Illinois Government Research no. 48 1979: Team Policing and Police Services: An Experiment that Works

Abstract

Police departments throughout the country have examined and experimented with various deployment strategies. One of the most innovative and potentially useful strategies has been labeled team policing. According to a recent Urban Institute report, over sixty cities have experimented with different versions of this program. Champaign, Illinois, is one such city. Since May of 1977 it has utilized a team unit in what is termed the Northend, a racially mixed, largely working class community. The unit was supported by the city of Champaign and the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission. This report is an analysis of the effect of this program upon a number of different indicators of police performance: citizen evaluations of police services, attitudes toward the police, fear of crime, clearance rates, and crime rates.