first step that police take when seeking to have specific individuals or organizations take responsibility for addressing a crime or disorder problem. Naturally, a positive response to the initial request obviates the need for any increased pressure.

Here, the police are not simply broadcasting prepared advice on prevention to a large audience. Rather, they are focused upon asking citizens to resolve an immediate problem by taking a specific remedial action. Although the fact that the police are making the request may imply that consequences will follow if the request is ignored, it is often the case that police are merely informing a citizen of something of which she was not aware, and the citizen gratefully and graciously complies with the request.

Making a Targeted Confrontational Request

One of the clearest results of recent changes in policing is the increased tendency of police agencies to confront aggressively those adjudged responsible for a large volume of incidents that fall to the police to handle. Police typically resort to this more confrontational mode when straightforward requests are ignored.

Typically, police document both how a problem is caused and how it is aggravated by the actions or inactions of others. The resulting documentation is then presented to the offending party, together with a request that preventive measures be taken. The hope is that when confronted with such documentation the party will feel obliged to assume responsibility for taking the requisite preventive measures. However, depending on the specific situation, the confrontation may be bolstered by either a subtle implication or a more overt threat that failure to comply will result in more coercive measures. The potential for more coercive measures argues for a high standard of accuracy by police in documenting conditions.

Community policing efforts, which place a great deal of emphasis on cultivating relationships with citizens affected by problems, also contribute to an increase in confrontational requests. Whether confronting a drug house, a troublesome bar, or disorderliness in a park, police may feel empowered to be more confrontational by virtue of the support they receive from aggrieved citizens.

Engaging Another Existing Service Agency

Much police business consists of handling problems and cases that fall through holes in the social safety net or that constitute an overflow stemming from the limited resources of other agencies: mentally-ill persons who are not adequately cared for in the community; drug addicts who do not receive adequate treatment services; parks, playgrounds, and housing developments that are not adequately maintained; cars and homes that are abandoned; and so forth. In such cases, police sometimes attempt to shift the responsibility for crime prevention to another government agency or nongovernmental organization that provides relevant services in the community.

In-depth inquiry of the type called for in problem-oriented policing often identifies a default or a gap in services that, if corrected, would reduce or eliminate a problem. Although a particular situation or circumstance may initially be characterized as a crime or law enforcement problem, penetrating inquiry often redefines the problem and more clearly identifies the conditions that contribute to it. Thus, a problem initially reported as disorderly, threatening teenagers may upon further analysis turn out to be a case of strained relationships between senior citizens and teenagers that is brought on by the policies of a neighborhood school. Engaging school authorities in exploring preventive strategies may well result in their taking responsibility for the problem.

Brokering preventive strategies to another agency can create tension if the agency perceives the police initiative as an effort to set the agency's agenda or to off-load work onto it. This is particularly true during periods of government retrenchment when budgets may be limited. Other agencies might not be precisely positioned to provide the type or level of service recommended by police and may need additional resources to meet these new service demands.

Often, public health and safety departments and nongovernmental organizations that serve the disaffected and disenfranchised must weigh the initiatives recommended by the police against other priorities. Therefore, the documentation of the case by the police and the links they are able to establish between their findings and their recommendations can be critically important.

It is equally important for police to establish an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding between themselves and agencies with overlapping interests; applying more coercive measures to shift responsibility is warranted only when trust and mutual understanding have broken down. The whole movement toward greater institutional partnerships has been tremendously important in this regard. Whether such partnerships are mandated by legislation, as is the case in the United Kingdom, or are either wholly voluntary or compelled by executive decree, as is more common in the United States, police requests that other agencies change their policies and practices are better received if the members of those agencies understand and trust the police. Indeed, some individuals and organizations may see such police requests as helpful rather than coercive. In some cases, police documentation of a problem has been used by local authorities and governmental organizations to justify programs they have long advocated. In other cases, private groups have used police documentation to justify expansions in their programs and supporting budgets.

Pressing for the Creation of a New Organization

Police are not always in a position to implement measures that will best address a specific problem, and there may not be any other appropriate entity to do so. Police may then find themselves advocating the creation of a new organization with the mandate and resources to address the problem.

With the increase in efforts to organize neighborhoods, especially in large urban areas, it is frequently not necessary for police to be the primary catalyst of such efforts; instead, police often assume a supportive role. There are also situations in which a community organization grows organically out of concern for a given problem, with the police enlisted in support of the objective. However, as organizations come into existence and are sustained, police find that they are gradually transferring responsibility for specific prevention strategies to the new organizations.

Shaming Delinquent Parties

Public shaming is often an intermediate step between the type of private confrontation described earlier and resort to legal action. The stakes in resorting to public shaming are high for both the police and those against whom it is directed. The police must obviously be on solid ground. Public reputation is of great value to individuals, businesses, and agencies; hence, having police publicly discredit them can have significant long-term consequences. This method of shifting responsibility can be perceived as the most coercive. Consequently, police typically resort to it only after more private methods of persuasion have failed. The police goal is to call to public attention the nature of the problem, the factors that cause or contribute to the problem, the reasonableness of police requests, the refusal or failure to respond to less coercive measures, and the arguments for holding others accountable for their contributions to the problem.

Withdrawing Police Services

Police occasionally seek to force the adoption of preventive strategies by refusing to respond, investigate, arrest, or take other official action where an individual or organization has refused to implement measures that are designed to reduce the likelihood of victimization. If a complete service withdrawal is not feasible, police may respond with fewer resources, which can be done by lowering the priority given to certain types of incidents, by putting more of the reporting burden on the complainant, or by reducing the level of follow-up service after the taking of an initial report.

