Reimagine American Policing: The Implications of NSF-Funded Research in Baltimore on American Police Reform

• In Event: Community Engagement, Neighborhoods, and Policing

Abstract

The authors present preliminary findings from NSF-funded research in Baltimore, Maryland. The study— Reimagining Policing by Making Neighborhoods Safer and Stronger—is focused in four neighborhoods in two police districts in the city.  There are two objectives. The first is to assess the effect of neighborhood-level psychodynamic processes and the atmosphere they create on the prevalence of crime and other social problems.  The second objective is to test whether facilitated dialogue via a program developed at Morgan State University (Police and Community Engagement—PACE) can change these psychodynamic processes and neighborhood atmosphere in ways that make a community safer and stronger. The results are discussed within a situational policing framework for reform.

Authors

• James J. Nolan, West Virginia University

• Natasha Pratt-Harris, Morgan State University

• Henry Brownstein, West Virginia University

• Kim Glanville, Morgan State University

• DeJa Love, Morgan State University