Community policing improves public trust in police: study

LAHORE:Researchers from the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), LUMS and Princeton University are part of a large international study on community policing in the Global South, including Pakistan.

According to a press release, the results of the study have been published in Science, one of the world’s top academic journals. The Pakistan study was conducted by Dr Ali Cheema (LUMS, IDEAS), Ahsan Farooqui (IDEAS), Zulfiqar Hameed (Police Services of Pakistan), Dr Ali Hasnain (LUMS) and Prof Jacob Shapiro (Princeton University). The study used randomised-control-trials of community policing initiatives implemented by the police in six countries, including Pakistan. In Punjab, the police experimented with two models, the first that used open community meetings and the second in which women-only meetings were conducted by women police officers. Overall, the study finds that community policing did not lead to the hoped-for reductions in crime and trust. However, in Punjab, community policing led to improvement in citizens’ beliefs about police intentions.