Chapter 4: Public Relations and Community Relations: A Contrast

Breadth of Agency Involvement (Public Relations)

- Agency involvement in public relations is narrow. - Public relations is a tool of police management. - It is an easily compartmentalized function.

Standardization (Community Relations)

- Are difficult to routinize and standardize. - The function they are supposed to perform usually requires flexibility and capacity for rapid change.

Public Relations

- Citizen involvement is kept to a minimum. - Generally passive. - Citizens are reasons for, but not participants in, the activity.

Public Relations

- Designed to create a favorable environment for agency operations. - Enhancing the police image. - The target is a citizen who passively accepts what the police department is doing. - There is no feedback or input.

The obstacles result from conscious opposition to what the police:

- Have done - Are doing - Plan to do

Agency Oriented, Community Oriented, or Both (Community Relations)

- If the function of the police is to protect and serve, then to be community oriented ultimately serves the needs of the agency, too. - The aim of community relations is to provide services that are considered important to the public..

Agency Oriented, Community Oriented, or both (Public Relations)

- Include a range of services designed primarily to serve agency needs - Even services to those outside the agency are designed around the benefits that can be gained by the agency.

There are at least five functions that are essentially public relations in trust, but which complement community relations efforts:

- Informing the public about crucial issues - Developing community support - Supplementing agency operations and programs - Presenting an accurate picture of the agency - Enhancing the agency's image

Community Relations

- Involved citizens actively determining what and how the police services will be provided to the community. - Establish ongoing mechanisms for resolving problems of mutual interest to the community and the police. - Provides feedback and input.

Hierarchical Level of Involvement (Public Relations)

- It is relatively easy to pinpoint management responsibility for agency activities - Assignment is generally made in direct relationship to the importance given to a specific program by top administration.

Hierarchical Level of Involvement (Community Relations)

The hierarchical setting of responsibility for community relations activities is so varied that it defines generalization.

Public Relations

- One common purpose of public relations activities is to develop and maintain a good environment in which to operate. - This involves influencing attitudes in three areas of the environment: - The obstacles result from conscious opposition to what the police: - The theory is that if people understand why an agency performs as it does, they will be supportive of their performance. - Promoting a positive image is alogical extension of public information activity. - Community relations programs can share purpose and sub-purposes with public relations efforts. - The police must depend upon the community as a source of their legitimacy.

Standardization (Public Relations)

- Public relations activities tend to be standardized - Specialized whenever possible - Easier to control - Facilitates their repetition - Prevents wasteful duplication

Community Relations

- Rely heavily upon citizen involvement. - The citizen is an active participant. - The police agency does not relinquish responsibility to community relations. - Ensures that citizen resources are properly accommodated, both to provide assistance in accom..

Processes Involved in the Activity (Public Relations)

- Standardization - Agency Oriented, Community Oriented, or both - Information Flow - Hierarchical Level of Involvement - Breadth of Agency Involvement

Processes Involved in the Activity (Community Relations)

- Standardization - Agency Oriented, Community Oriented, or Both - Information Flow - Hierarchical Level of Involvement - Breadth of Agency Involvement

This involves influencing attitudes in three areas of the environment:

- The Public - Politicians - Staff

Information Flow (Public Relations)

- The information flow is outward in public relations activities. - This one-way pattern reflects the belief that if those in the agency's environment are properly informed about police operations, they will support them.

Neighborhood Watch

- The police ask citizens to report any suspicious activities occurring in the neighborhood. - The citizen merely becomes an extension of the police patrol apparatus.

A useful analytical framework for this purpose focuses on three characteristics:

- The purpose of the activity. - The process involved in the activity. - The extent of citizen involvement.

Public Relations and/or Community Relations

- There has been little agreement on what police-community relations is. - Since that time, police-community relations has experienced sporadic growth. - This rapid growth resulted from the violent confrontations of the mid to late 1960s. - The primary goal of such units was usually to serve as go betweens, interpreting the attitudes, desires, and intentions of minority citizens and police agencies to each other. - The community policing philosophy broadens the scope of police-community interactions from a narrow focus devoted exclusively to crime to an examination of community concerns such as the fear of crime, disorder of all types, neighborhood decay, and crime prevention.

Crime Prevention: Another Name for Community Relations?

- There is no doubt that crime prevention is a well advertised focus of police function. - Citizen demand for crime prevention programs continues to grow. - Most programs are considered as crime prevention, however, at least in practice if not in original purpose, almost entirely informational from the police to the citizen. - It has been found that police efforts that help minority parents protect their children are more positively received.

Common Framework for Analyzing Community and Public Relations

- They are related and both properly part of police activity, and the differences between community and public relations should be understood. - A useful analytical framework for this purpose focuses on three characteristics:

Information Flow (Community Relations)

- Two-way information flow is critical to community relations. - The communication process must publicize the police point of view, stimulate discussion of issues, and solicit feedback from members of the community.

Breadth of Agency Involvement

Although certain aspects of community relations may be assigned to specific departmental units, involvement generally crosses divisional boundaries.

The Purpose of the Activity

The purpose of an activity generally embodies the values that the police agency intends to live by.