Police responses to diversity: A social representational study of rural British policing in a changing representational context

In the first decade of the 21st century, British policing faced two new challenges in how it responded to social diversity: As well as instituting reforms in response to a highly publicized report describing the British police as ‘institutionally racist’ (Macpherson, 1999 ), they faced challenges associated with rapid increases in numbers of immigrants into the UK. Studying social representations at such times of change allows access into processes, themes and value systems that may otherwise remain hidden. This paper uses social representations theory to explore interview accounts provided by regular police officers of interactions with members of minority groups. Empirically, we focus on an area of diversity policing that has received relatively little previous attention: Police work in a rural context that has recently played host to large numbers of migrant workers. Our analysis shows that interviews operate as a site of resistance in which respondents attempt to rework hegemonic representations of the police as prejudiced and to re‐present themselves and their work as able to respond appropriately to diversity. Fairness as a defining characteristic of good police practice is a central representational theme that links identity construction processes to police work with minority groups. Recent immigrant groups are represented as both needing and deserving help to assimilate into British culture: Their lack of acculturation and language difficulties provide additional challenges to police work and to how this is judged as ‘fair’. We discuss the broader origins and implications of police officers' understandings of fairness and the use of social representations theory to study representational fields within organizational settings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New Directions in Capacity Building: Incorporating Cultural Competence into the Interactive Systems Framework

The UMBC Psychology Department's Center for Community Collaboration (CCC) provides training and support for capacity building to promote substance abuse and mental health treatment as well as adherence improvement in community agencies funded through the Ryan White Act serving persons living with HIV/AIDS. This article describes an approach to dissemination of Evidence Based Practices (EBPs) for these services that uses the Interactive Systems Framework (ISF) and incorporates a collaborative process involving trainer cultural competence, along with a comprehensive assessment of organizational needs, culture, and climate that culminates in tailored training and ongoing collaboration. This article provides: (1) an overview of the CCC's expanded ISF for the effective dissemination of two EBPs—motivational interviewing and the stages of change perspective; (2) an examination of the role of trainer cultural competence within the ISF framework, particularly attending to organizational culture and climate; and (3) case examples to demonstrate this approach for both general and innovation‐specific capacity building in two community based organizations. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith     

持续学习组织文化研究

学习型组织是目前管理领域中组织变革的主流方向之一,本研究指出塑造持续学习之组织文化是创建学习型组织的重要内容。通过自编问卷,对国营与非国营两种性质不同群体员工的调研,初步确定持续学习组织文化的结构维度。研究还考察了组织文化和一些组织行为以及实际的学习行为之间的关系。     

Police Enforcement of Street Prostitution as a Quality-of-Life Offense: New York City,United States,and Frankfurt am Main,Germany

The present paper compares how police in Hunts Point, South Bronx, New York City and Frankfurt am Main Germany manage street prostitution as a quality-of-life offense. Methods utilized for this research include observation and “conversation” in public spaces with prostitutes, police, and community members. This paper deals with characteristics of street prostitutes, police enforcement, actual interaction between police and street actors, and impact of these methods on prostitutes. For decades, broken windows policing has been utilized to counter quality-of-life offenses in urban neighborhoods such as NYC, and evidence regarding its effectiveness has often been questioned. In attempts to address prostitution, two variant policing models were identified and examined through the framework of broken windows theory: Punitive/Criminalization Policing and Containment/Laissez-Faire Policing. Broken windows policing probably lowered the incidence of quality-of-life offenses including street prostitution. However, broken windows theory does not take into account socially constructed myths that persist about prostitution, nor the realities that counter them. This paper addresses these myths and how they may inform policing practices, resulting in negative corollary effects which must be eliminated.     

