Abstract:
The decision of the Chicago Police Department to employ community policing techniques to reduce crimes on the city's South Side, leads it to focus on the city's Englewood neighborhood. There, the combination of drug dealing and vacant homes and buildings had demoralized residents and allowed crime to flourish. Community policing--the idea of building an alliance with neighborhood residents as the basis for combating crime--offered, in the view of police, the possibility of improvement. This case describes the markedly different results achieved through community policing in two relatively similar, contiguous police "beats" within the larger Englewood neighborhood. In one, where a committed neighborhood leader emerges, community policing appears to be successful. In another--slightly poorer and without a community leader--police make little headway. The case allows for discussion of the preconditions necessary for successful anti-crime initiatives and, more broadly, for discussion of how and under what conditions public officials can forge alliances with neighborhood residents. As a strategic management case, it raises the issue of how to implement a "co-production" strategy--one in which citizens become an extension of public capacity.
Learning Objective:
The case allows for discussion of the preconditions necessary for successful anti-crime initiatives and, more broadly, for discussion of how and under what conditions public officials can forge alliances with neighborhood residents. As a strategic management case, it raises the issue of how to implement a "co-production" strategy--one in which citizens become an extension of public capacity.
