Session: Innovative Strategies for Crime Reduction and Neighborhood Revitalization: A Community-Research Partnership (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Background and Purpose. This symposium examines a completed three-year, longitudinal community-research partnership, known as Restore Rundberg. Part of the Obama Administration’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, this federal project was funded by the Department of Justice, Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation funds.  The Rundberg neighborhood experienced a disproportionate burden of the City’s violent and property crime, much of which was concentrated in three “hotspots” of crime.  At the start of Restore Rundberg in 2012, the 5.74 square-mile district accounted for 11% of all violent crime for the city. Ninety-five percent of enrolled students are classified as economically disadvantaged. Cultural barriers between the police and the population, which includes a large number of recent Mexican, Central American, and North African immigrants, have compromised previous efforts to engage residents to assist in crime reduction efforts.

Program Overview. The Restore Rundberg Initiative was a multi-faceted, cross-sector collaboration between Rundberg-area neighborhoods, the local Police Department, and social work researchers from a Research I University in an urban Southwestern city.  Restore Rundberg had three primary components: a community Revitalization Team, Operation Mobile Walking Beat, and community engagement strategies.   

The community Revitalization Team was comprised of community members, city officials and nonprofit agencies.  The Revitalization Team coordinated with the police department and the community on 7 wide-ranging priority areas, including property revitalization, homelessness and prostitution, access to health care, housing affordability, code compliance, economic development, and youth programs.   The police department was actively engaged in Operation Mobile Walking Beat, a community policing initiative across the three hotspots.  While on the Mobile Walking Beat, officers talked with and engage residents to identify and address community issues.  These issues were often crime related, but also included beautification, traffic safety, school partnerships, gang prevention education and a number of other topics.  Community engagement strategies by the Police Department’s community organizers and the University involved community walks with refugee groups, collaboration between social service agencies, social media initiatives, and youth engagement through art and photovoice projects.

Methods. In terms of evaluating the impacts and outcomes of Restore Rundberg, the research team conducted four primary research initiatives: tracking violent and property crime data through time series analysis and GIS mapping, conducting a standardized community-wide survey measuring perceptions of police and other perceptions of the neighborhood, implementing a process evaluation, and conducting a community asset inventory.  The final results of each of these research initiatives, along with methods and implications for implementation in other communities, will be presented and discussed in this symposium.

Implications for Research and Practice.  Given the current sociopolitical climate surrounding police-community interaction, it is imperative that police departments develop sophisticated strategies around community partnership and engagement.  Early outcomes and lessons learned from Restore Rundberg may benefit social workers, community organizers and police departments seeking to develop such partnerships in their own communities.  Social work researchers may benefit from hearing about the community-informed research studies conducted in this partnership and may be able to build upon our findings to better inform future community policing initiatives and community-research partnerships.