Law enforcement agencies across the United States are under pressure to renew their commitment to strengthening community relationships while continuing to promote public safety and reduce crime. This renewed commitment has been catapulted by a series of events that have served to tarnish the image and reputation of law enforcement. In response, there has been a reinvigorated national discussion of how to enhance the image of police as an organization that has positive community relationships. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (2015) and The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015) focus on the importance of building police-community relationships in the “Post-Ferguson” era of policing. Toward this end, the Task Force sees enormous potential of social media to bolster the police’s image and reputation. Research on police uses of social media, however, is very limited. This dissertation therefore explores the image-making efforts of twelve police organizations across the United States. By integrating organizational image construction from communication theory with the study of policing, this research examines the organizational identities and intended images that agencies are trying to project based on perspectives from interviews with those responsible for agency communications. It then compares these identities and intended images to the content produced on Twitter and Facebook over a twelve-month period using content analysis. This research found that across the diverse agencies examined here, there is a clear and consistent commitment to enhancing the community-oriented image of police. Respondents emphasized the value of humanizing police work and lending transparency to their actions and decisions as organizations. Content on agency websites equally revealed this commitment to positive community relationships. However, the content analysis of media feeds told a more nuanced story. Although each of the agencies examined disseminate community-oriented messaging, the traditional police mission of investigating crimes and solving criminal cases remains strong. Overall, social media content reveals efforts by police to delicately balance their crime-fighting and community-oriented identities. This balance varies by agency size, jurisdiction, and platform suggesting that the pressures governing image-making activities must be further examined in local context. This research seeks to demonstrate the value of applying an organizational image construction approach to police-community relations in our age of social media. This cross-disciplinary approach provides a framework for policy-makers and practitioners to assess whether their social media content aligns with their intended organizational identities and maximizes the ability to maintain a positive reputation. / Criminal Justice

The aim of this paper was to explore associations between previous victimization, police legitimacy and feelings of safety, and to also explore how different patrolling strategies were perceived in terms of general feelings of safety and police legitimacy. A questionnaire was created to measure these variables. The tests used were correlations and independent samples t-tests. The participants were 175 individuals living in Sweden, 67 were men and 108 were women, and the average age was 28. The correlation analysis showed that there was no significant relation between police legitimacy and feelings of safety regardless of previous victimization or not. One t-test showed no significant difference in patrolling strategies in terms of feelings of safety. However, a second t-test showed a significant difference in patrolling strategies in the general perception of police legitimacy. Participants with greater confidence in the police, perceived foot patrolling as more vital for their feelings of safety. The theory, Community oriented policing (COP), was used to further analyze results obtained within this study. Through this study, it was concluded that foot patrolling could promote cooperation between the police and the public. This might improve citizens' understanding of police legitimacy, which in turn can increase the overall levels of feelings of safety among the public. / Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka samband mellan tidigare viktimisering, tilltro till polisen och upplevd trygghet, samt skillnader i vilken patrulleringsstrategi som uppfattades som mest trygg vad gäller den generella upplevda tryggheten respektive den generella tilltron till polisen. En webbenkät som mätte dessa variabler skapades och analyserades sedan med hjälp av korrelationsanalyser och oberoende t-test. Antalet deltagare var 175 personer bosatta i Sverige där 67 var män och 108 var kvinnor och deras medelålder var 28. Korrelationsanalyserna visade inget signifikant samband mellan tilltro till polisen och upplevd trygghet även när tidigare viktimisering användes som kontrollvariabel. Det oberoende t-testet visade ingen signifikant skillnad i vilken patrulleringstrategi som deltagarna uppfattade som mest trygg vad gäller den generella upplevda tryggheten. Däremot visade ytterligare ett oberoende t-test att det fanns en signifikant skillnad i vilken patrulleringsstrategi deltagarna uppfattade som mest trygg vad gäller den generella tilltron till polisen, där personer med högre tilltro till polisen uppfattade fotpatrullering som mest tryggt. Teorin om Community oriented policing (COP) användes för att analysera resultaten. Sammanfattningsvis stödjer denna studies resultat uppfattningen om att fotpatrullering kan främja samarbetet mellan invånare och polis. Ökat samarbete mellan parterna kan tänkas leda till ökad tilltro till polisen, som i sin tur kan resultera i ökad upplevd trygghet bland befolkningen.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka polisanställdas attityd kring forskning och evidensbaserade polisiära metoder inom det brottsförebyggande arbetet. Vi genomförde semistrukturerade intervjuer med 9 poliser och analyserade dessa med en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Studiens resultat visade att delar av evidensbaserade metoder gick att återfinna i Polisens arbete, framförallt Problem Oriented Policing och Community Oriented Policing. Dock fanns varken struktur i hur metoderna används eller kunskap i hur metoderna fungerar. De intervjuade poliserna efterfrågade forskning och menade att forskning gärna får ta större plats för att kunna utveckla arbetet och göra det mer effektivt. / The aim of the study was to examine police officers’ attitudes towards research and evidence-based methods of policing in the field of crime prevention. We conducted semi-structured interviews of 9 police officers’ and performed a qualitative content analysis. Our results showed that the police are using parts of evidence-based methods, specifically Problem Oriented Policing and Community Oriented Policing. There were no organization around which methods were used and no knowledge about how the methods work. The police interviewed wanted research to play a larger role in their work and believed incorporating research would make their crime-prevention work more effective.

