Successful Practices & Strategies Vol. 2 | No. 9

Sacramento Police Department 

Sacramento, California 

https://www.sacpd.org/

Community policing element 

Problem solving, organizational transformation 

Problem/issue 

Neighborhood safety 

Problem description 

As the Sacramento Police Department began its geographic policing transition, it sought technology 

solutions that would enable the department to greatly expand its ability to communicate online with the 

community. 

Community policing strategies implemented 

After extensive research, our department decided that Nextdoor was the perfect social media platform 

to advance community communication and geographic policing. Nextdoor allows law enforcement 

agencies to target communication to geographically distinct areas of the city, which perfectly supported 

our geographic policing model. Moreover, Nextdoor connects neighbors to one another, which fosters 

community connection and empowers residents to feel responsibility for the safety of their 

neighborhoods. In the “new normal” of limited resources, it is important for our residents to take an 

active role in keeping their neighborhoods safe. Furthermore, Sacramento residents were already using 

Nextdoor. In fact, 50 neighborhoods and 1500 residents had signed up for the service before the 

Sacramento Police Department joined. Instead of foisting yet another application on the community, 

our department decided to embrace a tool that was already working for our residents. 

Nextdoor.com 

Nextdoor is different from other social media sites in several ways that make it an appropriate social 

media solution for a police partnership. First, it was built from the ground up to support neighborhoods 

and to help facilitate strong community relationships. In addition, Nextdoor verifies that its members 

are actual residents of the neighborhood and requires them to use their real name. This creates a 

culture of accountability and civility that is less common on sites that allow people to post anonymously, 

like the majority of most mainstream social media platforms. 
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Nextdoor is also unique in how it has intentionally designed the interaction between the police and the 

neighborhoods. Historically, when officers in Sacramento wanted to communicate online with 

neighborhoods, they had to join various neighborhood e-list servers or Facebook groups or share 

information with one neighbor in the hopes that he or she would share the information with the whole 

neighborhood. With Nextdoor, our officers have one site they can use to interact with representatives 

from 86% of all neighborhoods in the city of Sacramento. Officers can push important updates to all 

Nextdoor neighborhoods across the city or to select neighborhoods. They can share crime updates and 

safety tips and invite residents to neighborhood watch trainings. However, while police can post 

information to one or many neighborhoods and neighbors can respond back either publicly or privately, 

our officers do not have direct access to the neighborhood sites on Nextdoor. 

How is the Sacramento Police Department using Nextdoor? 

The police department accesses Nextdoor through four command pages and one headquarters page. 

Approximately ten members of each command have access to that command’s page. Through the use of 

Nextdoor, the geographic policing officers, detectives, and management staff are able to post timely and 

relevant crime and safety information directly to all of their neighborhoods in one consistent message 

post. Posts generally range from information on a crime in their neighborhoods that occurred the night 

before to a newly identified crime trend or series and tips neighbors can utilize to avoid becoming a 

victim. Though the headquarters page, the Public Information Office and the neighborhood watch 

program have access to the entire city and can use Nextdoor to send media releases, alert residents of 

critical missing persons, and send out information on neighborhood watch training. 

Our department also makes extensive use of the map and metrics features of Nextdoor, which allow our 

area commands to view which areas have Nextdoor sites, the number of residents on each site, and how 

active those residents are online. With that information, our staff is better prepared to target specific 

areas in which neighborhood watch groups and neighborhood watch trainings may be needed to better 

encourage community involvement. 

Change and/or impact as a result of these community policing efforts 

Our commitment to geographic policing and community engagement is already paying dividends. Our 

2013 Part One crimes, as defined by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, have dropped 10.1 percent from 

2012 levels; in 2014 Part One, they have dropped an additional 15 percent. Our ability to reach out and 

communicate directly with our residents has increased dramatically. In June of 2013, there were 1500 

existing Nextdoor users in our city. In July 2014, just 13 months after our partnership with Nextdoor was 
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established, Sacramento Nextdoor membership has grown to over 20,000 members. We firmly believe 

that connected communities are safer communities, and the use of Nextdoor as an additional 

communication medium has helped us to market and expand our neighborhood watch groups by 14

percent.

The opinions contained herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the 

U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an 

endorsement by the author(s) or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement 

discussion of the issues. 

The Internet references cited in this document were valid as of the date of publication. Given that URLs and websites are in 

constant flux, neither the author(s) nor the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services can vouch for their current validity. 

Published 2015