Urban policing has changed a great deal since the first policemen walked their beats in the early 1800s. Today, most officers live miles away from their precincts and patrol large areas by car rather than by foot. As a result, police have less contact and conversation with the neighborhood residents they watch over, and this lack of communication can sometimes cause fear, mistrust and frustration on both sides, souring police-community relations.

Such confrontational relationships can exist between the police force and an entire neighborhood or just a segment of the population, such as African Americans, youth, or immigrants. In any of these situations, a positive partnership can only be developed by discarding negative stereotypes, initiating a frank dialogue based on mutual respect, and becoming open to collaborative community policing. In other words, both sides need to go through a transition.

Case Study – Center for Teen Empowerment
In the early 1990s, Boston was experiencing widespread gang violence and a rampaging crack epidemic. The city’s police reacted by targeting young men of color as potential criminals. Such actions alienated these youth and each side viewed the other with increasing suspicion. The Center for Teen Empowerment (TE) – a Boston-based youth development organization – continuously confronted this problem of deteriorating police-youth relations in its work. How could the Center get police and youth to start talking with each other to improve the quality of life in their community? more >

Projects that have used the Transition Framework to improve Police-Community Relations

Police/Youth Reconciliation Project
Center for Teen Empowerment
Boston, MA
www.teenempowerment.org

Youth-Police Unity Project
Center for Teen Empowerment
Rochester, NY
www.teenempowerment.org

Cincinnati Police Collaborative
ARIA Group
Cincinnati, OH
www.ariagroup.org

Commitment to Inclusion and Justice: A Community Engagement Program to Reduce Racial Profiling
National Conference on Community & Justice
Detroit, MI
www.nccj.org

IMPACT South West Detroit
National Conference on Community & Justice
Detroit, MI
www.nccj.org

Youth Voices Initiative
Vanderbilt University/Cincinnati Collective Learning Center
Cincinnati, OH

Community Conferencing Program
Community Law Center, Division of Child Psychiatry, John Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD

Making Talk Work: Cops and Kids Transition Dialogue Program
City University of New York Dispute Resolution Consortium
New York, NY

Common Transition Challenges:
Transferring leadership to the community
After two years of working with the community of South West Detroit to improve its tense relationship with the police, the National Conference for Community & Justice (NCCJ) was beginning to make some serious progress. It was now time for NCCJ to move to the background so that the community could take a leadership role in the various efforts underway… more >

Accusations of bias
After 17 years of lawsuits on behalf of minority communities against Cincinnati’s police force, a federal court ordered all the concerned groups to try to reconcile without resorting to litigation. But the police were sure that this new effort was just another blame game where they would be labeled the “bad guys” from the start. How was the facilitator of this reconciliation going to convince the police that he wasn’t biased against them?… more >

Cooperation across age and color lines
Ongoing gentrification had thrown Cincinnati youth from low-income families into flux and, in frustration, they often resorted to gang violence and fights with the police. The Cincinnati Collective Learning Center tried to show youth leaders less confrontational methods of dealing with difficult changes, and introduced them to police officials and civic leaders from the neighborhood. But the youth didn’t trust these adults, and the adults just wanted to tell the youth how to behave rather than listen to their concerns… more >