Community policing may not improve police-com

Contrary to previous findings, a new field study in six developing countries found that community policing has neither improved trust between citizens and the police nor reduced crime. Findings show that community policing – a widely lauded form of police reform – may not improve police-community relations in all contexts. The results also suggest that law enforcement agencies may need to make structural changes before gradual police reforms can be successful. Community policing differs from traditional policing in that it involves citizens in the process to foster trust and legitimacy and improve police-citizen cooperation. While the strategy has been tested around the world, its effectiveness has for the most part only been evaluated in affluent regions such as the United States, Great Britain and Australia. Evidence from developing countries in the Global South is not available. Working with law enforcement agencies in Brazil, Colombia, Liberia, the Philippines, Uganda and Pakistan, Graeme Blair and colleagues helped implement locally appropriate police interventions based on global best practices. They then developed six coordinated studies to assess whether community-based police strategies resulted in better citizen confidence and cooperation with the police and a lower crime rate. “Setting up the experiments required coordinated efforts that make this work distinctive, not only for community policing but also for police practice in general,” writes Santiago Tobón in a related perspective. Contrary to previous evidence in more developed countries, the authors found that community policing did not improve trust between the public and the police, but neither did it reduce crime. Blair et al. identified several reasons that might explain why such efforts have failed in these regions, including a lack of priority setting by police leadership, rotation of police officers and community leaders advocating reform, and limited police resources to replace that identified by citizens Investigate concerns. Although these restrictions were common in the study areas, the authors note that they do not only occur in the global south. Thus, the positive effects of community policing in rich countries like the US may reflect not only the results of the intervention itself, but important social and cultural conditions unique to those locations. “The study by Blair et al. suggests that the determinants of police confidence and legitimacy remain unclear, at least in developing countries, ”writes Tobón. “Notwithstanding the unexpected results, this research is a feasibility study that coordinated experiments to combat crime and violence in developing countries are possible.”

For reporters interested in trending, a February 2021 scientific study using a large dataset from Chicago, Illinois provided a closer look at the impact of another widely proposed police reform: diversification in policing. The authors concluded, “The effects of diversification are likely to be neither simple nor monolithic. Civil servants are multidimensional, and devising effective staff reforms will likely require thinking beyond the broad demographic categories typically used in diversity initiatives and considering how various attributes relate the police to the civilians they serve. ” A special October 2021 issue of Science, Criminal Injustice, continued to address relevant issues.

Article heading

Community building and policing in the Global South

Publication date of the article

11/26/2021

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https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/935657