Collaborative Research: Reimagining Policing by Making Neighborhoods Safe and Strong

该项目将建立在警察和社区参与(PACE)计划的基础上，并对其进行调整，以研究建立安全和强大社区的条件。通过在警察、居民和其他社区资源和利益攸关方之间建立协作和持续的对话，PACE模式能够实现集体理解，加强关系，并协调行动，建设强大和安全的地方。私人投资机构建议将情景警务作为一种理论框架，从作为执法的警务转变为作为创造安全场所的手段的警务。这些结构(邻里氛围和潜在的心理动力过程)提供了一种重新想象警察的方式，并考虑到了强大的社区目标。情景警务框架为警察和社区提供了一种方式，以直观地了解和评估朝着这一预期目标取得的进展。私人投资机构试图回答这个问题：是什么让社区保持安全和强大？用可衡量的社区成果目标--以及实现这些目标的战略--重新设想警察，有可能在这一项目之外引导警务领域更大的文化变革。这项混合方法研究使用了参与式行动研究(PAR)方法，类似于情景警务。PAR通过将利益相关者(例如，当地居民、商界人士、警察)作为共同研究人员纳入研究过程，使研究过程民主化。抽样框架包括四个警区的社区。PI根据犯罪风险高和警察与社区关系不佳的情况在每个区选择两个社区。在每个警区，一个社区将被确定为控制区，另一个社区将被确定为PACE治疗。治疗前和治疗后的调查将由PAR团队与研究生一起进行。被确定为PACE治疗的四个社区将参与旨在促进警察和居民之间对挑战的理解的有组织的对话。对话将包括广泛的利益攸关方参与者，从而采取知情和合作行动。所有八个社区都将在治疗前和治疗后定期进行调查。此外，PAR研究小组将在治疗社区开展半结构化、开放式的焦点小组。这项研究的定量和定性部分的目标都是揭示创造邻里氛围的潜在心理动力过程。这项研究衡量了社区氛围对犯罪、暴力、药物滥用和其他社会问题的影响，以及PACE在以安全、强大的社区为重点的重塑警察中的影响。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The project will build on and adapt the Police and Community Engagement (PACE) program to study the conditions that build safe and strong communities. Through the cultivation of collaborative and sustained dialogues between the police, residents, and other community resources and stakeholders, the PACE model enables collective understanding, strengthens relationships, and coordinates actions that build strong and safe places. The PIs propose situational policing as a theoretical framework that shifts away from policing as law enforcement to policing as a means for creating safe places. The constructs (neighborhood atmosphere and latent psychodynamic processes) provide a way to reimagine policing with a strong-community end in mind. The situational policing framework provides officers and communities with a way to visualize and assess progress toward this desired end. The PIs seek to answer the question: What keeps communities safe and strong? Reimagining the police with measurable community-outcome goals—and with strategies to achieve them—has the potential to guide a larger cultural transformation in the field of policing well beyond this project. This mixed-methods study uses a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, which is isomorphic to situational policing. PAR democratizes the research process by including the stakeholders (e.g., local residents, business people, police officers) as co-researchers. The sampling frame includes neighborhoods in four police districts. The PIs select two neighborhoods in each district based on high risk for crime and poor police-community relationships. In each police district, one neighborhood will be identified as a control and the other for the PACE treatment. Pre- and post-treatment surveys will be conducted by the PAR teams with graduate students. The four neighborhoods identified for the PACE treatment will participate in structured conversations designed to foster understanding about the challenges between and among the police and residents. The conversation will include a broad spectrum of stakeholder participants leading to informed and collaborative action. All eight neighborhoods will be surveyed at times pre and post treatment. In addition, semi-structured, open-ended focus groups will be conducted in the treatment neighborhoods by the PAR research team. The goal of both the quantitative and qualitative components of the study is to reveal latent psychodynamic processes that create a neighborhood atmosphere. The study measures the effect of the neighborhood atmosphere on crime, violence, drug abuse, and other social problems and the impact of PACE in a reimagined policing with a safe, strong community focus.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.