ABSTRACT
The development of partnerships in law enforcement is not a new idea, but it does appear that today’s police are much more likely to enter into partnerships than their predecessors, especially at the local level. One reason for this new collaborative mindset on the part of the nation’s 21,143 police agencies (Maguire et al. 1998) is the adoption of community policing in many of these jurisdictions. Although a review of the research on the implementation and impact of community police reforms is beyond the scope of this chapter (for such review, see, for example, National Research Council 2004), it is worth noting that community policing programs do represent a 46fundamental shift in strategy: rather than working alone (or in teams with other officers), patrol officers are encouraged to meet and work with community groups, personnel from social services, public health, and other criminal justice agencies to address the community’s problems of crime and order maintenance.
