Study of Knowledge and Attitudes of Public Housing Residents Toward Community Policing in the City of Charleston

摘要

Charleston, West Virginia, the capital city of one of the poorest states in the nation, is located in Kanawha County, Charleston which leads the state in every area of crime. While overall crime actually fell and the clearance rate improved from 13% to 15% from 1992 to 1993, the nature of crime in Charleston changed. Decreases in felonious assault, breaking and entering, larceny, theft, and motor vehicle theft rates brought the overall crime rate down, but murder, rape, and robbery rates increased dramatically. (The number of murders increased from 6 to 16 (166%), rapes increased from 39 to 51 (30.8%) and robberies increased from 251 to 290 (15.5%)). In February 1991, the Charleston Police Department (CPD) began to explore the philosophy--it was easier to implement new programs than to evaluate them. Evaluation is a component of the programs that action-oriented officers were slow to appreciate. Administrators were forced to rely on anecdotal evidence to judge whether office-hours expended in various programs were cost-effective. Without the internal capacity to evaluate programs objectively, CPD turned to the West Virginia Statistical Analysis Center (WVSAC) for help.