National COPS Evaluation of St. Paul: 2000
1993-96: Moving Into Community Policing – Organizational Changes in SPPD
Developing A New Mission
The mission of the Department developed under the Finney administration has been "The Saint Paul Police Department will be more reflective of and more responsive to the community we serve." "Reflective of" meant that SPPD would reflect the demographics of the City in its ranks, the strong values of the community, and the expectations of citizens for police—courtesy, professionalism, kindness, attentiveness, and effectiveness. "Responsive to" implied more than responding quickly to 911 calls: in addition, it meant adopting community-oriented policing as a philosophy, thereby listening to the concerns of citizens and developing problem-oriented strategies to resolve these concerns.32 Underlying his mission, according to the Chief, were four basic values: pride (in personal appearance, demeanor, the Department, services rendered), professionalism (skills, education, experience, accountability, dedication and determination), productivity (maximization of accomplishments, and as managers, creation of an atmosphere within units that values productivity), and participation (everyone must join in the effort to develop solutions and strategies).
But in the simplest of terms, Finney's own vision of this new mission requires "opening up" the Department—to women and minorities, to civilians, to media access and ultimately the public who want to know about it. Creating an organization that is more reflective of and responsive to the community by opening it up has meant changes in Planning, in Operations, and in Management.
To carry out this mission, SPPD would adopt "community policing" as its operational strategy. In recent Annual Reports, the Department has provided several statements of what it calls the "continually evolving concept of community-oriented policing." In 1993, community policing was presented as "a philosophy of cooperation with, and service to the community. It recognizes that police departments and communities must work together to solve problems in the neighborhoods before they lead to serious crime" (p. 10). The next year it became "full service personalized policing where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place and interacts in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems" (1994, p.14). By 1995, the Annual Report referred to SPPD as having "totally integrated the community-oriented policing philosophy." Together these statements, along with the strategic plan and operations described below, suggest that SPPD not only seeks to represent and reflect the community, but views that community as a full partner, dynamic and motivated rather than passive, working with police not only in identifying but in solving problems.
Strategic Planning
Shortly after taking office, Chief Finney initiated a planning process in SPPD to formally implement community-oriented policing. Deputy Chief Ross Lundstrom oversaw the process and was instrumental in writing the first plan in 1993; it was then updated in January 1995, 1996, and 1997.33 The evolving document became both a guide for future development (into 1998), and an assessment of progress to date. It was organized around four questions: Where is SPPD now? Where does it want to go? How will it get there? How is SPPD doing?
Where is SPPD Now?
The 1996 plan (written at the end of 1995) began by setting out the Department's strengths: SPPD and the community were fully aware of the impact of public safety on the local business climate; both the Chief and the Department had broad public support (including substantial commitments from public and private corporations and foundations); the City had strong neighborhoods (along with a small-town attitude and lifestyle) and a history of successful neighborhood-based policing programs; the Department had a reputation for professionalism and a stable workforce of highly educated sworn officers, many of whom stayed on for their entire career; and Saint Paul had a relatively low crime rate (although the arrest rates and incidence of violent crime were rising). The plan also cited weaknesses, such as resistance to change and the persistence of a hierarchical organizational structure that was not conducive to decentralized decision-making, communications problems and disparities in resources created by community-oriented policing, outmoded data processing technology and the need for resources sufficient to support increasing numbers of street officers, inadequate service levels of civilianized staff in the Emergency Communications Center, and a lack of coordination between SPPD and the Sheriff's Office. Along with the opportunities arising out of the strengths, the plan noted that social problems such as a growing youthful population, and numbers of children living in poverty, posed threats for the immediate future.
Where Is SPPD Going?
Where did SPPD want to go? The plan set out a series of steps to take the Department through 1998: by that year, the Department would see "a substantially completed transition to a COP philosophy and structure" with "decentralized decision making, the majority of residents acquainted with their local team of officers, and problem solving as the primary policing strategy." Effective communication between citizens and police (line officers, investigators), city government, and other law enforcement agencies would develop, buttressed by appropriate technology. Finally, as the Department changed its organizational structure to focus around Neighborhood Service Areas (NSAs, created in 1994—see below), officers would relate to "turf" rather than shift assignments. In creating the NSAs, the Department would build upon the structure of the seventeen districts and councils, which "serve as a catalyst for self-definition in each particular neighborhood and its interaction with the city as a whole…. The district councils have enthusiastically embraced the concept of COP and have played an important role as the philosophy has proceeded in its implementation."
A Strategy for Getting There
To achieve SPPD's mission, four implementation strategies were planned: comprehensive training of both sworn and non-sworn personnel in COP; involving neighborhoods in public safety decisions and maximizing police-community interaction; flattening the organization to a participatory, horizontal model; and implementing a communication system to support and manage the decentralized system. Both internal and external components of the strategies were laid out. Internally, training would focus on line supervisors and line officers; recruitment, reward, and field training would all reinforce COP by emphasizing creative problem-solving and neighborhood involvement; decentralization would proceed further as the Department replaced the four teams with three police districts (Eastern, Central and Western), each divided into Neighborhood Service Areas (NSAs) as the basic unit for delivering police services; support for decentralization would occur through the development of buildings, substations, communications and information systems and an infrastructure.
Externally, "the direct application of COP into each neighborhood has been the creation of the Neighborhood Service Area[s]." NSAs were delineated in consultation with community members: each contained one, or a combination of several, self-defined neighborhood(s), reflecting both perceived and natural boundaries. Five service areas were established in Eastern District, four in Central, and seven in Western: they varied in real size, population density, and calls for service, and therefore in numbers of officers assigned. Each district would be assigned one sergeant per service area, plus three additional sergeants to handle administrative tasks on the three shifts.
In addition to creating the NSAs, other external components included: managing calls for service by diverting them increasingly to district offices; re-educating citizens (including businesses) concerning new aspects of service delivery; exploring various opportunities for building partnerships within the community (for example, in Eastern District Commander Winger initiated meetings with security personnel in the Stroh Brewery and 3M companies); forming multi-agency collaborations such as the Mobile Crisis Team (MCT), which involves the Ramsey County Human Service Department, the Youth Service Bureau, and SPPD, and places teams of social workers on call for domestic crises in where a child is in need of immediate mental health intervention services; assisting block clubs and offering community justice education; operating a Citizen Police Academy and volunteer programs (such as Neighborhood Assistance Officers); and putting officers out in neighborhoods through Bike Patrol, substations, FORCE, and other COP programs.
How Is SPPD Doing?
Because no model was available to undertake a formal evaluation of community policing efforts as of late 1995, Department planners proposed assessing their efforts briefly, year by year: they continued this process through 1997, when SPPD began working with Hamline University Graduate School to develop and evaluation model that will be applied to the NSA program and structure.
32 Chief William Finney, Memo to All Managers and Supervisors Re: SPPD Mission Statement and Organization Values, SPPD, September 21, 1993.
33 Saint Paul Police Department, "Strategic Plan 1997 Update," unpub. Document. The 1997 update involved only minimal additions to the full version completed in January 1996: thus, the 1996 plan is described here.
