Search results

The recommendations of the recent Crime and Disorder Act Review will shape the evolution of neighbourhood policing. This article explains how neighbourhood policing in the UK has developed, including milestones such as the National Reassurance Policing Programme. Now, as neighbourhood policing is rolled out more widely, there is not one model in use, rather ten principles that forces are expected to apply. Early lessons from the roll out of neighbourhood policing suggest that much has been achieved and that the key to success is effective partnership working, particularly with local governments.

The themes of accessibility and accountability have come to dominate the police reform agenda in the UK. They are evident, especially, in the rhetoric of ‘neighbourhood policing’, which has been delivered across England and Wales, and in the ‘policing pledge’, which sets out a series of commitments regarding what the public can expect from their local police service. This paper is concerned with exploring these themes and their application in neighbourhood policing. It examines how officers in two police services have sought to implement the requirements of neighbourhood policing and the policing pledge in terms of improving accessibility and accountability of local policing. In doing so, it focuses on arrangements for consulting with members of the public, providing updates regarding their actions and outcomes in addressing local problems and on the provision of data and maps about crime problems. Practice implications are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to examine differential perceptions of neighborhood problems by the police and residents.

This study uses interview and survey data collected from 50 neighborhoods a mid‐western city to assess whether police officers and citizens differ in their perceptions of neighborhood disorder, drug‐gang, and property crime problems. Multivariate regressions were conducted to examine the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, perceptions of the legitimacy of local authorities, and actual crime rates on police's and citizens' perceptions of neighborhood problems.

Police officers rate neighborhood problems more seriously than do local residents. Neighborhood structural characteristics and perceptions of the legitimacy of local authorities significantly affect variation in perceptions of neighborhood problems by citizens and police. Actual property crime rates influence police perceptions of disorder and property crime problems.

Future research should continue to explore the factors that contribute to perceptual differences between citizens and police officers. Research should also pay more attention to variables such as informal control, social capital, and collective efficacy. More research efforts should be devoted to explore how variation in officers' perceptions of neighborhood problems affects their behavior toward local residents.

The study incorporates neighborhood contexts in its analysis and tests both officers' and citizens' perceptions of neighborhood problems simultaneously, which have rarely been done in previous research.

The purpose of this paper is to present a state-of-the-art review on the topic of neighborhood/ecological influence on police use of force. In doing so, it provides an overview of the theoretical formulation and early ethnographic work on the topic as well as an in-depth critique of the issues that require further discussion.

Using several databases, a literature search was performed to collect the available empirical studies on the topic.

An analysis of the extant literature suggests that neighborhood/ecological influence on police use of force might not be as uniform as previously discussed, and it suffers from the ability to make sufficient comparisons. Tests vary based on the use of force measures, units of analysis, and the neighborhood-level variables examined.

This review should serve as a point of departure for scholars working in this area moving forward. It is hoped that the review provides thought-provoking commentary on the limitations of previous studies and the challenges facing this line of inquiry in the future.

While public support for and cooperation with the police has been deemed vital for police effectiveness, what shapes such support and cooperation has not been fully examined. The purpose of this study is to explore three perspectives on public cooperation with police simultaneously: (1) police legitimacy, (2) legal cynicism, and (3) neighborhood norms.

The data used in this study came from a survey conducted with 408 residents across three neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan, in 2009. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to assess the relationship between the three groups of theory-based predictors, representing police legitimacy, legal cynicism, and neighborhood norms, and the dependent variable of cooperation.

The findings partially support the legitimacy model, as trust in police, but not perceived obligation to obey, predicts cooperation with police. This study provides strong support for the legal cynicism and neighborhood norms perspectives. Specifically, residents who have higher levels of legal cynicism and who report a stronger anti-snitch neighborhood subculture report being less inclined to cooperate with the police.

This study is the first to compare the relative influences of three major perspectives on public cooperation. Future studies should continue to analyze competing theories in explaining public cooperation with the police and determine if findings from this study are applicable to locations outside Detroit.

The present study aims to examine the relationship between public and informal social control by investigating whether perceptions of neighborhood policing exhibit a positive or negative relationship to informal control. The influence of police‐resident coproduction (police attendance at community meetings, police accessibility, police‐resident problem solving) on informal control is contrasted with general perceptions of police effectiveness and legitimacy.

Survey data from 81 neighborhood leaders representing 81 Portland, OR neighborhoods (i.e. unit of analysis), along with crime and census data is used. Analysis involves multivariate OLS regression and correlations.

A frequency of police attendance at community meetings was negatively related to informal social control, controlling for neighborhood demographics, crime, and social cohesion. Results indicate a community style of policing may not be enough to overcome deeply entrenched attitudes toward the police in the most disadvantaged communities and at worst may discourage informal social control. Perceptions of neighborhood social cohesion and government responsiveness are the best predictors of increased informal social control.

