Community Policing Reforms and Organizational Changes: An Assessment of Officers' Perceptions of Community-Police Relations in Slovenia

Abstract

Police officers' views about police-citizen relationships are shaped not only by opportunities to interact with community residents during normal police work but also in part by efforts due to the larger police mission of encouraging and supporting such attitudes. In 2009, the new leadership in the Slovenian police organization promoted the importance of citizen-police relationships to enhance the quality of police services and, consequently, its impact on community policing. The goal of this study is to examine if Slovenian police officers' views of citizen-police relationships and community policing have changed from 2006 to 2011. We compare officers' perceptions of various facets of police-citizen relationships as they relate to police work and community policing before and after the more active promotion of community policing. While the findings from 2006 suggested that police officers were dissatisfied and at best ambiguous about citizens' participation in crime prevention activities or support for the police, their perceptions 5 years later showed a marked positive improvement in their attitudes on various dimensions. These include officers' views about the overall police mission, increased emphasis on service-oriented policing in contrast to a law enforcement approach, support for community policing, perceived citizens' willingness to cooperate with the police in crime prevention activities, and decreased cynicism about citizens. These findings suggest confidence in the utility of community policing ideas.