By Nancy Lieberman Charities 

  In 2016, the Dallas, Texas, community and its police department faced one of its most brutal days. That summer, a standoff and shooting in downtown Dallas resulted in the deaths of four Dallas Police Department (DPD) officers and a Dallas Area Rapid Transit officer. The lone shooter was motivated by his perceptions of police racism and brutality toward African American people. Barely a week after the shooting, then-chief David Brown called Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman to discuss using Dream Courts, a core program of Nancy Lieberman Charities that builds state-of-the-art outdoor basketball courts in underserved areas, as a tool to help heal divisions in the city. The mission of Nancy Lieberman Charities was not originally oriented toward law enforcement. Nancy Lieberman Charities is an education and wellness nonprofit organization focused on assisting underserved youth in the educational field. But as a result of that conversation, we developed our Kids & Cops programming, which has now been deployed in partnership with law enforcement agencies on Dream Courts across the country. The Kids & Cops initiative aims to make basketball more accessible to kids by giving them an inexpensive recreational outlet, a safe place to play, the chance to interact socially, and a path to learning the importance of teamwork and good sportsmanship. It is a sustainable program to help build and strengthen the bond between local officers and their communities. Our goal is for this guide to give law enforcement agencies an alternative perspective on serving the community as a law enforcement agency or agency partner. Nancy Lieberman Charities is not a task force or law enforcement agency—rather, we are an organization with an outside perspective on positive community relationship building.   

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.  2023. 24p.

Edited by Nazmia E.A. Comrie and Shanetta Y. Cutlar   

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), is excited to celebrate 30 years of advancing community policing. Reflecting on the work of the COPS Office over the last three decades calls to mind the changes in crime-fighting techniques, accountability measures, and technology and the evolving role of police in civil society in that time. Throughout all these changes, the COPS Office has continued to support reducing crime and building trust between law enforcement and the communities served. When the conversations began about how we could best document this COPS Office milestone, we wanted to push the boundaries by creating a resource that went beyond a retro spective—not just looking back at the last 30 years but also looking forward to the next 30. We recognize that this COPS Office achievement is a shared accomplishment and wanted to include the field in the celebration. With these goals in mind, we created American Policing 2054: Advancing Community Policing over the Next 30 Years. This publication is designed to be a companion to the COPS Office’s previous milestone publication, American Policing in 2022: Essays on the Future of a Profession, envisioned and edited by COPS Office staff members Debra R. Cohen McCullough and Deborah L. Spence. While that publication asked contributors to consider what policing would look like in 10 years, this one expands its scope to include a vision for the next 30 years. The concept - We used the framework created by our colleagues in 2012 to compile a list of leaders in law enforcement, public safety research, and civil rights, as well as community members, to contribute to this publication. Knowing that there are so many more thought leaders, perspectives, and voices than we could fit in this publication, we especially considered contributors to the 2022 publication as well as thought leaders from all ranks and agency types. We curated our list to ensure we had diversity in thought, experiences, and voices. The interest and excitement from the field in response to our invitation was remarkable. We asked contributors to think as boldly and as broadly as they liked. We encouraged innovation and assured contributors they were limited only by their informed imagination about the future of law enforcement in the United States. Most importantly, we told contributors that there were no wrong answers for their vision of the future of policing. The COPS Office received essays from current and former law enforcement leaders and officers, researchers, practitioners, and civic and civil rights leaders, and these contributors did not disappoint.   Essay themes Contributors covered topics such as technology, community engagement, crime-reduction strategies, training, accountability, and transparency. Some of the contributors envisioned drastic changes in the future, while others saw more subtle refinements to policing. The majority of the essays converged on the importance of technology and the need for technology policies and procedures that balance privacy and accountability. In the end, all of the articles touched on one or more principles of community policing—organizational change, problem solving, and partnerships. As such, we used those principles to create the themes for this publication.

 Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services., 2024. 124p.  

By Hildy Saizow, Valerie Schmitt, Bridgette Bryson, Rodney Monroe, and Steven Rickman

Community collaboration is at the heart of policing in the 21st century. Based on this premise, the City of Tulsa developed 77 recommendations for implementing community policing in its jurisdiction. These recommendations closely followed the substance and format of The Final Report of The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, a national report developed by policing experts and community collaborators in 2015. In order to determine whether the Tulsa Police Department (TPD) is making progress in this area, the City of Tulsa hired CNA’s Center for Justice Research and Innovation to conduct a community policing evaluation; the project started in November 2020. CNA used the community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) model as the basis of the evaluation approach to promote the inclusion of input from a diverse range of TPD officers and community stakeholders from across the City of Tulsa. Four Tulsans with experience working with different community groups served as community co-researchers on the evaluation team. The goal of the Tulsa Community Policing Evaluation was to gain an objective and in-depth understanding of TPD’s community policing practices. More specifically, the evaluation was designed to determine whether TPD has made progress in collaborating with the community, identify what community policing should look like in Tulsa, and develop a roadmap for how to achieve the community policing vision. A key part of the evaluation was a community consultation process to get input, insights, and perspectives on policing and community safety issues. The process included individual interviews, focus groups, community meetings and dialogues, and a community survey. The evaluation also involved the collection and review of documents pertaining to community policing and an analysis of crime, calls for service, demographic, and complaint data. This report presents insightful findings about community policing and actionable recommendations that TPD and the City of Tulsa can implement in order for TPD to become an effective and forward-leaning community policing organization. The 54 recommendations found in this report are organized by the six 21st Century Policing pillars—building trust and legitimacy, policy and oversight, technology and social media, community policing and crime reduction, training and education, and officer wellness and safety. These recommendations are based on the insights and perspectives learned through the community consultation, findings of The Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the evaluation team’s knowledge of best practices and their experiences working in police agencies nationwide, and police reforms in cities where reforms are driven by teams of policing experts and criminal justice researchers.

