Community Policing: What works? Where? And will it work in other contexts?

October 15, 2020

Community Policing: What works? Where? And will it work in other contexts?

On October 15, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and EGAP co-hosted a community policing roundtable event.

Can community policing programs be used effectively to build citizen trust in the police and reduce crime? That question was behind a coordinated research effort of six studies of community policing programs that were simultaneously implemented across six countries—Brazil, Colombia, Liberia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Uganda. This event shared the results of the research and engaged with sector experts to discuss implications for policy.

Graeme Blair, chair of the EGAP Community Policing Metaketa steering committee and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, presented the recently released results of the six studies. Nathalie Alvarado, Head of Security and Justice at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Zulfiqar Hameed, Additional Inspector General of Police Operations in Punjab, Pakistan, discussed how these results may be interpreted and affect policing in different contexts. Following the presentations, participants were invited to ask questions about the results and comment on how the results may affect their work. Sebastian Chaskel, Director of IPA’s Peace & Recovery Program, moderated the discussion.

The research presented is part of EGAP’s Metaketa Initiative, a coordinated research model designed to foster innovation and cumulative learning through simultaneous replication of research across multiple contexts.

This meeting was held in English with simultaneous Spanish interpretation. Please see the English and Spanish recordings of the event below. This event is also posted on IPA’s website.

English Version

Spanish Version