Besides hiring civilians to provide more time for officers on the beat, known as civilianization, COPS grantees relied on citizens to participate in crime prevention programs and to—

• Form part of community partnerships.
• Help identify problems/concerns of their community.
• Suggest solutions and help in the decisionmaking process.
• Offer feedback on perceived police activity/approaches.

Input and assistance from citizens are key elements of the community-oriented model of policing. In applying this policing approach, COPS grantees built partnerships with communities and encouraged the participation of community members to help identify community concerns and staff positions in community centers. However, the study found that although community partnerships are commonplace in many agencies, these partnerships are sometimes in name only. True community partnerships, involving sharing power, are found in only a few departments.

The roles citizens play, or can play, are illustrated in the COPS Case Studies. Some Web and print publications about partnerships between communities and the police are listed below.

• Citizen Review of Police: Approaches and Implementation (2001). NIJ-sponsored study that looked at 9 different approaches to citizen oversight.

• Public Involvement: Community Policing in Chicago (2000). Summarizes recent NIJ-sponsored research involving citizen participation in Chicago's community policing initiative.

• Community Policing in Action: Lessons from an Observational Study (June 1998). NIJ study that focused on police-community interactions in jurisdictions that have implemented community policing.

  There are many programs and studies directly or indirectly related to this subject. For further information, visit the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), where you may conduct a search and either download or purchase publications.