Implementing Crime Preventive Policing Strategies in Complex, Disadvantaged Areas in Colombia

• In Event: Police-Community Relations Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

The implementation of a policing strategy requires evidence from several sources to investigate its functionality and improvement potential. In this study we present how an adapted approach of community policing has been implemented in complex, disadvantaged areas in Colombia. We compare police officers from this unit with regular police officers. The purpose was to investigate how the newly implemented approach contributes to crime prevention. Several areas of interest were at focus: closeness to the community, partnership with other actors, and actual crime reduction activities. The study adopts a comparative design where police officers working according to the adapted approach are compared with regular police officers. Data was collected with questionnaires from both groups and complemented with focus group interviews. The number of allocated police officers were approximately N=1300 from the studied group and N=1400 regular police officers. Perceptions about the police were collected with questionnaires from citizens in the focal areas. The corresponding number of citizens from two waves of data were T1, N = 19000 and T2, N = 16000. Preliminary results show several promising findings with the approach in terms of advancing crime prevention initiatives even if there are several areas of improvement.

Authors

• Miguel Inzunza, Police Education Unit, Umeå University

• John Franco, Swedish Police Authority