Nationwide Survey Confirms Community Engagement Effectiveness

Providing essentials, officer training and wellness programs, and positive involvement in youth recreation highlight findings in a nationwide survey

After last summer’s protests were followed by news reports of harmful and disturbing communitypolice conflicts, police foundations saw the need to counter misconceptions. 250 police foundations were asked to participate in a national survey conducted by law enforcement practitioners and research partners at Idea Analytics for an evidence-based approach. The result is the Positive Community-Police Engagement Report which confirms the key role these nonprofit organizations play in public safety and recognizes examples of constructive communitypolice engagement that happen daily. Police foundations have been in operation for 50 years, and as successful independent communityled nonprofit organizations, police foundations can help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

The Positive Community-Police Engagement Report analyzed programs, training, and other methods of support as a roadmap for law enforcement and police foundations to create programming, support, and initiatives in their respective markets. It looked at four areas of support: • Youth initiatives • Adult and community activities • Police technology and equipment • Officer wellness and development

Highlights of the Positive Community-Police Engagement Report include:

• 78% of police foundation respondents supported youth programming on sports, arts, education, and recreation. • 65% of police foundations funded programming to provide essential needs for local youth and their families. The populations of cities whose police foundations participated in the survey could translate to police foundations supporting essential community needs for more than 25 million people nationwide.

Highlights of the Positive Community-Police Engagement Report include:

• 41% of police foundation respondents funded community-led safety/crime prevention programming, and nearly 30% supported family programs like parenting

• 79% indicated supporting technology and equipment with the most common expenditure for animal units, and there was no evidence to support that police foundationspurchase weapons.

Additionally, the study identified areas needing improvement, leading to more productive community dialogue and future awareness, support, and expansion of police foundations across the nation.

LVMPD Foundation supports initiatives that are essential to making meaningful improvement in public safety, including:

• The Bolden Little League promotes community engagement and involvement between the local community and police department. The neighborhoods surrounding the ballpark experienced a 76% reduction in violent crime from 2018-2019.

• Distribution of essential needs like complete meals to more than 3000 families (12,000+ people) at Thanksgiving during the pandemic. • Funding for the Reality Based Training Center, a $25M state-of-the-art tactical training facility for law enforcement and first responders, statewide.

The report highlights many more examples of supportive community-police engagement from 58 participating police foundations covering small, medium, and large cities. The results represented jurisdictions with populations totaling more than 39 million people and police/sheriff departments with more than 50,000 sworn members. To read the full Positive Community-Police Engagement Report, please visit Police Foundation Report.