Our key evaluation findings include the following: TPD has made positive changes and progress in many areas, including support for crime victims, relations with Hispanic community members, body-worn camera implementation, formation of the Community Engagement Unit, creation of Community Advisory Boards (CABs), implementation of new collaborative partnerships, and establishment of the Tulsa Sobering Center (TSC) as a jail diversion program. TPD’s current emphasis on the term “collaborative policing” sets just the right tone for community policing in Tulsa. Officers and community members alike express that trust in policing is lower in marginalized communities. There are widespread perceptions in the community that TPD engages in disparities in how Black neighborhoods and individuals are treated. Many community members expressed frustration, saying that they know very little about the department’s decisions and changes, and that they would like to see more transparency in many areas of TPD’s operations. The creation of CABs is an important step forward, but the boards lack community leadership and transparency. TPD’s performance evaluation system does not currently reflect the principles and practices of collaborative policing. TPD can use technology solutions to benefit community policing efforts. TPD does not currently have an accessible, dynamic, searchable website to provide information to the public. Many officers do not see community policing as part of their job. Community members expressed that TPD officers do not engage in enough casual, non-enforcement interactions with the community. TPD has a wide range of training courses relevant to community policing but lacks an overall vision and process to integrate training courses across training domains to support a holistic approach to community policing. Officer wellness programs and proactive activities support more effective community engagement.

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2022. 120p.

By Ferhat Tura, James Hunter, Rebecca Thompson and Andromachi Tseloni

This article presents a comprehensive methodology aimed at assessing the commitment of police forces in England and Wales to problem-oriented policing (POP). By evaluating various policing styles and their adoption, the study seeks to provide a clearer understanding of how these approaches impact community relations and crime reduction. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, the authors identify key indicators of POP implementation and offer insights into the factors influencing its effectiveness. This exploration not only contributes to academic discourse on policing strategies but also serves as a practical guide for law enforcement agencies striving to enhance their community engagement and operational efficiency.

Oxford University Press, 2022, 14 pages

By by Tal Jonathan-Zamir, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi.

“Policing Terrorism, Crime Control, and Police-Community Relations: Learning fromthe Israeli Experience.”is written by Tal Jonathan-Zamir, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi. The book discusses the Israeli experience in policing terrorism, crime control,and police-community relations. It covers various topics such as the impact of terrorismthreats on police performance, public evaluations of the police, and the role of thepolice in counterterrorism. The book is supported by grants from the U.S. Departmentof Homeland Security and the U.S. National Institute of Justice

Springer, 2014, 172 pagine

Rand Corp.

In recent years, a number of serious conflicts between police officers and members of the communities they serve have raised the importance of effective community-police relations in the United States. Building on its policing and community-based participatory research portfolio, RAND designed a community-based dialogue to address this problem. The dialogue is designed to start a conversation about these issues among community stakeholders, including police, government agencies, social service providers, resident representatives, and other concerned organizations. RAND has also designed a youth-focused dialogue to address specific scenarios most relevant to youth-police interactions.

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By Dionne Barnes-Proby ,Samuel Peterson, Alex Andra Mendoza-Graf, Pierrce Holmes, Danielle Sobol, Nipher Malik A. Malika And Meagan Cahill

Despite widespread recognition that community engagement is important for improving community-police relations, there is little guidance for how to systematically promote and sustain long-term relationship building. This guide was developed to share best practices from the RAND Corporation's work in implementing six community-police dialogues across four sites. This guide provides background on the purpose for the development of the community-police dialogue, guidance for planning and implementing the dialogue, and materials to help carry out the dialogue effectively.

By Justice Policy Institute

A nearly decade-long failure of the Bowser Administration to fund and implement evidence-based strategies to prevent violence and strengthen communities has contributed to the context for increased crime and violence. Missed Opportunities: Why Inaction on Preventative Measures Undermines Public Safety in Washington, DC uncovers recent trend of a lack of leadership on proactive public safety strategies, instability in key executive agencies, and little coordination of efforts by government officials that have left the District ill-prepared to respond to alarming increases in some crimes. The brief offers a series of recommendations for District leadership:

– Improve the coordination between agencies working to prevent and address violent crime;

– Focus comprehensive resources on the specific people at the center of violence;

– Implement a holistic public health approach to violence prevention and intervention and invest in supports and services in communities;

– Fund efforts to build community trust and efficacy in policing; and

– Evaluate and sustain effective programs and initiatives.

United States, Justice Policy. 2023, 16pg