Seeing like a citizen: field experiments in ‘community intelligence‐led policing’

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative community engagement methodology designed to provide police with a ‘rich’ community intelligence picture of the ‘drivers’ of insecurity in neighbourhoods. Informed by empirical data from three case studies where this methodology has been trialled it is argued the approach facilitates a ‘community intelligence‐led policing’ approach. This has the potential to establish meaningful connections between community policing and other aspects of the modern police mission, such as managing the impacts of major crimes and responding to inter‐ and intra‐community tensions.

Keywords:

• community engagement
• community intelligence
• reassurance
• neighbourhood policing
• community tensions

Notes

1. Some of the more popular engagement techniques include: community meetings; ‘street briefings’; telephone surveys; letter drops; mass media advertising.

2. PACT stands for ‘Police and Communities Together’ and these meetings were developed in Lancashire Constabulary in 2004.

3. This definition was arrived at following research funded by the Association of Chief Police Officers into processes and systems of managing community intelligence (Innes, Roberts, & Maltby, 2005).

4. Output areas are constructed by the UK Office for National Statistics and are the smallest unit at which they output census data. Each OA is made up of 350 residents.

5. Twenty‐nine respondents were female, 20 male and for seven respondents this information was not recorded. The majority (52) described their ethnicity as White British. Of the remainder, two described themselves as White Irish, one as Asian/Asian British from an Indian background, and one of another unspecified ethnicity. Forty‐one respondents were residents and the remaining 15 worked in the cell in which they were interviewed. Of those who were residents, nine also worked in the area.

6. A more detailed account of the crime and the subsequent research is available in Lowe et al. (2007).

7. The arguments here have been nicely summarised by Judt (2007, p. 26): ‘Fear is re‐emerging as an active ingredient of political life in Western democracies … And, perhaps above all, fear that it is not just we who can no longer shape our lives but that those in authority have lost control as well, to forces beyond their reach.’