By Robert A. Blair, Guy Grossman and Anna M. Wilke

Throughout the developing world, citizens often distrust the police and hesitate to bring crimes to their attention—a situation that makes it difficult for police to effectively combat crime and violence. Community policing has been touted as one solution to this problem, but evidence on whether it can be effective in developing country contexts is sparse. We present results from a large-scale field experiment that randomly assigned a home-grown community policing intervention to police stations throughout rural Uganda. Drawing on close to 4,000 interviews with citizens, police officers, and local authorities and on administrative crime data, we show that community policing had limited effects on core outcomes such as perceptions of police, crime, and insecurity. We attribute this finding to a combination of low levels of compliance and resource constraints. Our study draws attention to the limits of community policing’s potential to reduce crime and build trust in the developing world. EDI WORKING PAPER SERIES

Oxford Policy Management, 2021. 56p

By Bernadette C. Hohl, Michelle C. Kondo, Sandhya Kajeepeta, John M. MacDonald, Katherine P. Theall, Marc A. Zimmerman, and Charles C. Branas

Violence is a leading cause of death and disability in the United States and abroad, with far-reaching consequences for individuals and communities. Interventions that address environmental and social contexts have the potential for greater populationwide effects, yet research has been slow to identify and rigorously evaluate these types of interventions to reduce violence. Several urban communities across the US are conducting experimental and quasi-experimental community-based research to examine the effect of place-based interventions on violence. Using examples from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Flint, Michigan; Youngstown, Ohio; and New Orleans, Louisiana, we describe how place-based interventions that remediate vacant land and abandoned buildings work to reduce violence. These examples support the potential for place-based interventions to create far-reaching and sustainable improvements in the health and safety of communities that experience significant disadvantage. These interventions warrant the attention of community stakeholders, funders, and policy makers.

Health Affairs 38, NO. 10 (2019): 1687–1694

By Harvey Treger

This book examines the empirical evidence demonstrating the efficacy of police–social work crisis teams, barriers to effective teamwork, and the tasks and situations that police social workers are likely to experience. Descriptive data obtained from a police–social work team within a midsize law enforcement agency located in the northeastern U.S. is used to illustrate the situations and tasks that social workers encounter. Implications for the use of such teams with assisting law enforcement agencies with their community service and community policing functions, and research implications for conducting program evaluations to determine the efficacy of police–social teams are discussed.

Illinois. Charles C. Thomas. 1975.