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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.

During the last 25 years in law enforcement in the United States, there has been a universal practice of foot and/or bicycle patrols used to accomplish the goal of police patrol enforcement and the philosophy of community policing in metropolitan areas. These tactics of patrol have also been used in police departments in and around the State of Texas. This report is a research project on six major metropolitan police departments in the State of Texas, analyzing their allocation of foot and/or bicycle patrol units within their urban cities. The study assesses their early history in using these two police tactics to address criminal activity and their progression from foot patrol to bicycle patrol. The findings of this research support the proposition that major Texas police departments have adopted the practices and philosophies of other major urban police departments around the US, by using foot and/or bicycle patrols in their cities. There is evidence that major Texas police departments were using foot patrol during the early 1980s in support of community policing and gradually phased out this practice in the early 1990s to adopt the new enforcement tactic of policing on a bicycle.

The history of urban policing paints an evolutionary picture describing the various forces that impinged on society's earliest efforts at public policing and led to numerous reforms culminating in what has been termed the professional model of policing. The dynamics of an ever-changing urban society continued to present new challenges to policing and have driven police administrators and politicians to seek new methods of responding to society's criminal element.

Civil unrest in the1960s pitted Black citizens and police officers against each other (Kerner Commission, 1968). The Kerner Commission examined race relations and recommended the hiring of more Black officers to patrol Black neighborhoods. Recent shooting deaths of unarmed Black males primarily by White officers has led to renewed calls for police reform (Scholsser, Cha-Jua, Valgoi & Neville, 2015). This quantitative secondary analysis study utilizes data from the 2013 LEMAS survey to compare local police departments from three states (N=184) to examine whether police departments with a Black chief and/or a higher rate of Black officers reported more participation in community oriented policing activities than police departments led by Whites. The study’s hypothesis is that local police departments led by a Black chief and departments with a high rate of Black officers will report greater participation in community oriented policing activities. Descriptive data along with results from Pearson’s correlation, ANOVA and multiple regression analysis indicate there are some benefits to appointing Blacks as police chief along with hiring more Black officers. In this study, the race of the chief had a positive but not significant impact on the number of reported COP activities. The presence of more Black officers was positively correlated at a significant level with reports of higher rates of COP activities.

Syftet med studien var att skildra hur områdespoliser beskriver sitt kunskapsbaserade brottsförebyggande arbete i särskilt utsatta områden, riskområden samt utsatta områden. Detta har genomförts med hjälp av kvalitativa intervjuer med områdespoliser stationerade i nämnda områden. En kvalitativ innehållsanalys har tillämpats för att studera datamaterialet. Vidare har materialet analyserats för att skildra om och hur områdespolisers arbetssätt kan kopplas till de kunskapsbaserade brottsförebyggande metoderna community-oriented policing samt problem- oriented policing. En varsam slutledning tyder på att delar av community-oriented policing som förhållningssätt kan kopplas till områdespolisers uppdrag. Utifrån resultatet kan problem- oriented policing som förhållningssätt till viss del utrönas. Däremot saknas essentiella delar från community-oriented policing och problem-oriented policing, följaktligen tyder det på att metoderna inte implementerats fullt ut. / The purpose of the study was to narrate how community police officer ́s describe their evidence-based crime prevention work in particularly-vulnerable-, risk-, and vulnerable areas. This has been accomplished from qualitative interviews with community police  officer ́s stationed in the mentioned areas. A qualitative content analysis has been applied to study the data material. Furthermore, the material has been analyzed to describe whether and how community police officer ́s work can be connected to evidence-based crime prevention methods, community-oriented policing and problem-oriented policing. A cautious conclusion indicates that some parts of community-oriented policing as an approach can be linked to community police officers’ assignments. Based on the results, problem-oriented policing as an approach can to some extent be established. However, essential parts from community-oriented policing and problem-oriented policing are missing, hence, it indicates that the methods are not fully implemented.

