Community Policing

Timeline: 2020-2022

Role: Research Assistant

Supervised by: Angela Hall, Jennifer Kuan, ANDIE Lab

TL;DR: Reviewed literature for community policing study and engaged in interviews with police officers and community activists in response to growing digital presence of the Defund the Police movement.

Skills: Literature reviews, structured interviews, Descript

About

Amidst the 2020 racial reckoning, many took to the streets and social media to call for the defunding of police departments. Social movements including defund the police and all cops are bastards (ACAB) arose in 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd and several incidents of police brutality against Black victims, made visible by social media. These social movements were the source of calls for policing reformation and restructuring. Despite these movements, however, little academic research has investigated a post modern, community based policing system.

With these social movements as motivation for our research, I joined a team with the ANDIE lab to launch an extensive literature review of community policing and police reformation. Not entirely a new concept, our team was able to develop an understanding of previous instances of police reformation and community responses. Following this literature review, we interviewed several local police officers and community organizers, which I later transcribed using Descript.