Police Partnerships Research Articles

Private Security’s Accountabilities within Polycentric Assemblages

This article will reflect on the multiple ways in which private security can, and is, being held responsible and accountable to the public (and other security providers), in formalised, polycentric, or nodal assemblages. Drawing on empirical research conducted on plural policing partnerships, the article will show that private security is influenced by market forces, but that this is part of an interwoven, layered, formal-informal system of accountabilities – most of which are bottom-up and relational, rather than top-down and legislated. In fact, drawing on the work of John Braithwaite, we show that horizontal or circular forms of accountability (or accountabilities) play a large role in aligning the private sector to the public interest or common good within pluralised environments.

‘Without uniform I am a community member, uncle, brother, granddad’: Community policing in Australia’s Torres Strait Region

As a palpable legacy of violent colonialism, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (‘Indigenous’) Australians are the most incarcerated peoples in the world. Community policing, which hinges on the development of trusting community–police partnerships, is frequently proposed as a means of reducing this over-representation, but approaches vary and produce divergent outcomes. This article draws on interview data to explore policing in Australia’s Torres Strait Region – a remote archipelago situated off the northern tip of Queensland. A strong commitment to community and hybridised policing approaches likely provide a partial explanation for relatively low crime in the region. However, under-reporting of some offences (e.g. domestic violence) suggests a possible need to overlay alternative approaches that improve access to justice for all victims, especially women. Overall, the Torres Strait Region experience holds possible lessons for policing in Australia’s other remote Indigenous communities, again demonstrating that decolonisation is a critical starting point for addressing over-representation.

Police and Private Security Partnership in Crime Prevention, A Study of Nairobi County

With regard to the provision of security services in Kenya, Police and private security function in a mutually exclusive manner. However, it apparent that is essential to develop a formal partnership relationship, because both have several shared goals. Additionally, the private security industry also plays a significant protective role in the country. The study sought to investigate the reality of partnership between the police and the private security in Kenya. It sought to achieve this by examining the existence of any level of partnership between the private security and police in provision of security. The study also sought to establish the existing partnership between the private and public security, especially in places of common protection of public gatherings, information exchange, security and transport of money, information, and private security handing over suspected offenders to the police and how the challenges facing both private and public security providers can be curbed to enhance security. This is based on the premise that conditions for effective cooperation between the police and private security providers are not yet well developed. This study examined how co-operation in crime prevention and policing could be realized and made beneficial to all role players within the framework of a public-private security partnership. The research used both qualitative and qualitative approaches in collecting, as well as analyzing data. Additionally, both secondary and primary data were collected, with primary data being collected by use of questionnaire and interview schedule. The primary data was collected in Nairobi which was purposely sampled for its large intensity of criminal activities and security providers, both private and public. The data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The study provides deeper knowledge of local security dynamics and gives an insight into measures that could be taken to harness the energies and potentials of police and private security partnership. It also serves as a basis for future research into the country’s overall strategy for providing security whilst contributing to the existing body of literature to address scarcity of data in this research area in Kenya. Keywords : Police, Private Security, Partnership, Crime Prevention DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/11-1-01 Publication date: January 31 st 2021

UNDERSTANDING THE PRINCIPLES GUIDING THE COMMUNITY POLICING PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE NIGERIA POLICE AND VIGILANTE GROUPS IN IKORODU, LAGOS.

Community policing is presently considered by most Police organizations and scholars as the latest model of Policing. Despite this wide spread acceptance, there is still no clear agreement on what Community policing actually entails. The only area of agreement is the fact that community policing entails a partnership between the Police and organized groups of members of the community that the Police is serving. Previous researches had focused on the effectiveness of this partnership but had not looked in detail into the principles guiding this community policing partnership. Using an unstructured face-toface interview, questions was posed to members of the Nigeria Police and Onyabo Vigilante group in Ikorodu. The data gathered reveals that the community policing partnership between the Nigeria Police and Onyabo Vigilante Group Ikorodu were guided by the following principles of partnership, defines roles and functions, community involvement in crime prevention, clear communication between both partners and respect for human rights and rules of engagement. These principles help not only to better understand the nature and scope of community policing but it also helps fashion out a community policing policy direction for Police organizations, scholars and government policy makers. KEY WORDS: Community. Community Policing. Vigilante group. Partnership.