Typically, the withdrawal or modification of police services occurs in the context of a business operation, where there is overwhelming evidence that a problem would be eliminated if certain measures were put in place, measures which the business owner or operator will not implement based upon a belief that doing so would reduce sales.

The decision to withdraw services should only be made after a consideration of the disparate impact withdrawal might have on those who cannot afford even the most elementary remedial measures. For example, where imposing such a cost forced an already marginal business to close its doors, an additional consequence might be to deprive a depressed neighborhood of a vital business or service.

Complete withdrawal of police service is rare, most likely because police are reluctant to be seen as refusing to perform what others perceive as "their job." Police may also worry that the failure to respond to a simple request for assistance may result in their failing to attend to a more serious infraction than the one that was originally reported.

Most service withdrawals arise out of commercial transactions that are arguably civil rather than criminal matters. A few typical examples follow.

Other than commercial transactions, the most common incident that police refuse to provide service for is intrusion alarms that have not been verified as suspicious. (See the example and reference under "Pressing for Legislation," below).

Charging Fees for Police Services

Some police agencies seek to recover the cost of providing a particular service from the individuals who benefit from the service. The rationale for cost recovery is that those who make excessive claims are consuming more than their fair share of public resources, or at least more than their tax payments reasonably entitle them to. In some jurisdictions, legislation authorizes police to recover the actual cost of police investigations from defendants. In 2003, for example, police in Oakland, California successfully recovered $35,000 in investigative costs from the owners of a problematic motel.28 Elsewhere, police and emergency rescue agencies charge thrill-seekers for the costs of rescue if their adventures go awry. Increasingly, police are extending the cost recovery principle to owners whose properties generate an inordinate volume of calls, such as taverns and apartment complexes.

Such fees are not intended as penalties; therefore, recovery is typically limited to the actual cost to the police agency. Nonetheless, the fees provide an economic incentive to individuals and businesses to keep the cost of police services under control by keeping problem behaviors under control.

Fees differ from fines in that fees merely recoup the government’s costs while fines may exceed the government’s costs, imposing punitive costs. Either fees or fines can be effective incentives to encourage those required to pay them to change their policies and practices so that police are less likely to be needed.

Pressing for Legislation

In addition to having recourse to the many laws that directly proscribe illegal and harmful conduct, police have long been aided by a variety of municipal ordinances and administrative regulations that are designed to manage and control the conditions that foster and engender offending and harm. These reflect a legislative judgment that certain businesses, organizations, and individuals are responsible for ensuring that the activities in which they are engaged are carried out in a safe and orderly fashion; a prime example is the extensive regulation of the sale of alcoholic beverages. Police now commonly establish conditions for issuing permits for public events such as parades, festivals, demonstrations, and street parties-conditions that require event organizers to provide for the public's safety and to prevent disorder and crime. The primary responsibility for such measures rests with the license or permit holder. The police role is secondary: to reinforce the responsibility of the license or permit holder through regulatory enforcement. By virtue of the special knowledge they have acquired by analyzing crime and disorder problems, police are often in a position to propose specific new laws and regulations that assign responsibility for controlling criminogenic conditions to certain individuals, businesses, or groups, and that impose penalties upon those who fail to do so.

Legislative enactments of this sort are to be distinguished from those which merely give police more authority to arrest offenders, provisions which while potentially useful, reinforce the notion that police bear primary responsibility for controlling problems.

The adoption of such measures is typically preceded first by informal public discussions and later by formal public hearings. The police may be among the proponents; occasionally, they are the initiators. And in the typical scenario, the individuals upon whom the new regulatory burden will fall oppose the proposal. The evidence in support of such a proposal is sometimes more anecdotal than statistical and efforts may be made to introduce data that are imprecise or unverifiable. One exception to this pattern is the heated debate over whether to require convenience stores to keep two or more staff on duty at specified hours of the day; this debate has drawn heavily on studies that measure the value of the strategy, and has been especially contentious because of the conflicting results of those studies.

Bringing a Civil Action

There are several avenues by which police and others can bring legal actions to force individuals and organizations to implement measures to prevent crime and disorder.34 This strategy is normally reserved for the most egregious conditions and is employed only as a last resort, because, with some exceptions, the process is difficult and the costs are high. Among the numerous forms of civil actions police may either initiate or support are nuisance abatement orders (in the United States), anti-social behavior orders (in the United Kingdom), civil injunctions and restraining orders, civil asset forfeitures, civil fines, enforcement of codified regulations, and evictions.

Studies relating to the problem of drugs inevitably focus attention on drug houses. The search for an alternative to simply acquiring evidence and making arrests has led police to dust off largely unused abatement proceedings and to obtain new specifically tailored legislation that enables them, through a court proceeding and upon the presentation of adequate evidence, to seize properties associated with a high incidence of crime. Their authorization to do so, punctuated by some successful efforts, is intended to force landlords to take greater responsibility for controlling the activities that take place on their properties. It is the threat of an abatement action that often renders targeted confrontational requests effective.

In one of the more novel uses of civil actions, the Safe Streets program, based in Oakland, California, trains local citizens to acquire the evidence needed to petition in small claims court for the abatement of a drug house, without any need for a lawyer; any receipts from sale of the premises are distributed among the petitioners. Police involvement in this process is limited to cooperating with community members seeking police documentation of criminal activity occurring in or near the subject premises.

An emerging, although unsettled, development in the United States is for police to support civil lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors as a means of controlling gun-related violence. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of such suits, their success would provide an extraordinary example of how police and local government could compel a large industry to assume a significantly greater responsibility for the harm associated with its products.

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