Community Policing In Madison Quality From The Inside Out An Evaluation Of Implementation And Impact

The Madison, Wisconsin, Police Department undertook an effort to create a new organizational design to support community-oriented and problem-oriented policing. One-sixth of the department serving approximately one-sixth of the population was developed as an Experimental Police District (EPD). Community policing in Madison strived to implement quality leadership, a healthy workplace, improved service delivery, and community benefits. This evaluation had three objectives: document the process of developing the EPD, measure the internal effects of change, and measure the effects of change on the community. In addition to quality leadership, the internal effects focused on in the evaluation included employee input, working conditions, job-related attitudes, and officers' reactions to change. External effects included perceived police presence, frequency and quality of police-citizen contacts, problem-solving, perceptions of neighborhood conditions, levels of worry and fear, and actual victimization. The report found that the successful implementation of a participatory management approach improved employees' attitudes toward the department, decentralized operations, and reduced citizens' fears of crime and increased their belief that police were working for the benefit of the community.