A Police Partnership Targeting Truancy: Study Protocol for a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

Research QuestionHow can an Australian police agency best test its role in a truancy prevention programme that can help to prevent crime?DataOperational and analytic planning for testing the Ability School Engagement Partnership (ASEP) programme in Queensland that aims to increase school attendance and reduce anti-social behaviour, including offending.MethodsFulfilling the requirements for registering a randomised trial protocol with the Clinicaltrials.gov Registry (NCT04281966; date registered 24 February 2020).FindingsA protocol deploying a cluster randomised trial offers sufficient statistical power to detect a moderately large effect size as statistically significant with 80% probability.ConclusionImplementation of this protocol as planned would provide an internally valid test of the effectiveness of the ASEP programme in real-world conditions.

PROTOCOL: Multiagency programmes with police as a partner for reducing radicalisation to violence.

Violent radicalisation is a complex problem, complicated by the lack of a clear terrorist profile and variation in the risk factors that predict violent extremism across individuals and groups (Campelo, Oppetit, Neau, Cohen, & Bronsard, 2018; Carlsson et al., 2020; Desmarais, Simons‐Rudolph, Brugh, Schilling, & Hoggan, 2017; Wolfowicz, Litmanovitz, Weisburd, & Hasisi, 2019). While models of understanding radicalisation vary (Borum, 2015; Christmann, 2012; Desmarais et al., 2017; Horgan, 2008; Koehler, 2017; Kruglanski, Belanger, & Gunaratna, 2019; Sarma, 2017), it is broadly defined as the process by which a person adopts extremist views and moves towards committing a violent act (Irwin, 2015; Jensen, Atwell Seate, & James, 2018). Radicalisation has been linked with individual and group engagement in terrorist attacks against innocent civilians (Wilner & Dubouloz, 2010), as well as individuals entering conflict zones to join formal extremist groups to engage in violent combat (Lindekilde, Bertelsen, & Stohl, 2016). As a result, radicalisation has become a key focus for counterterrorism and violence prevention interventions. The complex and varied nature of individuals' progression from radicalisation to violence presents challenges for designing and evaluating appropriate interventions and policy responses (Hafez & Mullins, 2015; Helmus et al., 2017; Horgan & Braddock, 2010; Horgan, 2008; Jensen et al., 2018; Kruglanski et al., 2019). This level of complexity has driven national counterterrorism policy agendas to adopt intersectoral and multiagency responses that aim to address various radicalisation processes and risks (Beutel & Weinberger, 2016). These multiagency responses often involve partnerships and collaborations between various different agencies and entities (Hardy, 2018), such as governmental agencies, private businesses, community organisations and service providers.

Policing partnerships to address youth antisocial behavior: How parental risk‐taking shapes child outcomes

Research SummaryPartnerships are an integral part of the working life of police, yet not a lot is known about how such partnerships work to deter and control crime problems. This article explores the impact of a Third Party Policing Partnership involving police and schools coming together to engage with parents to address their child's truancy and antisocial behavior. We report on results from an embedded behavioral economics experiment within the Ability School Engagement Program (ASEP) Trial. ASEP involved 102 young people who were chronically truant from school and randomly allocated to the experimental partnership program (ASEP) or the business‐as‐usual condition. We find that riskier choices made by parents increase the incidence of child self‐reported antisocial behavior (SRASB). Our results show parents in the ASEP condition had greater gains in knowledge of the education laws relative to control. There was a backfire effect for parents in the control group: Their gains in knowledge of the laws led their children to have higher levels of SRASB.Policy ImplicationsPolicing partnerships are an important part of the future of policing. Police partnerships with schools are a promising approach for engaging parents and young people in a manner that clearly and fairly explains to parents their legal obligations for their child's school attendance. While we do not find that ASEP modified parental risk‐taking behavior, we do find that the ASEP intervention created an insulating effect from the negative outcomes of the business‐as‐usual condition, in which school principals delivered ad hoc bad news to parents about their child's antisocial behavior in a way that was not procedurally just. Policing partnerships are likely to deter antisocial behavior when police work with third party partners who have some type of legislative responsibility. This legislative medium creates opportunities for the police and third parties to better engage and communicate legal responsibilities and the consequences of noncompliance.

