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This paper is an in‐depth analysis of community policing in Hong Kong. It includes an outline of the evolution of community policing in Hong Kong, identifies the structural arrangements for the practice of community policing, examines major community‐based programs that have been launched, evaluates the performance of this strategy, and considers constraints on these policy initiatives. It shows that this community effort has already gone beyond the confines of promoting community relations in Hong Kong. The results have been encouraging. They include a significant improvement in the quality of police‐public interactions, the engagement of the public and their increased support in crime control and prevention, and the beginning of the conversion of traditional police enforcement to that of police services. However, the Force's use of community policing schemes predominantly for the pragmatic purpose of crime control has accounted for the lack of breakthroughs in forging a strategic partnership with the public to promote a secure and harmonious environment.

Corruption and poor relations with citizens are known to be pervasive in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS). Police deviance permeates all levels of the TTPS and threatens the sustainability of reforms. The purpose of this study is to explore the nature and consequences of police deviance in Trinidad and Tobago through the perspectives of community leaders.

Data were obtained through individual and focus group interviews with members of local community‐based and non‐governmental organizations and the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service in 2009. The data were examined to reveal respondents' perceptions concerning the nature and consequences of police deviance as well as its solutions.

The types of police deviance that emerged as major themes were inadequate crime control and protection of citizens, maltreatment of citizens, capricious response to criminals and bias toward less serious crimes, and police corruption and collusion with criminals. However, respondents also offered solutions and expressed optimism about police‐community cooperation.

Results suggest both the need and potential to improve police‐citizen relations and reduce police deviance. The paper discusses possible solutions, giving special attention to sustainability and democratic policing reform.

Very little research has been conducted on police deviance in the Caribbean. The few studies that can be found focus on brutality and rely more on police survey and official data. Using in‐depth interview data, the current study adds to this small body of research by describing the impact of police deviance on community relations in Trinidad and Tobago.

A neighborhood‐based notion of the distribution of policing services is a hallmark of community policing philosophy. The purpose of this research is to focus on two policy issues: are there significant differences in important policing issues among the different communities, and what factors within the Sheriff's control might account for these differences?

In 2002, the Ada County Sheriff's Office (ACSO), servicing the area around Boise, Idaho, carried out a survey of citizens stratified across four areas: two contract communities, one non‐contract community, and the unincorporated remainder of the county.

The survey found significant variation in perceptions of crime and disorder, in perceptions of safety, in social cohesion, and in attitudes toward deputies and to the sheriffs office. Findings suggested the importance of local policy through the tailoring of services to local needs. However, some community factors appeared to provide limits on the extent to which the police could respond to dissatisfaction with their services, regardless of adaptive strategy.

Only limited empirical research has studied neighborhood variation in citizens' perceptions of differences pertinent to policing services, and virtually no such research has been carried out outside urban areas. This research fills this gap.

Overt drug markets are particularly difficult to address using traditional law enforcement tactics alone; disrupting these markets often requires substantial community cooperation. Enhancing police-community relations has been offered as a promising strategy for closing overt markets, demonstrating sustained success in several settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine theoretical mechanisms hypothesized to create immediate and sustained disruption in overt drug markets, focusing on the role of strengthened police/community relations, and greater police legitimacy.

The manuscript describes a series of focus groups with community residents across three sites over 15-months after a drug market intervention. A repeated cross-sectional design enabled in-depth analysis of study participants’ views regarding mechanisms of change over time.

Study participants remained ambivalent about police legitimacy; they expressed appreciation regarding local policing efforts to improve neighborhood conditions, but maintained many negative feelings about the overall policing profession. Further, residents worried that the increased police presence might lead to greater harassment. Regardless of their misgivings, however, the findings reveal increases in police cooperation and improvements in some previously identified components of police legitimacy.

There is partial support for several underlying mechanisms of change over time. Study participants perceived a more focused police response, resulting in disruptions of the market and sustained improvements in neighborhood conditions.

This reflects original work not published elsewhere. It contributes to a growing body of literature on the role of police legitimacy in problem-solving interventions.

Places recent trends in policing in the USA into historical context, emphasizing the critical importance of political, economic, and social forces on the formation and development of police institutions and practices. Specifically, this paper describes four major developments in policing in relation to the US political economy: pre‐industrial police, industrial police, modern police, and postmodern police. Each of these developments has unique characteristics. At the same time, each retains certain structural imperatives which transcend the particulars and ultimately tend to preserve the police as front line defenders of the status quo. It is through an analysis of historically specific characteristics of, and fundamental structural conditions for policing that this paper contributes to a better understanding of the potential of contemporary police agencies to play a role in achieving either greater social justice or just greater social control.

