Law enforcement perceptions of their relationship with community: Law enforcement surveys and community focus groups

ABSTRACT

The Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination (BRAVE) Project is a group violence reduction strategy based on the Boston Gun Project’s Operation Ceasefire. This violence reduction model is predicated on the idea that violence can be dramatically reduced when community members and law enforcement join together to directly engage with criminal groups. In Baton Rouge, selected law enforcement officers have received specialized training regarding the implementation of the BRAVE Project and additional training with regard to working with residents in the community. To that end, surveys and focus groups were administered to residents in the intervention target area to identify their perceptions of crime, law enforcement, and leaders in their community. In addition, law enforcement officers completed surveys that focused on their perceptions of crime and other problems in the target area and their thoughts about whether this intervention could be successful. Results suggest that law enforcement and community members agree on what the problems are but disagree on who is responsible for them and how to solve them. Follow-up surveys and focus groups have been administered to determine whether residents in the target area have changed their perceptions of law enforcement. This article discusses the results of those surveys, the implications of such a violence reduction model, and recommendations for similar models in other cities.

KEYWORDS:

• African American
• Black
• community
• law enforcement
• perceptions
• police
• shootings
• violence

Notes

1. The terms “African American” and “Black” will be used interchangeably in this article.