Community Policing: Using Needs Assessment to Gain Understanding before Implementing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs assessment of community policing services to an African American community. Specifically, this project focused on identifying how African Americans perceive current police services using the Theory of Planned Behavior. A review of the literature reveals gaps in community police services that suggest law enforcement may need to reconsider how community police programs are implemented. Suboptimal application of community policing leads to breakdowns in the achievement of collaboration between citizens and police from a lack of citizen satisfaction and trust. This needs assessment of a northeastern police department's community‐policing eff­orts concluded that the department was not meeting the needs of the African American community. Themes from focus groups and interviews reflected many shortcomings that were creating gaps between what is and what should be. Interventions are proposed to close the existing gaps in police service to this African American community.