The Community and Departmental Contexts of Volunteer Use by Police

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Abstract
As reductions are occurring in the revenue base of communities for the provision of public goods and services, their capacity to generate volunteer activity in the form of coproduction becomes an important resource. This study explores the rela tionship between community and police department characteristics and the inten sity of use of citizen auxiliary police officers. Data was obtained from 18 cities in Los Angeles County for comparison. The analysis shows that more extensive volunteer ing is found in smaller, predominately white communities. These are also the communities least likely to provide some type of compensation to auxiliary officers. While the generalizations that can be made from the data are limited because of the sample size, these findings show that larger, lower income, heterogeneous commu nities have been less able to draw upon residents to participate in police auxiliary coproduction arrangements.

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