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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:37 am
Time: 3:37 am
Results for disadvantaged communities
1 results foundAuthor: La Vigne, Nancy Title: How Do People in High-Crime, Low-Income Communities View the Police? Summary: In certain American communities, public trust in law enforcement, a critical ingredient in public safety, is tenuous at best. Residents of these high-crime, heavily disadvantaged communities witness and experience intensive police presence, high rates of incarceration and community supervision, and concentrated violence and question the intent, effectiveness, and equity of the criminal justice system. Indeed, police may carry out aggressive strategies that target quality-of-life infractions and drug-, gun-, and gang-related violence in ways that undermine public confidence. Perhaps not surprisingly, areas with high levels of mistrust tend to be those that are heavily policed, where police use tactics such as pretextual stops that damage their relationship with the people they are charged to protect. The results can be far-reaching: a distrust of the criminal justice system, an unwillingness to cooperate with the police, and a cynical view of the law that can perpetuate crime and victimization. The people most likely to experience high rates of violence and heavy police presence in their communities have limited resources, social capital, and political voice. Yet their voices, when amplified, can be a powerful tool that communities can leverage to hold law enforcement accountable. Integrating the authentic experiences and perceptions of community members into public safety decision-making processes is critical in efforts to promote public safety. Quite simply, reductions in violent crime are not possible without meaningful representation of—and engagement with—the residents most affected by it. This research brief aims to elevate the experiences, views, and attitudes of residents often underrepresented in research on perceptions of law enforcement—people living in high-crime neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage. Using a unique purposive sampling methodology to represent residents in communities with the most tenuous relationships with law enforcement, we conducted in-person surveys in partnership with local organizations in six cities: Birmingham, Alabama; Fort Worth, Texas; Gary, Indiana; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Stockton, California. The purpose of these surveys was to collect baseline data on residents' views of police as part of an Urban Institute (Urban) evaluation of the National Initiative on Building Community Trust and Justice (National Initiative). But our findings serve more than an evaluation function, offering insights into the nature of community-police relations in high-crime, high-poverty neighborhoods and highlight opportunities for improvement. Our research shows that although variations exist across the six cities, respondents’ perceptions of police across measures of legitimacy, procedural justice, racial bias, relatability to police, and applied principles of community policing, on average, are extremely negative. However, residents also expressed a firm belief in and support for the law and a willingness to partner with police in public safety efforts. The variation in responses by city suggests that each city’s local context, including departmental policies and policing approaches, likely influence perceptions. This brief is organized in four sections. We first review the literature on past efforts to measure and assess community perceptions of the police; next we describe our study's methodology. We then summarize findings across the six cities in accordance with the literature, grouped by category: procedural justice, police department legitimacy, police bias, community policing, perceptions of the law, relatability to the police, and willingness to partner with police in public safety efforts. We conclude by discussing the variation in perceptions across cities and the implications for policy and practice. Details: Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2017. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 24, 2017 at: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88476/how_do_people_in_high-crime_view_the_police.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88476/how_do_people_in_high-crime_view_the_police.pdf Shelf Number: 141213 Keywords: Disadvantaged CommunitiesHigh-Crime AreasPolice LegitimacyPolice-Citizen InteractionsPolice-Community RelationsPublic OpinionTrust |