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Purpose: For contemporary policing, the police–public communication process is one of the most essential elements of law enforcement management. The promotion of police–public relations, police integrity, and police accountability all depend upon effective communication. While ever a challenge for law enforcement agencies, the coming of the COVID-19 pandemic changed substantially the character of both mediated and interpersonal communication between the police and those policed as of 2020.

Methodology/Approach: Building upon the concept of electronic community-oriented policing (E-COP), this chapter proposes an expanded theoretical model of police–public online communication during a time in which in-person contacts are constrained and various forms of mediated communication assume major importance.

Findings: Using a sample of COVID-related police Facebook posts collected between February 1 and May 31, 2020, this chapter illustrates how the expanded E-COP model is helpful in orchestrating an effective police response to a major public health emergency. It also advances the argument that police–public online communication will be not only become widely used during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but will likely become routinized.

Originality/Value: The proposed model also provides practical suggestions for law enforcement agency leaders who endeavor to advance the goals of community-oriented and guardianship-directed policing. Some likely barriers to more effective use of social media are singled out for special attention.

We assessed attempts by federal and state agencies to utilize a Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving (COPPS) approach to address endangered species and natural resource protection issues in two watersheds in Washington State involving listed species of salmon, steelhead and bull trout. In the wake of the listing of these species, NOAA Fisheries and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) joined to implement a multi-party collaboration to enforcement termed Resource-Oriented Enforcement (ROE). We sought to determine if federal and state resource agencies can collaborate effectively and if collaborative approaches can achieve short- and long-term resource protection goals. A citizen mail survey (n=800+ in each location) and extensive personal interviews with key actors were conducted to assemble evidence on the degree of success achieved in implementing ROE. Observed results suggest that collaboration can

Most police agencies in the USA make the claim that they use social media, and such use is drawing a great academic attention. Most studies on police use of social media focus on the content of police social media websites. Little research, however, has been conducted regarding what types of police agencies are in fact making use of social media. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap in the knowledge.

The study reported here analyzes the 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) data set to identify the principal organizational characteristics of police agencies associated with the use of social media. Binary logistic regression is used to identify significant independent predictors of police use of social media, viewed here as a form of innovation.

The findings indicate that the workforce size (commissioned and civilian personnel) of a police agency, the level of participation in multi-jurisdictional task forces and the early use of an official agency website to communicate with the public are the predictors of police use of social media.

Three theories pertaining to organizational behavior (i.e. contingency theory, institutional theory, and resource dependency theory), as well as Maguire’s (2003) study, are used to establish the theoretical framework for the research reported here.

Viewed as a pioneering study testing organizational theories related to police use of social media, the current study sets forth findings that help deepen the collective understanding of contingency theory, institutional theory and resource dependency theory as frameworks for explaining organizational behavior in policing.

Explains Inglehart’s theory that in advanced industrial societies, individual values have moved from materialism to a greater emphasis on freedom, self‐expression and the quality of life, or “postmaterialism”, and observes that postmaterialists want to work with people they like and to do interesting work rather than have a high salary or job security. Applies Inglehart’s theory of societal value change to assess a police organizational reform. Conducts a survey of the Washington State Police. Finds that command staff show the highest profession of postmaterialist values and troopers show the lowest. Believes leadership turnover is more likely than conversion to new values to bring about management commitment to community policing.

This paper examines the value orientation of American police officers in a major municipal police department. Relying primarily on survey data, the aim of this paper is to utilize Milton Rokeach’s theory of human values to investigate the following three issues: What are the value orientations of police officers today? Have such value orientations among police officers changed over time? Is there a consensus on values among officers? The primary findings of this paper strongly suggest that value orientations among American police officers have remained relatively stable over recent decades. Moreover, there is a high degree of consensus on value priorities among police officers across years of service, level of education and gender.

The purpose of this study is to identify the principal determinants associated with becoming a volunteer in crime prevention programs.

Data were collected from citizen surveys in a medium sized city located in the West region of USA. The data contained 574 city residents and 264 volunteers. Binomial logistic regression analytical technique was employed to examine the relative contribution of three categories of explanatory variables – demographic background, neighborhood contextual factors, and political viewpoints – on becoming a police volunteer in community crime prevention.

The primary finding suggests that gender was a significant predictor of participation in police volunteer work. With respect to cognitive factors, the character of citizen perceptions of crime problems in their neighborhoods mattered considerably. Similarly, citizens' political orientation was another important variable among cognitive factors.

Study findings are based on surveys of citizen perceptions of police programs from a single mid‐sized city. Results cannot be generalized to all US cities.

This study provides police administrators and academic scholars with research‐based information on several unanswered questions associated with participation in police volunteer work.

This paper examines evidence of value change among police officers in a medium‐sized police department which has been selected as a demonstration site for community‐oriented policing (COP). Relying primarily upon two survey data collections with a period of three years’ separation, the aim of this paper is to provide a follow‐up to a previously published article in this journal to investigate two issues. First, was there a change in the value orientations among police officers between 1993 and 1996?; and second, was any change noted favorable to the COP organizational culture that the department is attempting to promote? The primary findings of this paper strongly suggest that the value orientations among police officers did indeed change over this time period. However, the direction of the change noted may not be consistent with the goal of enhancing COP organizational culture. These findings help explain how the institutionalization of COP is properly seen as a very difficult, long‐term task facing American police today.

Reviews the rise of community‐oriented policing (CP) in the USA. Analyses data from a survey of police chiefs across the USA which investigated the extent of organizational change and CP implementation. Explores the extent of current CP training and identifies some facilitators and impediments to its implementation, e.g., education; training; middle‐management resistance; maintenance of adequate response time to calls for service while pursuing CP goals. Calls for further study on strategies for balancing the outcomes of a traditional approach against the expected benefits of CP; identification of agencies which have achieved this balance; comparison of employees’ value orientation over time. Notes that successful CP requires a change in officers’ values.

“Community policing” has become the watchword for organizational change among law enforcement agencies across the USA over the past several years. In particular, concerted efforts to internalize this new policing philosophy have intensified with the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, and since the strong endorsement of the community policing concept by the Clinton administration. Our analysis of data collected from a representative sample of 281 American police agencies in 1993 and again in 1996 permit a compelling examination of the community policing movement in this country over time. Our findings suggest that there has been a significant increase in community policing activities in recent years. Further, the level of interest in community policing training has intensified and impediments to the adoption of the community policing philosophy have become more easily identifiable. In addition, the results reported here also suggest that this change process has been quite dynamic, but the ultimate and widespread institutionalization of community policing still remains somewhat uncertain.

As women's understanding of work‐place discrimination evolved, their attention shifted from the problem of equal pay for equal work to the issue of comparable pay. This shift was premised on the realisation that even though the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was correcting pay inequities in substantially equivalent jobs held by both men and women, most female‐dominated jobs had no equivalent male comparisons and thus, were outside the scope of the Equal Pay Act. Mahoney (1983) defines Comparable Worth as “comparable pay for jobs of comparable worth.” (p.14). At the core of this definition is the contention that differences in pay that are disproportionate to differences in the worth of jobs amount to wage discrimination.