Community Policing in the News Media

Abstract

Although there is a very large body of research examining community policing practices in the United States, no study has yet to examine the efforts by police departments to promote community policing in the news media. This study fills this gap. Specifically, this study presents the results from a national survey of public information officers and media personnel in large-sized cities to examine the efforts by police departments to promote innovative programs such as community policing in the news and document how community policing is presented in the news. The results indicate that although police departments and media personnel agree that they have a very good working relationship and that there are many opportunities to promote community policing, most police departments make only minimal effort to do so. The analysis of newspaper coverage of community policing finds that it is rarely presented in the news and the coverage that occurs is isolated.