Further research is needed to understand the development of attitudes toward the police, especially in the most disadvantaged communities. The conclusions of the study are limited by the cross sectional design and use of a single neighborhood leader informant.

This paper attempts to identify how clear, tactical methods of collaborating with residents are related to informal social control.

This is one of the few studies to empirically assess whether public social control through neighborhood policing, in particular police‐resident coproduction and police legitimacy, is related to informal social control.

Policing differs across neighborhoods, but little is known about how context conditions residents’ assessments about police legitimacy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether procedural justice and police effectiveness differently contribute to legitimacy judgments depending on the security risk inherent in the context.

The research applies a series of multi-level regression models using nearly 3,000 surveys of Trinidad and Tobago residents.

Police legitimacy and the conditions that promote legitimacy vary across neighborhoods. In “good” neighborhoods, individuals draw on police effectiveness and procedural justice to infer legitimacy, but in at-risk neighborhoods, residents’ views derive from effectiveness. Procedural justice does not play a significant role.

One implication for police is that the current emphasis on evidence-based policing strategies, especially in high crime neighborhoods, can provide a mechanism to improve the generally negative views about police legitimacy held by those residents. The findings do not imply, however, that police need not be concerned about procedural justice in at-risk neighborhoods. In fact, as police improve their crime prevention prowess, views about how procedurally just their methods are increase in importance.

Prior research addressing the antecedents of legitimacy has focused on individual demographic and attitudinal predictors. Only two prior studies have begun to investigate whether residents of different contexts may form their views based on different antecedents. This study outlines a theoretical basis for why different bases may be expected and then tests those expectations using rigorous statistical analyses.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the distribution of police response time to in-progress burglaries differ according to the level of social disorganization across different neighborhoods.

Using 2006 calls for service data collected from the Dallas and Houston Police Departments and from the 2000 US Bureau of Census statistics, the effects of social disorganization on police performance were examined through multilevel analysis of the distribution of police response time patterns across different neighborhoods in Dallas and Houston.

The analysis of the DPD and HPD in-progress calls produced somewhat consistent findings on the relationship between the level of social disorganization and police response time. Concentrated disadvantage, immigrant concentration, and residential stability are important predictors of the distribution of police response time patterns in Dallas and Houston.

Neighborhood social disorganization is related to the distribution of agency response time patterns. Detailed response time analysis is crucial for agencies to improve police performance and the community-police relationship.

In the policing literature, researchers have tended to neglect rapid response when examining many aspects of policing. The present study expands on existing research by examining the theoretical link between the level of neighborhood social disorganization with the distribution of rapid police response to in-progress burglary in two cities.

The purpose of the present analysis is to test the relative impact of trust in police, social cohesion, and fear of crime on neighborhood‐level rates of concealed pistol license (CPL) holding. The dynamics of both formal and informal social control are hypothesized to affect neighborhood CPL concentrations.

Data were neighborhood‐level and came from a city survey and the state Department of Licensing. A path model was estimated.

Police service level had a negative indirect effect on neighborhood CPL concentrations through fear of crime, but had a strong positive direct effect. Social cohesion also had a strong positive direct effect on CPL rates.

The study suggests that lawful concealed hand‐gun carrying should be viewed as a way in which neighborhoods exercise informal social control. People in socially cohesive areas may carry concealed hand‐guns not only because they fear for their own safety, but also because they feel a sense of responsibility to their fellow neighborhood residents.

Police who encourage citizens to engage in private forms of self‐protection should be aware that citizens in cohesive areas may choose to do this via hand‐gun carrying. Police should be sure that citizens in these neighborhoods have ready access to safety training and devices. Most importantly, police should emphasize to citizens in these areas that hand‐gun carrying has not been shown conclusively to reduce crime, and that there are other private crime‐prevention techniques that carry more promise of keeping communities safer from crime.

There are few studies attempting to determine the precursors to concealed hand‐gun carrying. The paper seeks a better understanding of the reasons why some neighborhoods evince higher levels of CPLs than others. Additionally, most prior studies have used suboptimal levels of aggregation. The study uses neighborhood‐level data, which allows for an examination of ecological phenomena without the confounding effects of between‐jurisdiction heterogeneity that a higher level of aggregation would produce.

States that proponents of community policing contend that implementation of this strategy should substantially change the nature of police work. Unfortunately, there remains only limited knowledge about what community policing officers actually do, and in fact, many researchers suggest that community policing is merely a new name for traditional forms of policing. Using observational data collected in a medium sized municipal police department, examines the work of community officers and compares it to the work of traditional “beat” officers. Discusses the activities of community officers in light of existing literature which has examined the workload of police officers.