Commentary: Community Policing: A Mechanism for Successful Assimilation of Immigrant Cultures into Our Communities

• Published date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12359
• Date: 01 May 2015
• Author: Ross McCarty

Commentary

Ross McCarty has been chief of the

Urbandale, Iowa, Police Department since

2009. He has been a member of the

department since 1984 and worked his way

up through the ranks in a variety of posi-

tions from tactical commander to certif‌i ed

polygraphist.

E-mail: rmccarty@urbandale.org

Community Policing: A Mechanism for Successful Assimilation of Immigrant Cultures into Our Communities 443

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 3, pp. 443–444. © 2015 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12359.

Ross McCarty

Urbandale, Iowa, Police Department

In her article “Beyond Enforcement: Welcomeness,

Local Law Enforcement, and Immigrants,” Linda

M. Williams reaches compelling conclusions that

are valuable to the law enforcement community.  e

article of‌f ers a systematic measure for determining the

ef‌f ectiveness of any outreach ef‌f ort we may undertake

within our communities. Her research and conclu-

sions af‌f‌i rm the importance of collaboration between

professional law enforcement executives and research-

ers in order to meet the challenges of our profession in

the twenty-f‌i rst century.

Law enforcement agencies are functional in our

practices and conservative in our approaches to

change.  is functional conser vatism works well

to preserve law enforcement culture and practices

that have been shaped by our institution of justice.

It also works to produce unwillingness to try new

ways in the absence of empirical research to guide

and support such change. For many policing agen-

cies, that new way is community policing, a def‌i ned

approach that encourages partnerships, problem

solving, and prevention of crime. Resolving social

issues has proved to be an ef‌f ective deterrent to

preventing crime.

 e law enforcement community understands and

accepts the fact that the most vulnerable members

of any community are those nearest the poverty

line. Social issues resulting from poverty are among

the many obstacles to successful assimilation into

our culture.  e most challenging of tasks is to f‌i nd

the resources to lift our immigrants out of poverty.

Although police agencies are not primarily social ser-

vice providers, our position in the community often

allows us a keen awareness of social resources and how

best to maximize access to those services.

Williams’s research can guide us in providing com-

munity policing resources to our immigrant commu-

nities. She outlines a systematic approach to ensuring

the success of an agency attempting to become a

“welcoming department” as opposed to a “neutral

department” or one perceived as an “unwelcoming

department.”

 e article identif‌i es f‌i ve dimensions of “welcoming”

practices. Incorporate these f‌i ve cornerstones into your

agency practices, and there is a high probability that

successful integration of your immigrant communities

will begin with the police department and be carried

forth by example into the community-at-large.  e

following is an outline of how the Urbandale Police

Department intends to use the f‌i ve dimensions in our

community policing practices.

1. Providing in-language resources: Law

enforcement invests millions of dollars in

our communication networks but little in

improving the public’s reception of our mes-

sage. Simply demonstrating our willingness

to understand our community would signal

“welcomeness.”  is next year, my organiza-

tion, the Urbandale Police Department, will

provide more agency and social program-

ming resources in the native languages of our

community. We will provide online resources

in native languages as well as English. We

will expand our on-call interpreter list where

necessary and ensure that our language line

provider meets our expectations.

2. Community outreach: Our department

already has a strong program of community

outreach within our traditional city bound-

aries. We have now begun to extend that

program to substantive discussions of police

policy beyond those boundaries to the greater

metropolitan area.

3. Collaboration: We seek to engage the larger

community in dialogue on issues such as

recruitment, body cameras, antiprof‌i ling,

diversity awareness training, and other mat-

ters of concern to our greater metropolitan

public. We are committed to a collaborative

ef‌f ort to create policy that ref‌l ects the results

of such dialogue. Because we believe that

Community Policing: A Mechanism for Successful

Assimilation of Immigrant Cultures into Our Communities