Stamford, Conn., has never had a really serious crime problem -- at least not compared to big cities like New York and Chicago or even neighboring cities like Bridgeport and New Haven. In 1995, the year I was first elected mayor, we ranked 140th in crime among 205 American cities with populations above 100,000. Crime rates per capita were worse in nearly 70 percent of America's large and mid-sized cities. Good news for us, I suppose -- but not nearly good enough.

I wasn't satisfied for two reasons. First, crime in Stamford, as in most cities, was concentrated in certain neighborhoods. The city's average crime rate mattered little to those neighborhoods' residents. They were living with high levels of disorder, drug dealing, and felonies that bred fear and uncertainty. They deserved much better.

Second, I believed that our police department had not nearly reached its full potential. This wasn't the fault of the Stamford cops, who worked hard chasing calls and responding to crimes. It was the fault of the system the cops worked in and the way their department was organized.

Stamford's police department, like many others, was remote from the people it served. Policing can become a very insular profession, driven by its work shifts and unusual hours and shaped by constant exposure to the seamy side of life. As cities grow larger, it's natural for police and the community to drift apart. But that's an undesirable outcome. To make policing effective and responsive, mayors and police officials have to work hard to reconnect the police and the people.

In the 1990s, the idea of reconnecting police with communities came to the fore under the rubric of community policing. Unfortunately, many community policing experiments across America have failed. Departments have tended to add community policing units on top of an otherwise traditionally organized police force. The result is traditional policing with a wave to the community. It's about as lasting and meaningful a reform as marching in a parade.

When I visit other cities, I ask officials if they are doing community policing and how many officers they have devoted to it. If they say two, or 12 , or even 20, I know they're not doing it right. Community policing isn't a unit or a program. It's a universal philosophy. It needs to involve the entire police department. We have 314 officers in Stamford, and all are doing community policing. Everyone in the police department is committed to it.

Will and Skill

It takes will and skill to renew and redirect a police organization. First, I added officers to our department, increasing our force from 270 to 314. Then in early 1998, I found a police chief, Dean Esserman, who shared my philosophy and approach. Along with the police union, we collaborated on a series of reforms to make community policing a reality in Stamford.

Esserman has a masterful grasp of how police organizations actually work and how to make them work better. He quickly pinpointed a major problem in Stamford: We were policing a growing, vibrant city as if it were still a small town, directing all patrols from central headquarters. We decentralized the department, dividing the city into five districts, assigning a commander to each one, and holding them accountable for responsiveness and results. Esserman drew the department's personnel into the decentralization process early. He asked captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and police officers to draw the new district boundaries, analyze workloads, and allocate staff. The final product was really the creation of our cops.

Now, instead of the whole department swinging in and out on shifts, we have officers assigned to specific geographic areas who are accountable for results in each district. It's better for the community. And it's better for the cops, who derive a real sense of accomplishment.

The restructured department is better at listening to the residents in our neighborhoods and responding to the "little things" that make neighborhoods seem unsafe (e.g., kids hanging out, low-level drug dealing, public drinking, blaring radios, illegally parked cars, and even speeders). We have gone from being a city where police cars raced from call to call, to a place where neighborhoods can really feel police presence and effectiveness.

Focus on Kids at Risk

We have focused intensively on building relationships with kids at risk and their families. We significantly increased the police presence in public schools, assigning two school resource officers (SROs) to each of our two high schools, and one to each of our four middle schools. They aren't just there to keep the peace. They run peer mediation programs and make house calls at night to help troubled kids. In what Esserman has dubbed "family policing," community police officers work in partnership with mental health workers at the city's Child Guidance Center to help and protect children exposed to violence and to keep them from becoming violent themselves.

But to me, the most exciting development is the SRO summer camp for middle school kids founded by Officers John Jeter and Scott Baldwin. Supported with drug forfeiture funds and aid from the Domus Foundation, the Ruth Brown Foundation, and the Stamford Housing Authority, the camp enrolled 100 kids in 1999 and mushroomed to 350 this past summer. Open from noon to 5 P.M., it's completely free and mainly attracts disadvantaged kids, many of whom would otherwise hang out on the streets. Cops, college students, and high school students counsel the kids and lead them in a wide array of activities, including athletics, crafts, and drama. It's wonderful to see all the goodwill and support for this great idea, which never would have become real if it weren't for Stamford's cops.

Probation: No Small Issue

We have also been progressive in the area of probation -- an elaborate system of supervision for offenders that has rarely achieved its potential. Probation is usually just a paper chase, with probation officers going through the motions of checking up on persons in the community.

This is no small issue. There are 60,000 people on probation in Connecticut and more than 3,000 in Stamford alone. Working with state probation and parole officials, we made the system more community-focused. Probation and parole officers now work part of the time in our police districts, getting to know the cops and learning about the communities where supervised persons live. Our cops meet and greet new probationers, laying down the ground rules. The message is clear: If you go back to your bad habits and your bad associates, we are here to hold you accountable. If you are serious about reforming yourself and improving your life, we are here to help.

Condemning Racial Profiling

Our city also has taken a very forceful position against racial profiling. Without any incident or scandal to precipitate their action, our police department, our police union, and several of our city's leading African-American ministers joined together to condemn racial profiling both as a violation of civil rights and a poor police tactic. Stamford includes many wealthy areas where harassing minorities might have been an easy -- but wholly inappropriate -- way to police. I'm proud that our department and our cops unilaterally disavowed racial profiling in a very public way that was heard and acknowledged by media all the way to California. More important, it was heard in the minority neighborhoods of Stamford, which know that we are not going to police our communities by stereotyping and harassing.

Revitalizing Police Careers

Watching the Stamford Police Department grow into its own as a community policing organization has been one of the most exciting experiences of my public career. Of course, any mayor likes to go out and tell people that there were 1,000 fewer crime victims in his city than the year before, as I could at the end of 1999; or that his community has been named the safest city in the Northeast, as I could in 2000. But that's only half the story.

The other half is how happy our cops are doing this kind of work. We have revitalized police careers in Stamford and made people rethink their retirement plans. So, fair warning: If you move toward the real community policing model rather than just the symbolic one, be ready to get out of your cops' way. They will overwhelm you with their ideas and innovations, and take you to your goals by routes you never imagined.

Dannel P. Malloy is the mayor of Stamford, Conn., and a former assistant district attorney. He was featured in our last issue as one of the New Democrat movement's 100 rising stars ("100 to Watch," TND, Summer 2000).