NCJ Number
205610
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 71 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2004 Pages: 36-37,39
Date Published
April 2004
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The Providence Police Department (Rhode Island) is collaborating with the School of Justice Studies at Roger Williams University to counter gun violence and other problems in the city; other jurisdictions could also benefit from this type of collaboration.
Abstract
The mission of the School of Justice Studies is to build the Justice System Training and Research Institute, which provides in-service training for justice system employees, into an important regional resource for improving the performance and professionalism of police and other justice system professionals. Through a Federal Byrne grant, the U.S. attorney in Providence has named the Institute a research partner in the Project Safe Neighborhoods Program. During the research, the university will examine and suggest methods through which gun violence can be reduced. The research will test and measure the effectiveness of these programs before developing final recommendations that can then be acted on by the police department and the U.S. attorney's office. From the police side there is significant potential for the resources of experienced law enforcement professionals to contribute to an institution of higher learning and for the city to make data available for research by the university. In the research enterprise, officers can be trained to be participant observers of social phenomena; the proximity of the police to the community provides a perspective that would otherwise be inaccessible to academics. The most obvious benefit of a municipality-university collaboration is the practical application of research. Applied research is the use of acquired knowledge to address problems. In most communities, as in Providence, the university faculty has been involved in many research areas, including community-satisfaction surveys, police training needs assessment, the role of women in law enforcement, police officer stress, and other issues directly related to how police function in society. Both the Providence Police Department and Roger Williams University will help other communities replicate this academic collaboration.