Private security’s accountabilities within polycentric assemblages

ABSTRACT This article will reflect on the multiple ways in which private security can, and is, being held responsible and accountable to the public (and other security providers), in formalised, polycentric, or nodal assemblages. Drawing on empirical research conducted on plural policing partnerships, the article will show that private security is influenced by market forces, but that this is part of an interwoven, layered, formal-informal system of accountabilities – most of which are bottom-up and relational, rather than top-down and legislated. In fact, drawing on the work of John Braithwaite, we show that horizontal or circular forms of accountability (or accountabilities) play a large role in aligning the private sector to the public interest or common good within pluralised environments.

Understanding the status of evidence in policing research: reflections from a study of policing domestic abuse

ABSTRACT Experimentation, innovation, and evaluation are key elements of Evidence Based Policing (EBP), itself often aligned to wider efforts to improve police professionalism. Producing new evidence of ‘what works’ is an important part of the challenge of developing more effective policing responses to complex demands in a period of limited resources. Drawing on our experience of understanding successful innovations in policing domestic abuse, we reflect on the quality and status of research evidence in policing and the implications that these might have in terms of informing good practice. We worked in collaboration with police staff to identify areas in which innovation in policing domestic abuse has been successful. Selected projects were required to meet the criteria of having been developed from an evidence base (broadly defined to include professional expertise, scientific research and guidance from authoritative bodies), subject to evaluation and as having had a demonstrable positive impact. Our collaborative work identified some interesting variations in terms of understandings of these three criteria in the context of innovations in policing domestic abuse. Here we reflect on what passes as evidence and evaluation and more broadly what counts as research which helps determine what works, all as part of our project to build capacity through collaborative partnership policing.

Policing of sex work in South Africa: The positive policing partnership approach

All aspects of sex work are criminalized in South Africa. Due to their marginalized position in society, sex workers are often the target of police violence and human rights violations, all of which have far-reaching implications for public health. Existing complaint mechanisms and police oversight structures rarely ensure accountability for sex worker human rights violations. In 2016, various sex work sector stakeholders and allied civil society members partnered in a collaborative project to document the operational policing challenges and record a contemporary evidence base of sex worker rights violations by law enforcement. The findings demonstrated that violation of sex worker human rights is systemic, pervasive, and entrenched. The project approach helped catalyze a move away from more traditionally adversarial approaches, withstakeholders from the South African sex work sector forming the Positive Policing Partnership (PPP) as an advocacy vehicle to drive positive, solution-focused engagement on the operational policing challenges. The PPP focuses on collaboration, innovative partnerships, and capacity building. Concurrently, the COC Netherlands Dignity, Diversity and Policing project has successfully embedded a rights-based police training curriculum in partnership with the South African Police Service (SAPS). These projects employ different strategies and frameworks to catalyze positive change and to support effective engagement between the sex work sector, law enforcement, and government. This article provides a snapshot of the formation, activities and progress of these projects to date, teamed with a summary of key strategies and learnings.

