Community-Based Policing Is a Long Process, Experts Say : Law enforcement: The concept could take 10 years to implement, they tell a council hearing. It is a key Christopher Commission proposal.

By LOUIS SAHAGUN

Sept. 20, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Law enforcement experts said Thursday that it could take a decade to fully implement a key Christopher Commission proposal for improving relations and trust between the Los Angeles Police Department and the communities it serves.

The commission has recommended that the 8,300-member department expand its “community-based policing” efforts, which emphasize crime prevention over arrests and encourage a “working partnership” between officers and residents to solve problems.

But Robert Trojanowicz, director of the National Center for Community Policing at Michigan State University, said it could take 10 to 12 years to fully convert Police Department policies.

“This is not a quick-fix solution,” Trojanowicz said after speaking to the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Christopher Commission report. “This is very hard, painstaking and sometimes costly work.”

Trojanowicz based his estimate on studies he has conducted in cities across the nation that have experimented with community-based police programs.

The biggest problem, he said, is “getting the entire community--the police department, elected officials, community leaders, and the media--to buy into it and have confidence that it will work.”

Former Los Angeles Police Chief Tom Reddin agreed and told the committee that “10 years is not that long a time . . . for a program as massive as the one we are talking about.”

Those assessments discouraged council members at the hearing, including Mark Ridley-Thomas and Zev Yaroslavsky, who said that “the more we debate it without making a decision, the longer it will take to get it done.”

But another expert who testified before the panel, James Lasley, a professor at Cal State Fullerton’s School of Criminal Justice, warned against moving too quickly to establish programs that he said can be a “two-edged sword.”

Lasley said community-based policing could “concentrate power in the hands of a few complainers who convey details of their neighbors’ personal lives to police.”

“It’s a Big Brother effect,” Lasley said, “and it can turn citizens against citizens.”

The Christopher Commission concluded that by rewarding officers for “hard-nosed” law enforcement policies, the LAPD has become alienated from some of the communities it serves. A siege mentality will be be created, the commission said, if the department fails to broaden its attempts at community-based policing.

Officer Stephanie Tisdale of the LAPD’s Valley Bureau told the panel that persuading local residents “to become my eyes and ears” was the key to ridding one Canoga Park street of drug dealers. “It wouldn’t have worked if I had tried to do it myself,” Tisdale said.

Bolstered by such successes, Valley Bureau Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker told the committee that he has launched a wide range of community-based policing programs in the San Fernando Valley.

Kroeker’s efforts were praised by Ad Hoc Committee Chairman Marvin Braude, who said the campaign revealed “a great deal of citizen participation and partnership in the Valley.”

“When we encourage citizen participation, the first consequence is more complaints and a heavier workload for officers,” Braude said. “But in the long run, it is better.”

A month ago, Braude’s committee endorsed a dozen Christopher Commission proposals dealing with the selection, hiring and removal of a chief of police--most of which will require changes in the City Charter.

Among others things, the committee approved placement before voters of charter amendments that would empower the mayor to appoint a chief of police and limit a chief to two five-year terms.

Now, the committee is reviewing six other key issues raised by the Christopher Commission report ranging from racism to the use of excessive force.

The next public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 26 and will deal with recruitment and field training of police officers, Braude said.

In a related matter, a coalition of community leaders, police officials and educators planned to hold a “community mobilization conference” today at the Los Angeles Convention Center with a goal of teaming Police Department division commanders with community leaders to devise long-term anti-gang strategies.

“In the past we expected law enforcement to handle the gang problem all by themselves,” said Steve Valdivia, executive director of Community Youth Gang services, which is co-sponsoring the conference. “But in certain portions of South-Central and East Los Angeles we found that when law enforcement actively cooperates with residents, magic happens.”