NCJ Number
145709
Date Published
1993
Length
150 pages
Annotation
The functioning of police services is presented with respect to police relations with social, educational, and related interventions in two neighborhoods of Lyon, France, undergoing economic development but experiencing high unemployment and possessing a relatively large immigrant population.
Abstract
The authors analyze how police manage their functions, particularly those related to prevention, how they are perceived by residents, and how they perceive the mission of other actors in the community. The study places particular emphasis on the collaboration of different institutions and its effects on them as a whole. Neighborhood residents are increasingly asking for police protection against petty crime and juvenile delinquency. In two neighborhoods the researchers studied existing types of police intervention, the evolution of the interventions in light of new demands, and the responses to these new interventions. In interviews with police officers and other individuals, both in in the public and private sectors, active in community life, researchers found lack of partnership among police, citizens, and community leaders with respect to crime and the fear of crime, due in part to a lack of understanding of citizens' sense of insecurity. Despite the existence of anticrime community groups, each institutional player, police, education, social service follows its own mission in isolation from the others, at least at the operational level. Youth workers and other social service personnel find it difficult to work with police on patrol without losing their credibility as supporters of youth, whose contact with police takes place in the context of crime control rather than prevention. The researchers suggest that better education in community policing methods will lead to more close cooperation among citizens, police, and other players and note favorable trends in this direction.