Miami Thrives: Weaving a Poverty Reduction Coalition

In an environment where community based organizations are asked to do increasingly more to alleviate the effects of complex social problems, networks and coalitions are becoming the answer for increasing scale, efficiency, coordination, and most importantly, social impact. This paper highlights the formation of a poverty reduction coalition in south Florida. Our case study approach chronicles a developing coalition in Miami-Dade County and the role of one organization acting as lead to the initiative. Drawing on interviews with lead organization staff, participant observation field notes, network mapping and analysis of documents and artifacts from the initiative, we analyze the local organizational context and illuminate important processes associated with supporting a developing coalition. Findings offer a picture of the interorganizational relationships in the community using social network analysis and identify the organizational capacity factors that contribute to and inhibit the formation of a cohesive and effective coalition in this context. This study also highlights the utility of an action research approach to organizational learning about coalition-building in such a way that informs decision making.     

An Exploration of the Dynamics of the Overlapping Worlds of Work and Family

The relationship between the working lives and family lives of people in our society is a concern to both families and corporations. This article describes a research project that yielded theoretical statements about the interactions between organization life and family life for members of large corporations; grounded theory methodology and a systems theory approach were used. Data were obtained in a large multinational corporation from managers and their families who were undergoing three different kinds of organizational stress: international transfer, extensive travel, and job change to facilitator of personal and organizational change. The findings give reason for viewing organization and family as interacting systems and for considering the uniqueness of each individual's response to stressful events. They also indicate that an individual's feeling of influence over stressful events at the organization-family boundaries are significant for both organizational and family effectiveness.     

Post G20: The Challenge of Change,Implementing Evidence‐based Public Order Policing

In the wake of the 2011 ‘riots’, public order policing tactics in England and Wales have once again been brought into question. Yet, the riots came two years since police regulatory authorities in the UK called for fundamental reforms to the policing of public order. Questions are raised about why the change called for appears to have been so slow and what can be done to assist reform. This paper suggests that developing an evidence‐based policing approach within the field of public order policing to inform police decision‐making would provide the answers. By doing so, the paper addresses some of the possible barriers to implementing evidence‐based policing in public order and calls for police academic partnership to overcome these to make ‘change’ an ongoing reality. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Building International Collaborative Capacity: Contributions of Community Psychologists to a European Network

Europe is in the process of building a more participative, just, and inclusive European Union. The European Social Fund, which is an initiative developed to actively promote multinational partnerships that address pressing social issues, is a good example of the European transformation. This article describes the steps taken to develop and evaluate the activities of an international network promoting collaborative capacity among regional partners involved in the prevention of labor discrimination toward immigrants in three European countries—Spain, Belgium, and Italy. An international team of community psychologists proposed an empowering approach to assess the collaborative capacity of the network. This approach consisted of three steps: (1) establishing a collaborative relationship among partners, (2) building collaborative capacity, and (3) evaluating the collaborative capacity of the network. We conclude with lessons learned from the process and provide recommendations for addressing the challenges inherent in international collaboration processes.     

A Heuristic Framework for Understanding the Role of Participatory Decision Making in Community-Based Non-Profits

This paper explores the role of member participation in decision-making (PDM) from an organizational learning (OL) perspective. Community-based organizations (CBOs) serve as mediators between the individual and the local community, often providing the means for community member participation and benefiting organizationally from members' input. Community psychologists have recognized these benefits; however, the field has paid less attention to the role participation plays in increasing CBOs' capacity to meet community needs. We present a framework for exploring how CBO contextual factors influence the use of participatory decision-making structures and practices, and how these affect OL. We then use the framework to examine PDM in qualitative case study analysis of four CBOs: a youth development organization, a faith-based social action coalition, a low-income neighborhood organization, and a large human service agency. We found that organizational form, energy, and culture each had a differential impact on participation in decision making within CBOs. We highlight how OL is constrained in CBOs and document how civic aims and voluntary membership enhanced participation and learning.     

