Expanding Research Capacity To Support the Implementation of Community Policing Through the Development of a Multi-Agency Research Partnership Involving the Chandler, Glendale, and Scottsdale, AZ Police Departments and AZ State Univ, Final Report

• NCJ Number: 194128
• Author(s): Charles M. Katz; Vincent J. Webb; David R. Schaefer; Robin N. Haarr
• Date Published: 2000
• Length: 135 pages
• Grant Number(s): 98-IJ-CX-0006
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This report describes a project intended to develop a research collaboration among three police departments located in the Phoenix (Arizona) metropolitan area and the Administration of Justice Department at Arizona State University West.

Abstract

In 1998 the U.S. Justice Department's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Arizona State University West a grant under the NIJ Locally-Initiated Research Partnership program to support the development of the multi-partner research collaboration. This report presents findings on the process and outcomes of the partnership development effort. Three police departments, which in 1998 were in varying stages of implementing community policing, agreed to participate in the project. One objective of the project was to build a partnership to do research on issues related to community policing; another objective was to conduct research and produce research products that would be useful to the partner agencies while having value for the more general law enforcement and criminal justice research communities. Other objectives were to provide the academic researchers and students with increased exposure to the research needs of local police agencies and to learn about the partnership development process itself. Each of the three police agencies assigned a liaison to the project, and ASU West assigned three faculty researchers to the project. Police agency liaisons were to provide entry to the agency and coordinate and facilitate research support activity in their agencies. The initial plan was to have university researchers and police liaisons meet as a group once projects were identified and implemented, for the purpose of reviewing progress and issues related to the research. This report concludes that the project produced good working relationships among the partner police agencies and the university, as well as research on the implementation and impact of community policing strategies. Several partnership activities will continue beyond the funding period. One shortcoming of the project was that it operated more like three individual university-agency partnerships than a single multi-agency partnership. A variety of unanticipated factors contributed to this outcome, including limitations imposed by the geographical dispersion of the partners and the special problems of time allocation and time management associated with multiple partners. Several lessons about partnership operation and dynamics are discussed; these should benefit others who may wish to design and implement similar partnerships. Appended assessment of the Chandler Police Department's Operation Restoration and a case study of the Scottsdale Police Department's Crime Trends Process