Purpose

This paper aims to explore the tripart relationship between British police officers, Local Authority representatives and community members based on a Midlands neighbourhood case study. It focuses on experiences of the strengths and challenges with working towards a common purpose of community safety and resilience building.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected in 2019 prior to enforced COVID lockdown restrictions following Staffordshire University ethical approval. An inductive qualitative methods approach of semi-structured individual and group interviews was used with community members (N = 30) and professionals (N = 15), using a purposive and snowball sample. A steering group with academic, police and Local Authority representation co-designed the study and identified the first tier of participants.

Findings

Community members and professionals valued tripart working and perceived communication, visibility, longevity and trust as key to addressing localised community safety issues. Challenges were raised around communication modes and frequency, cultural barriers to accessing information and inadequate resources and responses to issues. Environmental crime was a high priority for community members, along with tackling drug-related crime and diverting youth disorder, which concurred with police concern. However, the anti-terrorism agenda was a pre-occupation for the Local Authority, and school concerns included modern slavery crime.

Originality/value

When state involvement and investment in neighbourhoods decline, community member activism enthusiasm for neighbourhood improvement reduces, contrasting with government expectations. Community members are committed partnership workers who require the state to visibly and demonstrably engage. Faith in state actors can be restored when professionals are consistently present, communicate and follow up on actions.

中文翻译：

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国家、社区警察和社区团体之间的非正式三方关系：英国米德兰社区的社区安全认知和实践

目的

本文旨在基于中部地区的案例研究，探讨英国警察、地方当局代表和社区成员之间的三方关系。它侧重于为实现社区安全和复原力建设的共同目标而努力的优势和挑战的经验。

设计/方法论/途径

数据是在斯塔福德郡大学道德批准后于 2019 年实施新冠疫情封锁限制之前收集的。采用有目的的滚雪球样本，对社区成员 ( N = 30) 和专业人员 ( N = 15)使用半结构化个人和小组访谈的归纳定性方法。由学术界、警察和地方当局代表组成的指导小组共同设计了这项研究并确定了第一层参与者。

发现

社区成员和专业人士重视三方合作，并认为沟通、可见性、寿命和信任是解决本地社区安全问题的关键。围绕沟通模式和频率、获取信息的文化障碍以及资源不足和问题响应提出了挑战。环境犯罪是社区成员的高度优先事项，此外还有打击毒品相关犯罪和转移青少年混乱，这与警方的担忧一致。然而，反恐议程是地方当局的当务之急，学校关注的问题包括现代奴隶制犯罪。

原创性/价值

当国家对社区的参与和投资下降时，社区成员对社区改善的积极性就会降低，这与政府的预期形成鲜明对比。社区成员是忠诚的伙伴关系工作者，他们需要国家明显且明显的参与。当专业人员始终在场、沟通并跟进行动时，人们对国家行为者的信心就可以恢复。