Visible minority applicant concerns and assessment of occupational role in the era of community‐based policing

Attempts to recruit minority officers are an integral component of community‐based policing initiatives in Western democracies. To better understand how to optimize these initiatives, 80 African‐Canadian police applicants were surveyed for perceptions of occupational role, career aspirations and obstacles to minority recruitment. Although service to the Black community was a high priority, applicants reported this goal as secondary to providing service regardless of ethnicity. Further, applicants reported they would be as effective policing the White community and more effective policing the Black community than their White counterparts. Racial prejudice on the part of police officers and society were viewed as the most significant obstacles to minority recruitment. Two tests of potential perceptual distortions indicated that applicants perceived African‐Canadian acquaintances to be more frequent targets of police discrimination than they were as individuals, and perceived themselves as relatively less alienated from the police than were the police from their group. Discussion focuses on obstacles to minority recruitment, the fit between applicants' attitudes and the demands of modern policing, and the potential impact of a more ethnically diverse force for police–minority relations. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Building capacity in planning,monitoring and evaluation: Lessons from the field

This paper reports on the author’s experiences as manager of a capacity-building project in Latin America. The project aimed to strengthen planning, monitoring, and evaluation (PM&E) in agricultural research. Nine lessons are drawn: (1) Project design is much more than a technical process; it is essentially one of negotiation. (2) In capacity-building projects, design activities cannot end when implementation begins. (3) Capacity-building efforts should prepare managers to deal with complexity, uncertainty and change. (4) In capacity-building efforts, it is essential to collaborate rather than patronize. (5) Organizational assessment is a complex social process, intertwined with organizational politics. (6) In designing capacity-building projects, it is essential to involve managers and staff members in assessing needs and opportunities. (7) Action-learning strategies offer great potential for capacity building. (8) In the context of strategic management and organizational learning, PM&E take on new meanings. (9) Training is most effective when it is designed to serve a purpose within an organizational change process. It is concluded that capacity building is more a process of social experimentation than of social engineering. Management systems cannot be imported, but need to be developed within organizations. Development agencies should play catalytic, facilitating roles, rather than take responsibility for organizational change. To support genuine capacity development, donors and funding agencies need to ensure that their planning and accountability procedures foster flexibility, innovation, and learning. Since joining ISNAR in 1990, he has engaged in research, training, and advisory work on research management, with an emphasis on evaluation. Previously, for fifteen years Horton was head of the social science department of the International Potato Center in Peru. Horton received B.S. and M.S. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University. His current interests include action research and learning, organizational assessment, and institutionalization of planning, monitoring, and evaluation.     

Essential Elements for Community Engagement in Evidence-Based Youth Violence Prevention

In the field of youth violence prevention, there has been increasing emphasis on “evidence based” programs and principles shown through scientific research as reaching their intended outcomes. Community mobilization and engagement play a critical role in many evidence‐based programs and strategies, as it takes a concerted effort among a wide range of people within a community to alter behavior and maintain behavioral change. How do concerned individuals and groups within a community engage others within and outside of that community to effectively plan, develop and implement appropriate EB programs as well as evaluate the outcomes and impacts of locally developed programs yet to be proven? The authors discuss five elements essential for community engagement in evidence‐based youth violence prevention based on their work in a university‐community partnership through the Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Violence Prevention Center (API Center), a National Academic Center for Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention Center supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They include: (a) aligning EBPs with a community's shared vision and values; (b) establishing an inclusive environment for the planning, implementation and evaluation of EBPs; (c) nurturing collaboration for increased effectiveness and efficacy of EBPs; (d) building adequate leadership and community capacity to develop and sustain EBPs; and (e) building a learning community for evaluation and self‐reflection. The authors propose placing greater emphasis on “evaluative thinking” and organizational capacity for evaluation as we pursue evidence‐based practices for youth violence prevention. This is especially important for ethnic groups for which an evidence base is not well established.     

Building career guidance capacity in the voluntary and community sector

A programme designed to develop the capacity of voluntary agencies and community groups to deliver information, advice and guidance (IAG) on learning and work to their clients and members is outlined. Four forms of capacity building are distinguished: internal IAG capacity building, based on developing IAG resources within the agency or group itself; external IAG capacity building, based on the agency or group offering IAG resources delivered by outside providers; learning capacity building, based on learning brokerage; and organisational capacity building, contributing to the development of the agency or group in broader terms.     