Abstract The role of policing within western democratic countries has become increasingly clouded. This nebulous role of policing has been impacted upon by such issues as, the diversity and complexity of social change, the advances achieved within the technology field and the increasing amount of legislation that has been passed in an endeavour to accommodate such changes. Over the decades these developments have required policing organisations to shift their focus from the original crime prevention in conjunction with community collaboration to one which is predominantly incident driven and enforcement focused. Through the adoption of various strategies utilising technology, beginning with the motor vehicle, the police organisation has also progressively widened the gap between itself and the community being policed. With the widening of this gap such traits as trust, familiarity, co-operation and information exchange between the two parties has declined. This appears to have a domino effect on the fear of crime and social disorder within the community, thus impacting on the quality of life of community members. Within recent decades some of the traditional policing practices - including random preventive patrol, rapid response and the need for additional police because of increasing crime - have been questioned and researched. The findings of these research projects have not supported the effectiveness of such policing strategies. The role of policing, thus comes into question and a return to the historical role of policing espoused when Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police and drafted the Principles of Policing, which was issued to each newly appointed constable, is being revisited. This has been promoted in the form of the 'community policing' concept. This community policing concept is stated as consisting of three core components - personalised policing through a police officer being stationed within a set geographic area; police-community partnership and problem-solving. However, in order to establish and maintain a viable partnership, both parties must participate and be aware of what the partnership entails. Similarly, with problem-solving both the community and police must identify and prioritise the local community problems. Both of these core components are bonded together through the appointment of a police officer within the community providing personalised policing. This shift in policing focus would necessitate changes both within the police organisation and the community itself. It must be remembered that the reactive, incident driven model of policing has been in existence for several decades and changing such a model will require some time. Thus, the effective implementation of community policing requires an agreement as to what community policing means and then a marketing and training program so that at the outset both parties are on an equal footing. As for the problem solving component of community policing, the parties to the partnership need to accommodate the differing foci of the opposite party. From the policing perspective, this requires accepting input from the community rather than maintaining a controlling demeanour. The police therefore, need to adopt an approach espoused by Wilson and Kelling (1982) in their article titled, 'Broken Windows: The Police and Neighbourhood Safety' which has been discussed in several literary works dealing with the community policing concept [Edwards 2001; Kenney (ed) 1989; Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux 1994]. The community also needs to be involved and this can be achieved initially, by maintaining support and enthusiasm for the community policing activities initiated. The success of implementing community policing relies on the adoption of the core components. The two community policing components, police-community partnership and problem-solving are impacted on by the third core component of personalised policing within a particular area. The personalised policing component is the need to have stable and reasonably enduring police personnel deployed to respective community locales. By adding this factor to the community policing components there is provided a degree of continuity and thus both parties develop a degree of familiarity which can lead to trust and confidence. The implementation of community policing to this extent needs to be holistically addressed through the police organisational dimensions, namely the philosophical, the strategic and the programmatic. Through these dimensions a comprehensive development of the community policing concept can be undertaken.