Learning through practice: Collaborative policing partnerships in teaching in higher education

This article discusses the development and good practice of an undergraduate collaborative partnership module between police practitioners and academics meeting the challenges for teaching partnerships within higher education. Through innovative curriculum design and the application of the Student as Producer model, the article considers aspects of student engagement, ownership of learning journeys and shared dialogues. The case study was developed to strengthen existing productive links with policing and offer real-life collaboration on contemporary police studies. The module has impacted on student learning and has institutionally embraced professional practice in teaching through designing ‘academic practice as learning’.

From Research Partner to Embedded Criminologist: A Synthesized Taxonomy and Reflections From the Field

Abstract Perhaps never before has the need for collaboration between academic researchers and police agencies been more salient. Technological advances have brought advanced hardware systems into daily policing operations, and analytical software and information systems have assembled massive volumes of data repositories. To produce usable knowledge from these information troves, advanced analytical knowledge has become necessary. At the same time, the evidence-based policy movement requires that police agencies equip themselves with the ability to interpret and produce evaluations of new policing initiatives using sound scientific evaluation methods, something which also requires specialized and advanced knowledge not usually housed within policing organizations. In response to these demands, researcher–police collaborations have become more prevalent. Yet, the specific nature of these researcher–police relationships can take many forms. This article synthesizes previous literature and develops a taxonomy for classifying researcher–police partnerships and discusses the experiences of moving from an external research partner to an embedded criminological ‘unit’ within the Miami Police Department.

Of Common Bonds: Accounting for Intergenerational Culture Competency in Community Policing

Community policing is grounded in a set of knowledge and skills that promotes a collaborative relationship between community residents, law enforcement, public and private industry, and governing elected officials to achieve safe and sustainable communities. In the fall of 2016, on the heels of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division’s Investigative Report, a cohort of Morgan State University’s School of Social Work faculty, trained in the results-based accountability (RBA) model, developed and implemented an interactive workshop on cultural competency with 70 community partners from law enforcement. Cultural competence is an inherit cornerstone of a viable community and police partnership. This article shares how outcome-based performance strategies such as RBA can facilitate a pathway for enhancing community generational cultural competence leading to public safety.

Disrupting the Pathway from Truancy to Delinquency: A Randomized Field Trial Test of the Longitudinal Impact of a School Engagement Program

ObjectiveTruancy in adolescence is related to detrimental developmental outcomes over the life-course, including a greater risk for delinquency during adolescence and offending in adulthood. This paper presents results from the Ability School Engagement Program (ASEP): a Third Party Policing partnership between schools and police that sought to disrupt the relationship between truancy and delinquency by communicating, in a procedurally fair dialogue, the legal responsibilities of parents to ensure their children attend school. This paper examines the impact of ASEP on antisocial behavior and the modifying effects of ASEP on the relationship between willingness to go to school and antisocial behavior.MethodsASEP was evaluated under randomized field trial conditions, where 102 truanting young people from a highly disadvantaged urban area in Brisbane, Australia, were randomly assigned to either the ASEP intervention or the business-as-usual condition.ResultsUtilizing four waves of survey data collected over a 2-year time period, we found evidence that ASEP was related to decreases in self-reported antisocial behavior throughout the 2 years study. We also find that ASEP lessened the negative relationship between willingness to go to school and self-reported antisocial behavior for those in the experimental condition up to 1 year post random allocation.ConclusionsPartnerships between schools and police that communicate, in a procedurally fair way, parental legal responsibilities for their children to attend school holds promise for increasing a truanting young person’s willingness to go to school and reducing their self-reported antisocial behaviour, at least in the short run.

Improving School Policing Programmes through Strategic Collaboration

Abstract School–police partnerships that place police officers in K-12 schools are continually forging nationwide, despite a lack of empirical evidence of effectiveness. In response to this trend, we examined the current state of such partnerships, as well as school policing practices in general. We conducted focus groups with educators and school-based law enforcement officers (N = 43) across the state of Texas. Our results revealed five key areas of opportunity for improving collaboration: recognizing the desire for cross-training; knowing who has authority when; nurturing the ‘serve’ component of school policing; gaining community support; and the need for strategic documentation. The present study serves a larger purpose, which is to inform the development of a strategic framework to guide school policing programme implementation. All results indicate a need for and potential positive impact of such a framework to enhance school–police collaboration and thereby improve school policing outcomes.

