ABSTRACT
This chapter presents evidence-based recommendations aimed at improving police–community relations, given the clear need to mend these relationships. To do so, police departments must (re)establish trust with citizens via procedural justice practices and increased community engagement, in line with suggestions from the President’s Task Force on Policing. By doing this, citizens will be more likely to comply with the law and collaborate with police to reduce crime and, importantly, to perceive the police as more legitimate. Therefore, this chapter discusses the available literature regarding procedural justice and community-oriented policing (COP) and how to improve police–community relations using these approaches. This chapter also engages the limited, but generally positive, research evaluating the efficacy of policy and training associated with these practices to improve police–community relations and discusses the need for a clear strategy to engage in COP and actionable approaches to implement these approaches across varying contexts and environments. Finally, suggestions on how future research can contribute to our understanding of effective evidence-based policing reforms and ways to build police–community relations are also discussed.
