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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:01 pm
Time: 11:01 pm
Results for high-crime areas
3 results foundAuthor: Sedelmaier, Christopher M. Title: New Haven, Connecticut Smart Policing Initiative: Employing Evidence-Based Policing Strategies to Engage the Community and Reduce Crime Summary: The New Haven, Connecticut, Department of Police Service (NHPD) received a Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) grant at a time when local violent crime levels were higher than they had been since the mid-1990s and NHPD was operating at reduced force as a result of budget cuts and retirements. Partnering with a researcher at the University of New Haven, the New Haven SPI team sought to address rising violent crime rates and the number of local shooting incidents by increasing the use of data-driven decision making in daily police operations. The SPI project would employ supplementary foot patrols in the most violent neighborhood in the city, an area called "Newhallville." The intervention would address violence and gun discharges, while also enhancing community engagement in Newhallville. NHPD specifically focused on: Outreach and community engagement, especially with block groups; Data-driven, enhanced foot patrols; and A modified problem-oriented policing (POP) technique. In July 2013, NHPD began the 13-week intervention of supplementary foot patrols in Newhallville. The department’s Crime Analysis Unit (CAU) prepared daily "flash sheets" for officers and residents who requested them. These flash sheets were bulletins containing maps, crime data, and other information provided by the CAU and other sources. The SPI officers were strongly encouraged to make informal contact with community members as frequently as possible. Through observation and interaction with Newhallville residents, the officers identified insufficient street lighting and neglected properties as two persistent neighborhood problems. And working in supervisory roles, the district manager and sergeant leveraged relationships with community groups and other city agencies to address these problems. Crime trends in Newhallville were compared to those in four comparison neighborhoods chosen for their similar histories of violent crime. Comparisons occurred at the neighborhood level and in high-risk areas (as defined through Risk Terrain Modeling). Over the 13-week intervention period, Newhallville experienced a 19-percent reduction in violent crime neighborhood-wide and a 36- percent reduction in violent crime within the high-risk areas. In the 13 weeks following the intervention, there was a further 41-percent violent crime drop at the neighborhood level and a 56- percent drop in the high-risk areas. Newhallville was the only neighborhood in the study to see period-over-period reductions in violent crime at both levels. While significant differences in violent crime were found between Newhallville and some of the comparison neighborhoods, caution should be exercised in interpreting the data. The New Haven SPI experience presents several lessons learned for both police managers and linelevel officers. For managers, the POP model is adaptable, and departments can modify it to fit challenges or situations that are unique to the local community, as New Haven did. Additionally, projects like SPI need champions, because personnel changes can challenge project continuity and support. For line-level officers, the New Haven SPI revealed that officer input and activity in intervention implementation along with accurate data collection and feedback loops are vital. Finally, and because lasting change takes time, managers should ensure that line-level officers have access to data, as well as to open communication channels, for an active feedback loop. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, 2016. 22p. Source: Internet Resource: Smart Policing Initiative Spotlight Report: Accessed February 20, 2017 at: http://www.smartpolicinginitiative.com/sites/default/files/New%20Haven%20SPI%20Spotlight%20Final%202016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.smartpolicinginitiative.com/sites/default/files/New%20Haven%20SPI%20Spotlight%20Final%202016.pdf Shelf Number: 141119 Keywords: Crime Analysis Foot Patrols High-Crime AreasPolice Decision-Making Police-Community Relations Problem-Oriented Policing Violent Crime |
Author: 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 |
Author: Jackson, Rachel Title: Reclaiming the City: Police Reform in Mexico City, 2002-2008 Summary: When Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became mayor of Mexico City at the end of 2000, a massive crime wave was sweeping the national capital. From 1995 to 1998, the city's overall crime rate had nearly tripled. Aware that taking back the streets from criminals would require a new approach, Lopez Obrador brought in an experienced political leader, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, to head the Secretariat of Public Security of the Federal District. Together they introduced new systems that could document, map, and analyze crime and lead to more-efficient allocation of police resources and better preventive policing strategies. Ebrard also engaged a team to create Community Protection Units, improve police-citizen relationships, professionalize the police, and build a neighborhood police program. Despite abrupt leadership transitions at the public security secretariat, a decade later Mexico City had greater capacity to combat crime and greater political control over high-crime areas of the city, thereby laying the foundation for additional public security reforms. Details: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2014. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: innovations for Successful Society: Accessed October 2, 2017 at: https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/successfulsocieties/files/Policy_Note_ID243.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/successfulsocieties/files/Policy_Note_ID243.pdf Shelf Number: 147523 Keywords: Crime Analysis Crime Statistics High-Crime AreasPolice Reform Policing |