Copping out on Communities: Police and Connections to the Code of the Street

• In Event: Poster Session I

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate how neighborhood policing affects neighborhood street culture. Further, this project aims to examine whether negative assessments of the police and reports of potentially violent personal safety methods are related. Specifically, this study will ask how perceptions of police efficacy influence the emergence of neighborhood codes of violence and if that relationship is mediated by fear of crime. It is my hope that this research furthers the understanding of neighborhood street culture in useful ways by revealing a possible way conventional institutions, such as the police, may be inadvertently contributing to neighborhood violence. In doing so, these findings could highlight opportunities to improve policing in ways that could help agencies and community partners as they work together to repair issues concerning neighborhood violence.

Author

• Michelle Block, Georgia State University