Policy Analysis

Community Policing Requires Transparency

For decades, police departments have promoted "community policing" as their guiding philosophy. But you can't build community trust through secrecy. Encryption contradicts the very principles departments claim to embrace.

The Fundamental Contradiction

Community policing is built on partnership, transparency, and shared problem-solving between police and residents. Encryption is built on information control, operational secrecy, and one-way communication. These approaches cannot coexist.

Community Policing Promises

  • Police and community as partners
  • Open communication and transparency
  • Shared situational awareness
  • Trust built through visibility
  • Community input in policing priorities
  • Accountability to residents

Encryption Delivers

  • Information asymmetry favoring police
  • Closed communications hidden from public
  • Police-only awareness of operations
  • Secrecy that breeds suspicion
  • Community excluded from information
  • Reduced external oversight

What Community Policing Actually Means

The concept of community policing emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as a response to the failures of traditional "professional" policing that isolated officers from communities. Its core principles are well-established:

Community Partnership

Police work with communities, not just in them. Residents are active participants in public safety, not passive recipients of police services.

Problem-Solving Orientation

Rather than just responding to incidents, police and communities work together to identify and address underlying problems that generate crime and disorder.

Organizational Transformation

Departments restructure to support community engagement, decentralizing decision-making and empowering officers to build relationships.

Transparency and Accountability

Open operations build trust. Communities can see what police do, understand their methods, and hold them accountable for results.

How Encryption Undermines Community Policing

Destroys Information Partnership

Community policing envisions residents and police sharing information freely. Encryption makes this a one-way street: communities share information with police, but police hide their communications from communities.

Example: Neighborhood watch members who once monitored scanners to coordinate with police now have no idea what's happening in their own neighborhoods.

Eliminates Shared Awareness

Community policing requires that residents understand police activities in their area. Encryption means communities learn about police operations only through official announcements—if at all.

Example: During an active incident, community members who would once have monitored scanners to stay safe now must guess what's happening based on visible police presence.

Prevents Real-Time Accountability

The transparency essential to community policing includes real-time visibility into police operations. Encryption blocks this visibility, allowing problems to go unnoticed until formal complaints are filed.

Example: Journalists who once monitored police response to calls in specific neighborhoods can no longer document patterns of slow response or inadequate service.

Breeds Community Suspicion

Trust requires openness. When police hide their communications, communities reasonably wonder what's being hidden. The secrecy itself damages the partnership that community policing requires.

Example: After encryption, residents in some communities report feeling that police are "up to something" they don't want the public to know about—regardless of whether that's true.

The Timing Problem

The contradiction becomes even clearer when we examine timing. Many departments adopted encryption immediately after high-profile incidents that damaged community trust—precisely when transparency was most needed.

A Pattern Emerges

Departments that encrypted after 2020 often cited "community policing" in their mission statements while simultaneously blocking community access to their communications. The cognitive dissonance is remarkable.

If community policing means anything, it means that moments of crisis call for more transparency, not less. Departments that encrypt after trust-damaging incidents are doing the opposite of what community policing requires.

What Real Community Policing Looks Like

Some departments genuinely practice community policing principles—and their approach to transparency reflects it.

Open Communications

Departments committed to community policing maintain open radio communications, understanding that this access builds rather than undermines public trust.

Proactive Information Sharing

Rather than hiding operations, community-oriented departments actively share information about their activities through multiple channels.

Community Advisory Input

When considering technology changes like encryption, genuine community policing departments seek community input before making decisions.

Transparency as Default

The presumption is openness. Secrecy requires justification, not the other way around. This reflects the partnership model at community policing's core.

Departments Must Choose

You cannot claim to practice community policing while encrypting communications. These positions are mutually exclusive. Departments must choose:

Partnership Model

Maintain open communications as part of genuine community partnership. Accept that transparency involves some operational inconvenience. Build trust through visibility.

Outcome: Community trust, accountability, shared safety
OR

Control Model

Encrypt communications to maintain information control. Accept that this contradicts community policing principles. Stop claiming to practice a philosophy you've abandoned.

Outcome: Information asymmetry, reduced accountability, community suspicion

What departments cannot do is claim both—operating in secrecy while promoting community policing in press releases. Communities should call out this contradiction whenever they see it.

Questions for Your Department

If your police department claims to practice community policing while encrypting communications, ask these questions:

1
How does encryption advance community partnership?

What specific community policing goal is served by hiding communications?

2
Was the community consulted before encryption?

If community policing means partnership, why wasn't this decision made together?

3
What transparency alternatives were considered?

Were hybrid systems or delayed access options explored before full encryption?

4
How will trust be maintained without transparency?

What replaces the trust-building function that open communications served?

Words vs. Actions

Community policing has become so universally embraced that virtually every department claims to practice it. But claims mean nothing without consistent action. Encryption is an action—one that contradicts everything community policing stands for.

Judge your department not by its mission statement, but by its choices. A department that encrypts while claiming community policing has revealed which value it actually prioritizes: control over partnership.