While community-oriented policing was touted as a new paradigm in American policing, little data reflects its success in reducing crime and/or increasing crime clearance rates. Researchers have failed to definitively describe community policing as a successful style of policing, leaving much more research to be done on its effectiveness as a crime reduction method. Using Trojanowicz's seminal conceptualization of community-oriented policing as the foundation, the purpose of this correlational study was to determine whether there are statistically significant associations between community-oriented policing, crime rates, and crime clearance rates for the 9 municipalities of Carteret County, North Carolina. Data for community-oriented policing methods were collected from the police agencies via personal contact with an agency representative, while data for violent crime, property crime, violent crime clearance rates, and property crime clearance rates were obtained from the State Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report. The results of Spearman's rho and a chi-square test for independence indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between community-oriented policing and the violent crime rate (p = .03), the violent crime clearance rate (p = .03) and the property crime clearance rate (p = .009). This study may enhance positive social change for police agencies in North Carolina by providing specific recommendations to better implement successful community policing strategies in their communities.

Campus law enforcement agencies are an essential component of the campus community, and the greater criminal justice system. While policing research has focused on the activities and organizational structure of municipal police, much less attention has been given to campus agencies. This study builds on existing research by examining the activities and organizational structures of campus law enforcement agencies. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study was to analyze the variation in emergency preparedness across campus law enforcement agencies using Meyer and Rowan's institutional theory. The research questions addressed the extent to which emergency preparedness was influenced by organizational structural, agency characteristics, wider campus characteristics, and community policing. Secondary data were collected from the 2011-2012 Bureau of Justice Statistics Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies, the Office of Postsecondary Education, and the National Center for Education Statistics. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicated that agency organizational structure and agency characteristics are greater influences than campus characteristics on emergency preparedness activities than campus. Findings also showed that the number of community policing activities in which an agency engages in is the greatest predictor of emergency preparedness activities in campus law enforcement agencies. The findings have implications for social change by suggesting the integration of emergency preparedness with community policing initiatives. Collectively, this will create a holistic approach by campus law enforcement agencies.

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This research examines the political implications of community-police relations in the United States by exploring the link between race, perceptions of police performance, and trust in government. Relying on survey data, I examine these relationships for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Whites. In addition to examining the broader relationship between community-police relations and institutional trust, this dissertation examines (1) how police perceptions influence individuals' comfort in contacting the police, (2) how police violence and police perceptions influence trust in government, and (3) the effectiveness of community-oriented policing in building community-police relations and increasing trust in government. First, I find that these relationships are conditional on race and ethnicity. Black respondents, who are more likely to experience negative interactions with the police and who are less likely to have positive perceptions of the police, are less comfortable contacting them. Second, while police violence does not have a significant effect on public trust in government, police perceptions and perceptions of discrimination do. Respondents that perceive the police to be performing well and who do not believe their own racial group is being discriminated against, are more likely to express trust in government. Finally, I find that community-oriented policing has the potential to both improve perceptions of the police and increase trust in government. The central goal of this dissertation is to highlight the role that community-police relations have in influencing American politics and to emphasize the importance of exploring potential solutions to declining trust in the police.

In 1996, the New Orleans Police Department implemented the COMSTAT management and accountability style of policing. Within three years of that implementation, murder was cut by over fifty percent and violent crime fell by nearly the same amount; overall crime was cut by over one-third compared to just three years ago. This dissertation seeks to explore the reasons crime declined so rapidly in New Orleans post-COMSTAT implementation, compared to crime in the rest of the country. Drawing on political and criminological theories of policing as well as sociological theories, variables unique to each set of theories were identified and tested alone and against competing explanations. Utilizing higher-ordered time series methodology, two analyses were conducted. The first utilized interrupted time-series analysis to identify the nature of COMSTAT's impact on New Orleans' crime trends, measured as changes in the current quarter compared to the same quarter of the preceding year. The results show that while COMSTAT had a significant impact on the crime trends, the effects were short-lived. The second analysis utilized traditional time series methodology to examine the impacts of the individual variables on the overall crime trends. The results show that while policing variables and sociological variables have little effect on the overall crime trends both individually and when tested together, the findings indicate policing variables play a larger role than sociological variables when included together. As another independent test of the effects of crime, public opinion data obtained via the University of New Orleans' Survey Research Center from 1986-2004 show that the public was very positive towards the NOPD's efforts in dramatically reducing crime and fear of crime in New Orleans during this period. The overall results for policy makers then indicates that reductions in crime resonate positively with city residents and future policy decisions should be made with that goal in mind.