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POLICE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: REALITY OR ILLUSION? Neil Leslie – Division of Sociology n.leslie1800@abertay.ac.uk Introduction
Engagement
Research
Community engagement, enables citizen contribution to policing; empowers people to influence police priorities; and allows community participation in solving local
Over the past decade, austerity cuts and an increasing complexification of policing have coalesced to impact on the capacity to deliver a locally-focused service. Meaningful local engagement appears to have been sacrificed to resource other areas of policing (HMIC, 2017).
Police identity and legitimacy are engrained within the UK’s consensual community-based model of policing. Continuing public consent for police authority is contingent upon maintaining the trust and confidence of local citizens.
Political and police narratives continue to stress the importance of engagement to the UK’s consensual policing doctrine and commit forces to delivering policing through local interaction and collaboration (Police Scotland, 2017; NPCC, 2019). problems (Myhill, 2012). Community engagement’s aim is the development of a police/citizen affiliation that engenders true collaboration in delivering community safety (Lloyd and Foster, 2009). Police ‘engagement’ with local citizens, although poorly defined, is a statutory requirement for UK forces (Lister and Rowe, 2015). This legal obligation to engage locally resulted from a breakdown of police/public relations in the 1980s, which led to broad anti-police rioting.
Community engagement
Local priorities
Policing activities
POLICE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CYCLE
Community information flow
Trust
Local problems
Local problemsolving
Confidence
For several decades, UK forces have been accused of dismissing public opinion regarding prioritisation, and of amplifying the value of activities the service itself defines as priorities (Herbert, 2006).
The widespread civil disorder was seen by many to have been fuelled by decreasing public confidence, directly related to a 1960s shift to a less visible, remote, reactive policing style (Weatheritt, 1986).
Despite ‘commitment’ rhetoric, whether policing is institutionally committed to maintaining public confidence through meaningful community engagement remains unclear (see: Innes et al, 2009).
The case for building public confidence from local engagement has been made many times over the past decades. It is a critical unknown whether public consent can be sustained by an increasingly abstract response-driven policing model. Research question: • Are the police committed to physically proximate engagement with local communities? Objectives: • Understand how police forces prioritise community engagement. • Establish how the police service itself values community engagement. • Identify intraorganisational barriers that may frustrate the delivery of community engagement. Methods: • Documentary analysis • Focus groups • Semi-structured interviews Organising concepts: • Public value theory • Procedural justice theory Field research: • Police Scotland • Police forces in England and Wales References: Gloucestershire Constabulary (2022) Safer Neighbourhoods. Available at: <http://www.hucclecote.org.uk%2Fneighbourhood-policing-panel %2F&psig=AOvVaw2L3QfqlyB_j5b8qpU1iwCo&ust=1651509610606000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAkQjRxqFwoTCKCBoO_evvcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE> [Accessed 15 April 2022]. Herbert, S. (2006) 'Tangled up in blue: Conflicting paths to police legitimacy', Theoretical Criminology, 10(4), pp. 481-504. doi: 10.1177/1362480606068875. HMIC (2017) PEEL: Police Effectiveness 2016. London: HMIC. Available at: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/peel-police-effectiveness-2016.pdf (Accessed: 14 April 2022). Innes, M., Abbott, L., Lowe, T. and Roberts, C. (2009) 'Seeing like a citizen: field experiments in ‘community intelligence ‐led policing’', Police practice and research: An international journal, 10(2), pp. 99-114. doi: 10.1080/15614260802264545. Lister, S. and Rowe, M. (2015) 'Electing police and crime commissioners in England and Wales: prospecting for the democratisation of policing', Policing and Society, 25(4), pp. 358377. doi: 10.1080/10439463.2013.868461. Lloyd, K. and Foster, J. (2009) Citizen focus and community engagement. London: The Police Foundation. Available at: https://www.police-foundation.org.uk/2017/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/citizen_focus.pdf (Accessed: 10 Jan 2022).
Recent work by Terpstra, Fyfe and Salet (2019) indicates that the police are increasingly becoming less engaged and more detached from local communities.
Metropolitan Police (2022) Brixton 1981 Available at: <https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/images/met/about-us/museums/contact-us-icon.jpg> [Accessed 9 April 2022]. Myhill, A. (2012) Community engagement in policing Lessons from the literature. London: NPIA. Available at: https://whatworks.college.police.uk/Research/Documents/Community_engagement_lessons.pdf (Accessed: 11 October 2019). Northamptonshire Police, (2022) Community Policing.. Available at: <https://www.cypnow.co.uk/media/146158/northamptonshirepoliceearlyintervention-350x250.jpg? &width=780&quality=60> [Accessed 19 April 2022]. NPCC (2019) Policing Vision 2025. Ryton: NPCC. Available at: https://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/Policing%20Vision.pdf (Accessed: 16 November 2021). Police Scotland (2017) Policing 2026: Our 10 year strategy for policing in Scotland. Edinburgh: Police Scotland. Available at: https://www.scotland.police.uk/spa-media/pxrpq15f/policing-2026-strategy.pdf (Accessed: 15 November 2021). Terpstra, J., Fyfe, N.R. and Salet, R. (2019) 'The Abstract Police: A conceptual exploration of unintended changes of police organisations', The Police Journal, 92(4), pp. 339-359. doi: 10.1177/0032258X18817999. Weatheritt, M. (1986) Innovations in policing. London: Taylor & Francis.
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