Research in Brief: The Challenge and Promise of Using Community Policing Strategies to Prevent Violent Extremism

Research in Brief

Police Chief Magazine|Columns|Research in Brief|Research in Brief: The Challenge and Promise of Using Community Policing Strategies to Prevent Violent Extremism

Research in Brief: The Challenge and Promise of Using Community Policing Strategies to Prevent Violent Extremism

David Schanzer, Associate Professor, Duke University, North Carolina

Charles Kurzman, Professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Jessica Toliver, Director of Technical Assistance, Police Executive Research Forum

Elizabeth Miller, Research Associate, Police Executive Research Forum

Five years ago, the White House issued a strategy calling for the development of partnerships between police and communities as the key element of an effort to counter violent extremism (CVE) in the United States.1 The authors’ research assesses the challenges and promise of this strategy, based on a survey of U.S. law enforcement agencies and hundreds of hours of interviews and site visits with police departments and community members.2

The survey covered all U.S. law enforcement agencies with more than 200 sworn officers, as well as a sampling of smaller departments. It was fielded in the first half of 2014, and 70 percent of the agencies surveyed submitted responses.