Amount Awarded: $25,000
Demonstrations against police brutality across the US and globally in 2020 reveal an increasingly deteriorating relationship between police and communities. This has led to a renewed focus on police reform approaches that are people-centered, where trust-building is a central component. Moving towards community-oriented policing (COP), however, has proven difficult. Studies of police reform in post conflict contexts points to the potential of COP as an alternative to militarized policing strategies. While COP is found to be promising, these studies reveal important aspects that need to be better understood if COP is to be successful in varying contexts. These include the need for contextual knowledge, legitimacy, accountability measures and the role of civil society. This project will explore these issues through a review of post-conflict police reform, as well as contemporary police reform in the US and Norway. The project will bring together researchers from UC Berkeley and Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in workshops with police and civil society in each country to explore the dynamics of people-centered police reform. The findings will form the basis for the publications offering insight into how police reform can better balance the need for contextual understanding with accountability and civil society participation.