Why do officers support community policing? A cross‐departmental and cross‐temporal comparison

Community policing is often seen as a way to repair fractured relationships between law enforcement and the public. Despite its relationship‐building promise and widespread department‐level adoption, individual officers show varying levels of support for community policing which can harm policy implementation. Why are some officers more supportive of community policing than others? Prior research suggests that demographic factors such as the officer's gender, race, age, and education can explain this variance. Across these studies, however, there are several contradicting or non‐replicating findings. Conflicting findings may result from differences by department or differences in methodology or temporal variance – but most policing studies focus on a single department. We begin to adjudicate between the possible explanations for conflicting findings using roll‐call survey data from 741 officers across three neighboring police departments in 2016 and then a replication with 452 officers from one of the original departments in 2019. We find that experience with community policing consistently influences support for the practice while officer gender, age, and education consistently do not. Other results do not replicate across department or time, although we do find non‐replicating significant factors associated with officer support for community policing. Our findings also suggest that departmental and temporal aspects help to explain why policing studies often do not replicate or generalize to other places or contexts.     

Using Interactive Theater to Create Socioculturally Relevant Community-Based Intimate Partner Violence Prevention

This article describes the use of interactive theater, audience response assessment, and peer educators to create community-generated approaches for bystander interventions (i.e., actions taken by people who become aware of controlling, abusive and violent behavior of others) to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) and to foster change in community norms. We include a case example of an ongoing university–community partnership, which mobilizes community members to develop and implement socioculturally relevant IPV prevention programs in multiple Asian communities. We used interactive theater at a community event—a walk to raise awareness about IPV in South Asian communities—and examined how the enacted bystander interventions reflect specific community contexts. We detail the challenges and limitations we have encountered in our attempts to implement this approach in collaboration with our community partners.     

Participatory Organizational Change in Community-Based Health and Human Services: From Tokenism to Political Engagement

Community psychologists have long worked with community-based human service organizations to build participatory processes. These efforts largely aim at building participatory practices within the current individual-wellness paradigm of human services. To address collective wellness, human service organizations need to challenge their current paradigm, attend to the social justice needs of community, and engage community participation in a new way, and in doing so become more openly political. We use qualitative interviews, focus groups, organizational documents, and participant observation to present a comparative case study of two organizations involved in such a process through an action research project aimed at transforming the organizations’ managerial and practice paradigm from one based on first-order, ameliorative change to one that promotes second-order, transformative change via strength-based approaches, primary prevention, empowerment and participation, and focuses on changing community conditions. Four participatory tensions or dialectics are discussed: passive versus active participation, partners versus clients, surplus powerlessness versus collective efficacy, and reflection/learning versus action/doing.     

Empowerment praxis in community coalitions

Community coalitions address a wide variety of community problems, espousing a community development processes that promotes individual and collective self-determination. They offer a promising venue for the study of empowerment of individuals and organizations. This study utilizes data from members of 35 community coalitions organized for the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems to address the following questions: What individual characteristics are related to the psychological empowerment of coalition members? What organizational characteristics are related to the collective empowering of members? What organization characteristics are related to a coalition being organizationally empowered to succeed in achieving its objectives? At the individual level, psychological empowerment was most strongly related to individuals' participation levels, sense of community, and perceptions of a positive organizational climate. At the group level, the strongest predictors of collective empowering (our operationalization of the empowering organization) were net benefits of participation, commitment, and positive organization climate. Psychological empowerment and positive organizational climate were the two predictors of organizational effectiveness (the empowered organization). Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

You promised you'd change: How incremental and entity theorists react to a romantic partner's promised change attempts

Research from multiple domains suggests that individuals benefit from having other people in their lives who endorse an incremental mindset, believing in humans' capacity to change and improve through effort. We hypothesize, however, that people high in incrementalism may have unrealistic expectations about the ease of change, leading them to become frustrated with others who promise change (change-strivers) but achieve only partial success. In a longitudinal study, change-strivers made promises of change to their romantic partners and attempted to keep those promises over two weeks. Romantic partners who were higher in incrementalism were initially more optimistic that change-strivers would successfully change, but subsequently more distrustful toward change-strivers whose change attempts failed. Furthermore, partners high in incrementalism were more likely to attribute failure to the change-striver's lack of effort, rather than to the difficulty of the behaviors. The findings highlight circumstances when incremental mindsets may have costs in relationships.