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Police-Community Relations

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Communities rely on police departments to "protect and serve" and the police, in turn, rely on community support and cooperation, but the relationship is not always harmonious. RAND researchers have examined the relationships between law enforcement agencies and their communities in several countries.

Essay
Hackathon Focuses on Making Policing More Equitable
Hackathons bring new ideas and perspectives to hard policy problems and introduce college students to the field of policy analysis. The latest hackathon, hosted by Pardee RAND and RAND NextGen, explored ways to make the criminal justice system more equitable and more effective.
Jan 9, 2023
Report
Better Data Collection Could Support Efforts to Reduce Deaths in Police Custody
No national data collection program describes all deaths that occur in law enforcement custody. These data are critical to support strategies to reduce such fatalities, to promote public safety through appropriate police responses, and to build trust with communities.
Oct 11, 2022

Explore Police-Community Relations

Testimony
Strengthening Trust Between Police and the Public in an Era of Increasing Transparency
The United States faces the challenge of improving police-community relationships in an evolving information environment. Congress has important opportunities to help both parties build sustainable trust amid increasing transparency.
Oct 6, 2015
Content
The Lenzner-Coleman Challenge Fund for Criminal Justice Research
After a 50-year career as a lawyer and investigator, Terry Lenzner launched the Lenzner-Coleman Challenge Fund for Criminal Justice Research in response to events highlighting fractures in police-community relations.
Aug 31, 2015
Blog
Examining Police, Community Relations
The “Strengthening Police-Community Trust” panel held Wednesday at RAND's Pittsburgh offices felt ripped from the headlines, and from the outset the discussion was focused on what the moderator called “the intersection between the community and the police.”
May 8, 2015
Multimedia
Strengthening Police-Community Trust
In this Events @ RAND podcast, Pittsburgh Chief of Police Cameron McLay joins Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle and RAND's director of Safety and Justice, Brian Jackson, for a conversation about why building and maintaining trust between police and the public is critical for the health of American democracy.
May 6, 2015
Report
Strengthening Trust Between Police and the Public
Amid recent tensions between law enforcement and the public, three key questions must be answered to build the foundation for long-lasting mutual trust, especially given technological changes that are increasing transparency.
May 1, 2015
Commentary
When It Comes to Police-Community Relations, “Expect What You Inspect”
As the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing report suggests, local governments should evaluate police on more than crime statistics, and police departments and officers should be held publicly accountable for meeting the community's expectations. Adding new dimensions of performance metrics would help.
Mar 17, 2015
Commentary
To Serve and Collect? Police Department Funding, Effectiveness, and Legitimacy
Like so many issues in public policy, one of the factors shaping the complex policing challenges facing America—and a potential lever to help address them—is simple and unsurprising. That factor is money.
Mar 16, 2015
Commentary
Want Better Policing? Bring on the Horses
Neighborhood patrols by mounted police in the UK are associated with comparatively higher levels of public trust and confidence than patrols by police on foot. Members of the public engage with mounted police over six times as much as they engage with police on foot.
Mar 10, 2015
Commentary
Progress After Ferguson? Good Ideas Need Good Implementation
President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing has done a great service by providing dozens of sound recommendations—good ideas that could help avoid another Ferguson. Now we need good implementation to go along with them.
Mar 9, 2015
Report
Making and Breaking Barriers: Assessing the value of mounted police units in the UK: Appendices
These appendices include the research tools used by the research team in different stages of the project, as well as additional data referenced in the main report.
Mar 9, 2015
Report
Making and Breaking Barriers: Assessing the value of mounted police units in the UK
The Association of Chief Police Officers commissioned the University of Oxford and RAND Europe to develop evidence on the value of mounted police in key deployment contexts, including neighbourhood, football and public order policing.
Mar 9, 2015
Testimony
Performance Metrics to Improve Police-Community Relations
Changing the way police performance is measured could prevent issues leading to civil rights violations and poor police-community relations. Should California take the lead to recommend that local law enforcement agencies must report performance metrics?
Feb 20, 2015
Dissertation
Positive Youth Development in a School-Based Setting: A Study of the Los Angeles Police Academy Magnet School Program
Offers a case study of a Los Angeles public school--based positive youth development (PYD) program to examine the extent to which PYD principles are incorporated in school programming and how they relate to a set of youth outcomes.
Feb 18, 2015
Commentary
What Research Says About Profiling
When police take action on the basis of race, creed, or ethnicity it is corrosive, unfair, ineffective, and can stoke the flames of police-community tension. But as we have found from a variety of assessments, law enforcement is best served when it bases its activities on risk—not on personal characteristics.
Dec 18, 2014
Commentary
Can Big Data Help Build Trust in the Police?
After two controversial grand jury decisions not to indict police in the deaths of unarmed African Americans, a White House task force has 90 days to provide recommendations for promoting accountability among law enforcement agencies to cultivate trust between police and communities. The timeline may seem impossible, but, sadly, these issues are old and the solutions are well known.
Dec 11, 2014
Report
Assessing the Value of Mounted Police Units in the UK
Research in the UK shows demonstrable and measurable value of mounted police in various deployment scenarios, but the decision to maintain, expand or cut mounted capacity must be based on the priorities a police force sets within limited and contracting budgets.
Nov 18, 2014
Commentary
In Ferguson's Wake, How a Data-Driven Approach Can Improve Police-Community Relations
Community leaders and police departments have a responsibility to their citizens to address questions about their policing practices, such as: What are the most significant areas of concern? How severe are the problems? What are the most effective solutions?
Sep 16, 2014
Commentary
Data Key to Tackling Racial Profiling in Ferguson
Authorities in Ferguson would be wise to consider following Cincinnati's example in dealing with mistrust between police and citizens after the police shooting of a young black man. The city embarked on a thorough examination of racial profiling by its police force and took steps to deal with the perception that bias was influencing the way police officers performed their duties.
Aug 21, 2014
Report
Greater Transparency and Accountability Key to Improving Effectiveness of Israel Police
An approach to policing known as “procedural justice,” emphasizing transparency and accountability, would help Israel's national police meet current and emerging challenges. The force needs to address issues of civil-police relations, benchmarking, performance measurement, and deterrence.
May 2, 2014
Commentary
Predictive Policing: An Effective Tool, but Not a Crystal Ball
Predictive policing is not an end-all solution, but rather a tool that must be used in concert with other policing resources as part of a broader anti-crime effort. Used properly, predictive policing can predict the risk of future events, but not the events themselves.
Nov 14, 2013

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RAND Topic:
Police-Community Relations

Topic Synonyms:
Police-Neighborhood Relations

Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Nelson Lim

Director, Workforce, Development, and Health Program, RAND Project AIR FORCE

Nelson Lim is director of the Workforce, Development, and Health (WDH) program in RAND Project AIR FORCE and a senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation. In 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III appointed Lim a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion…
Danielle Sobol

Assistant Policy Researcher, RAND, and Ph.D. Student, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Danielle Sobol (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in the Research, Analysis, and Design stream at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy researcher at RAND. Her research interests include criminal justice and policing reform, social protection, and behavioral health care.

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