Nondominant youth faces complex structural inequalities and injustices that have a direct impact on their academic learning outcomes and psychosocial well-being. Research suggests that supporting the development of students’ critical consciousness not only improves their educational and career trajectories but also provides students with the tools, language and skills they need to examine, act upon and heal from the sociopolitical realities and injustices they face in their daily lives.

This paper reports findings from a two-year Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) study conducted with students in a police-oriented Career and Technical Education program. YPAR was used as pedagogy for nondominant students to explore how to leverage their funds of knowledge (FK) in their learning and future careers as police officers to improve community–police relations.

This paper reports on one aspect of the findings from the YPAR project that includes: a) the relationship between students’ difficult FK, critical consciousness development and career aspirations; b) how, if left unaddressed, students’ difficult FK could mediate deficit and internally oppressive views of Communities of Color and other nondominant groups; and c) the power of transforming students’ difficult FK into pedagogical assets.

Engaging students’ difficult FK can support critical consciousness development and facilitate students’ ability to navigate and resist oppressive spaces, sustain their well-being and empower themselves and their families and communities.

This paper aims to examine the process of citizen satisfaction with police service, so police can emphasize important aspects of service and maintain high satisfaction.

Citizens of Colorado Springs (n=3591) participated in one of four yearly surveys (2002‐2005) to test two structural equations models. One model used data from 2002‐2005 and latent variables of victimization, neighborhood safety, enough officers and police response to predict satisfaction with police service. A second model used data only from 2005 and 12 latent variables.

The five‐variable model fits the data very well (CFI=0.95). It did not vary from 2002 to 2005. The 12‐variable model explained the satisfaction process more completely but fits less well (CFI=0.91). Neither model varied by demographic characteristics of respondents.

Police should implement a process‐based model of service that emphasizes citizens' feelings of neighborhood safety and police response as important predictors of positive evaluations of service.

The paper offers insight into the factors that shape attitudes toward police (ATP, in particular satisfaction with police service) within an organization that has fully implemented community policing.

Previous studies consistently indicate that police agencies tend to use social media to assist in criminal investigations, to improve police-community relations and to broadcast both crime- and non-crime-related tips promotive of public safety. To date, little research has examined what content the police tended to post on their social media sites during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By selecting the 14 most widely attended police agencies' Facebook accounts, the current study collects and analyzes a sample of 2,477 police Facebook postings between February 1 and May 31, 2020. By using a mix-method approach, the study addresses three research questions: 1) What kinds of messages did the police tend to post on their Facebook pages before and during this pandemic? 2) What types of COVID-related police Facebook postings were made? 3) How did the public react to COVID-19-related police Facebook postings?

The findings suggest that the police have come to believe that social media can be used as an effective police−public communicative tool in stressful times. The findings also suggest that social media platforms have become a routinized tool of police−public communications which can, to some appreciable extent, substitute for the in-person contacts traditionally relied upon in community policing.

This study of police use of social media explores the question of whether the use of these media can serve as an effective tool to connect the police with the public under circumstances where in-person contacts are greatly constrained. Some public policy implications emerging from the findings reported are discussed, along with implications for further research along these lines.

Police legitimacy has emerged as a core concept in the study of twenty-first century policing. The purpose of this paper is to contribute new knowledge by examining the dynamics surrounding policing legitimacy in a high demand environment in Northern Canada.

A case study approach was used to explore the historical and contemporary factors that contributed to the challenges surrounding the police-First Nations relations, how these challenges affected public confidence in, and trust of, the police, and how the communities, police, and government took action to address these issues.

The findings reveal that it is possible for the police, First Nations, and government in high demand environments to implement reforms and to create the foundation for police-community collaboration. The development of relationships based on trust and a continuing dialogue is important components in building police legitimacy.

The study was conducted in one northern jurisdiction. The findings may apply to other jurisdictions where the police are involved in policing indigenous peoples.

The case study provides insight into the processes required to fundamentally alter the police-First Nations relations, to improve police service delivery in high demand environments, and to ensure that reforms are sustained.

Police legitimacy has been examined primarily in urban environments where police services have considerable capacities and there re-extensive networks of support from various agencies and organizations. The dynamics of policing in northern communities are appreciably different and present challenges as well as opportunities for improving police legitimacy.