This research explores to what extent the community newspaper, Fourways Review, which is distributed to a geographically demarcated area in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, is fulfilling the community’s expectations; how community members use the newspaper and how Fourways Review’s community journalists define their roles. The research uses a qualitative approach to collect data through face-to-face, in-depth interviews with a sample of 30 community members and eight news team members; and one week of participant observation in the newsroom. Data is analysed through a constant comparative technique. The research finds Fourways Review is accepted in the community but is not as community-minded as a community newspaper should be, which affects how the community members use the publication. Community member respondents attribute the criticism to the influence of a market-driven approach to reporting. This is echoed by the news team respondents who say news production is influenced by community, advertising and inter-departmental pressures. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Studies)

Målet i detta examensarbete är att studera språkutveckling genom att undersöka hur den sociokulturella lärandeteorin och språkteorin SFL är framträdande i lågstadielärares berättande om sin undervisning inom de samhällsorienterade ämnena med andraspråkselever. Dessutom har jag undersökt hur multimodala medier används i SO-undervisningen med andraspråkselever enligt lågstadielärares berättande. Mina frågeställningar är följande: “Hur framträder den sociokulturella lärandeteorin och språkteorin SFL i den samhällsorienterande undervisningen med andraspråkselever utifrån lågstadielärares berättande?" och “Hur beskriver lågstadielärare användandet av multimodala medier inom den samhällsorienterande undervisningen med andraspråkselever?". Studien bygger på Lev Vygotskijs sociokulturella lärandeteori, Michael Hallidays systemisk-funktionella språkteori och teorier om multimodalitet. Studien är kvalitativ och den empiriska datan samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem lärare från en högindex skola i Malmö. Resultatet visar att ett sociokulturellt förhållningssätt är att föredra med andraspråkselever, där kooperativt lärande lyfts som en framgångsrik lärmetod. Michael Hallidays teori (SFL) är gynnsam som grundar sig i att utgå från elevernas förkunskaper i undervisningen. Dessutom visar resultatet att en multimodal undervisning är viktigt för framgångsrikt lärande med andraspråkselever. I diskussionen presenteras resonemang och slutsatser utifrån resultatet som besvarar frågeställningarna. Vidare behandlar diskussionsdelen hur forskningen påverkar den framtida yrkesprofessionen och hur man kan forska vidare kring ämnet. / The goal is to study language development by investigating how the sociocultural learning theory and the language theory SFL are prominent in primary school teachers' narratives about their teaching in the socially oriented subjects with second language students. In addition, I have investigated how multimodal media are used in SO teaching with second language students according to primary school teachers' narratives. My questions are the following: "How does the socio-cultural learning theory and the language theory SFL appear in the social orientation teaching with second language students based on the primary school teachers' narration?" and "How do primary school teachers describe the use of multimodal media within the social orientation teaching with second language students?". The study is based on Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural learning theory, Michael Halliday's systemic-functional language theory and theories of multimodality. The study is qualitative and the empirical data was collected via semi-structured interviews with five teachers from a high index school in Malmö. The result shows that a socio-cultural approach is preferable with second language students, where cooperative learning is highlighted as a successful learning method. Michael Halliday's theory (SFL) is favorable, which is based on starting from the students' prior knowledge in teaching. In addition, the results show that multimodal teaching is important for successful learning with second language learners. In the discussion, reasoning and conclusions are presented based on the results that answer the questions. Furthermore, the discussion part deals with how the research affects the future professional profession and how to do further research on the subject.

The aim of this research was to establish whether sector policing had been integrated in the SAPS in the Limpopo Province, and to supply information to the SAPS and community members that may improve their ability to implement sector policing. The research question ”How members in the Limpopo Province perceive sector policing” is investigated in this research. A literature study on sector policing was completed and thereafter a questionnaire was developed. An empirical study was done by questionnaire on the status of sector policing in the SAPS in the Limpopo Province during March, April, May and June 2008. The sample involved 333 police and community members were used in the analysis. / Police Practice / M.A. (Police Science)