Contested Grounds: Conflict and 'Community Policing' in an Urban U.S. City

• In Event: Race, Ethnicity, and Policing

Abstract

Community policing often lies at the heart of police agency efforts to increase their legitimacy in the communities in which they operate. From internal reform efforts to federally led and supervised change, police reformers turn to community policing to situate police within, rather than in opposition to marginalized communities. In this paper, I show that community policing models often draw police into urban conflicts they are ill prepared to resolve. Drawing on an original dataset of police encounters in a U.S. city, I build a conflict model of urban policing and contend that community policing reproduces and intensifies existing biases, inequalities and conflicts. More often than not, this situates the police in opposition to the very communities the community policing model seeks to improve their ties with.

Author

• Matthew Nesvet, University of California Davis