By Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland’s (CJI’s) 

Re-building policing in the post-conflict era demanded a concerted effort to establish trust, confidence and the legitimacy of policing within all communities of Northern Ireland. Policing by consent and policing with the community were key defining principles of the Police Service of Northern Ireland which required policing to be based locally, within communities. While local policing in Northern Ireland has undergone various iterations over the last 22 years, the importance of local engagement has remained. The Community Safety Framework (the Framework) was developed to ensure partnership working on community safety issues and to provide ‘an operational roadmap’ for delivery.1 While partnership working was effective, the Framework lacked analysis of key community safety issues and contained no action plan or objectives for delivery. Knowledge of the Framework was minimal among criminal justice partners, and there was no evidence of the use of the Framework to support priority setting or to assist with delivery. It is recommended that the Department of Justice develop and publicly consult on a new community safety vision, strategy and action plan for delivery. The Community Safety Framework provided for a multi-agency governance model, however the Community Safety Board, recently renamed the Community Safety Network, did not have a governance role. A review of the Community Safety Board had identified several areas of improvement and progress was underway in the identification of shared priorities and a forward workplan. This work should continue, however the effective operation of the Community Safety Network should remain under review. The community safety arena in Northern Ireland is a crowded space. Knowledge of existing community safety structures was fragmented; greater awareness was needed to avoid duplication and to maximise the impact of the Community Safety Network. It is recommended that a mapping exercise of the existing strategic and operational community safety fora in Northern Ireland is conducted. 

Belfast: Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland’s (CJI’s), 2024, 105 pg.

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.