Building Trust and Improving Police Effectiveness

Lessons from Liberia

Metaketa researchers: Ben Morse, Lily Tsai

Geographical region: Africa

Project country: Liberia

Case study question: Can police-community meetings and police foot patrols build public trust?

Edited by: Jaclyn Leaver

The Metaketa Initiative is a collaborative research model with a mission to improve knowledge about critical governance issues through rigorous field experiments. In each Metaketa “round,” the initiative coordinates multiple studies on a specific topic or intervention in a variety of countries and contexts.

As part of our efforts to share the results and policy impacts from the Metaketa Initiative, we’ve put together a series of Stories of Change. These stories share case studies that highlight new approaches and interventions used by Metaketa researchers and implementing partners.

Here we share the story of an experiment in Liberia where researchers test whether community policing can build confidence in the police, increase crime reporting, improve information sharing, and ultimately reduce the incidence of crime. This study is part of the fourth Metaketa round, which focused on the effects of community policing programs on building citizen trust in police and reducing crime.