Police partnership working: Lessons from a co-located group pilot

Recent literature on police partnership working has challenged the orthodoxy established during the 1980s and 1990s that this is an unpopular area of police activity. Instead, recent research suggests that partnership working can reinforce and enhance the policing value of pragmatism (O’Neill and McCarthy, 2014), due to its focused and bottom-up approach to problem solving. Using a casestudy approach to investigate a co-located partnership group tasked with reducing demands for policing services, I explore the precise nature of the processes that enable these apparently effective elements of partnership working to emerge. I suggest a core role for “authority work” defined as the process through which particular interpretations of people, events and outcomes are warranted and rendered legitimate. I use the insights generated from the analysis to reflect on why partnership working may sometimes succeed in both producing successful multi-agency collaboration and what such success might mean for those individuals that are the targets of partnership interventions.

“We All Have Stories”: Black Muslim Immigrants’ Experience With the Police

Understanding the relationships between immigrants and refugees and the police is a critical research task with implications for both community–police partnerships and the effectiveness of law enforcement efforts. This study contributes to such an understanding by examining perceptions of police and police interactions among Somali immigrants and refugees (both first and second generation) in three communities in the United States and Canada. This article presents in-depth analyses of qualitative interview data and draws upon multiple theoretical perspectives, specifically procedural justice and minority group threat theory. These perspectives have been employed to account for police–minority relationships in other works and we extend their application to a new group. We find that despite some evidence of positive interactions with police, current policing could do more to establish community trust and implement principles of procedural justice with Somalis in the United States and Canada. This article also finds support for the minority group threat theory in that study participants perceive that they experience harsher and more frequent policing due to their multiple marginalized statuses (Black, immigrant, and Muslim). Implications for both Somali immigrants/refugees and law enforcement are discussed.

Student and Police Partnerships: Cultivating Student Success and Community Development

Scholarship on service-learning and experiential learning increasingly demonstrates benefits for student access and success, but evidence is still needed of the impact of these strategies on sustainable development of communities and their infrastructure. This case study examines a university Police and Society course that partners with four police departments to use both experiential learning and service-learning in the form of ride-alongs, simulation trainings, and written and physical examinations, as well as hosting a police–community relations event. Focus groups of students and officers reveal how service-learning and experiential learning build capacity for police–community relations. Orienting students toward officer procedures, requirements, and culture creates a learning opportunity for both students and departments, while police–community relations activities humanize officers and build public understanding and trust.

Democratic Policing Manivestasi Independensi Polri dan Implementasi Perubahan Ligkungan Strategis di Era Demokrasi

Indonesia has decided to choose democracy as a road map to the people's welfare as mandated by the constitution. Police who now live in the era of democracy, must secure the path of democracy in Indonesia. Implementation of the principles of democratic policing, is a necessity for the Police, for the sake of the functioning and the role of the Police as the Reformation wanted in 1998. One of the answers for democratic policing to achieve optimum results is to strengthen police and community partnerships.

"Eyes, Ears, and Wheels"

Research on policing in Africa has provided tremendous insight into how non-state actors, such as gangs, vigilantes, private security companies, and community initiatives, increasingly provide security for urban dwellers across the continent. Consequently, the state has been categorized as one order among many whose authority is co-constituted through relations with other actors. Drawing on our ethnographic fieldwork in the past two years, we highlight how the state police dominates security arrangements in Nairobi and asserts itself not just as one order among many. We show how, in various policing partnerships between police, private security companies, and residents’ associations, the state police acts as a coagulating agent of such practices. In order to elucidate this relationship, we utilize the “junior partner” model from the criminology literature and expand based on the community policing initiatives that in Nairobi act as the “eyes, ears, and wheels” of the police.