Rethinking Community Policing (Criminal Justice: Recent Scholarship)

Community policing is in decline, threatened with obsolescence by data-driven practices like COMPSTAT and Intelligence-Led Policing. Efficiency driven and aided by technology, these practices are delivering on the crime reduction promises community policing aspired to. Ray argues that much of community policing's difficulties lie in the lack of a clear theoretical foundation informing its community engagement mandate. The uncritical incorporation of pluralism needlessly highlights the differences between police and community groups. Deliberative democratic theory offers a theoretical foundation that may save community policing. Moreover, Ray uses historical sources to suggest the inevitability of community policing in America.

John Ray's 29-year police career includes 21 years with the Longview Police Department. He left as an Assistant Police Chief for his current position as Executive Chief Deputy for the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office. He has served as adjunct faculty for Kilgore College and The University of Texas at Tyler. John and wife Julie reside in Fort Worth, Texas.