Community Engagement in Policing
Case-Study Evaluation of a Demonstration Project in Cheshire
The invest-to-save budget funded Community Engagement in Policing Project included three 'demonstration projects' in three different police authorities - Cheshire, Merseyside and Northumbria. The Cheshire project involved testing different methods of communtiy engagement with an overall marketing and performance management focus.
Title: Community Engagement in Policing - Case-Study Evaluation of a Demonstration Project in Cheshire
Author: Andy Myhill and Kai Rudat
Number of Pages: 30
Date Published: 2006
Availability: Download Full Report PDF 196kb
The project aimed to improve the community's confidence in the police and help improve the local authority's engagement and communication with the community.
There were a number of aims of the project, Including:
- evaluating the success of existing engagment systems to establish the need for new or improved systems,
- increasing the level of dialogue between the authority and constabulary and communities and improve the quality of community engagement methods,
- introducing better central co-ordination of engagement activity and a more consistant approach to engagement across the service,
- reaching a broad cross section of the population,
- creating a two-way meaningful dialogue between the service and local communities, including feedback,
- increasing community confidence by increasing the involvement of communities in priority setting and local problem solving,
- shaping public expectations of the service the police can deliver,
- using public feedback to shape and improve service delivery,
- improving accountability such that the public believes that the service takes their views into account and the authority's decisions have legitimacy through public support,
- creating better links with non-police partners on community engagement issues,
- ensuring that the changes made are sustained beyond the life of the demonstration project.
The report concludes that it is too early to tell whether there will be a sustained feeling of increased community safety but that the foundations have definitely been put in place and that the revised forms of communication with the community will definitely enable the Cheshire police service to monitor progress towards this aim.
Getting a copy
Download full report PDF 196kb
Last update: Tuesday, September 19, 2006