Background
Monrovia, Liberia is plagued by rampant crime. According to the 2015 Afrobarometer survey, 65 percent of the city’s residents reported that they or someone they knew was a victim of theft in the past year, while 35 percent reported that they or someone they knew was physically assaulted. These figures are considerably higher than those for urban, sub-Saharan Africa overall, and place Monrovia among sub-Saharan Africa’s most crime-ridden places to live. This project aims to address a key factor believed to contribute urban Liberia’s high rate of crime: the reluctance of citizens to cooperate with the police through activities such as crime reporting, information sharing, and evidence provision. In particular, the project will test whether community policing can build confidence in the police, increase crime reporting, improve information sharing, and ultimately reduce the incidence of crime.
Intervention Date: October 2017 – October 2018
Research Design
The research team will work with officers from each of Monrovia’s 10 police precincts to identify high-crime communities that would benefit from improved relations with the police. Following a baseline survey to measure rates of crime, crime reporting, and attitudes toward the police, communities will be randomly assigned to either a community policing group or a comparison group. Communities in the community policing group will host town-hall style meetings with officers of the LNP on a monthly basis. Designed to build trust, educate residents about police procedures, and solicit information about emerging security concerns, these meetings will be complemented by semi-regular foot patrols in which officers interact with citizens in small groups, solicit additional feedback, and distribute informational flyers designed to reinforce the content communicated during the town hall meetings. The project will also include a problem-oriented policing component in which officers adapt their policing strategies based on the feedback received through community outreach. After a period of approximately one year, an endline survey will be conducted to measure changes in crime, crime reporting, and confidence in the police.
Hypotheses
We hypothesize that the community policing program will:
- Improve confidence in the police
- Increase crime reporting and information-sharing
- Decrease the incidence of crime
- Improve perceptions of safety and security
- Increase knowledge of police procedures and the criminal justice system