DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37492
title: National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, 6 United States cities, 2011-2018
title: Archival Version

description: The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice (the National Initiative) is a joint project of the National Network for Safe Communities, the Center for Policing Equity, the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, and the Urban Institute, designed to improve relationships and increase trust between communities and law enforcement. Funded by the Department of Justice, this mixed-methods evaluation aimed to assess outcomes and impacts in six cities that participated in the National Initiative, which include Birmingham, AL; Fort Worth, TX; Gary, IN; Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA; and Stockton, CA. The data described herein represent two waves of surveys of residents living in the highest-crime, lowest-income residential street segments in the six National Initiative cities. The first wave was conducted between September 2015 and January 2016, and the second wave was conducted between July and October 2017. Survey items were designed to measure neighborhood residents' perceptions of their neighborhood conditions--with particular emphases on neighborhood safety, disorder, and victimization--and perceptions of the police as it relates to procedural justice, police legitimacy, officer trust, community-focused policing, police bias, willingness to partner with the police on solving crime, and the law. The data described herein are from pre- and post-training assessment surveys of officers who participated in three trainings: 1) procedural justice (PJ) conceptual training, which is the application of PJ in the context of law enforcement-civilian interactions, as well as its role in mitigating historical tensions between law enforcement and communities of color; 2) procedural justice tactical, which provided simulation and scenario-based exercises and techniques to operationalize PJ principles in officers' daily activities; and 3) implicit bias, which engaged officers in critical thought about racial bias, and prepared them to better identify and handle identity traps that enable implicit biases. Surveys for the procedural justice conceptual training were fielded between December 2015 and July 2016; procedural justice tactical between February 2016 and June 2017; and implicit bias between September 2016 and April 2018. Survey items were designed to measure officers' understanding of procedural justice and implicit bias concepts, as well as officers' levels of satisfaction with the trainings.
description: The purpose of this study was to focus on whether the National Initiative interventions were associated with changes in crime rates, departmental practices, and police-community interactions.
description: Some of the study design used was a quasi-experimental form of time series analysis known as structural break analysis to assess changes in outcomes of interest. Structural break analysis was best suited to such protracted and complicated interventions and reduced the likelihood of type I (rejection of a true null hypothesis) and type II (failure to reject a false null hypothesis) errors compared with other evaluation techniques. A structural break is a statistically significant shift or change in a time series. This is a well-documented econometric approach for evaluations of programs with inexact implementation dates (Piehl et al. 2003). Researchers used the Bai-Perron (BP) structural break analysis method to test for the existence of multiple breakpoints in the outcomes within each National Initiative site, and researchers conducted these analyses in R statistical software, version 3.5.1. Comparison cities with data on city population, law enforcement department size, historical crime rates, and socioeconomic status were identified. Also, researchers requested outcome data from the comparison cities, which allowed better isolation of the National Initiative's possible impacts on department practices and officers' actions from broader national trends. The researches conducted BP structural break analyses on the difference of the outcomes' counts and racial proportions between the National Initiative site and its comparison city, where a break indicates a significant divergence in the National Initiative site's trend from the comparison cities.
description: Response Rates: Community Survey wave 1: 32.4%; wave 2: 24.5%.
description: The Community survey sample was comprised entirely of people living in neighborhoods with high concentrations of disadvantage and crime. The unique purposive sampling methodology was intended to represent residents living in communities with high rates of crime and victimization and that have the most fraught relationships with police. It was assumed that any measurable impact of National Initiative activities on resident perceptions and experiences would occur in these neighborhoods. In partnership with local organizations, in-person surveys were conducted in the six National Initiative cities. To identify and locate the intended sample, the following steps were taken: 1) researchers created a sample of residences in each of the six cities; 2) researchers requested address-level crime data from the six National Initiative police departments and combined these data with publicly available census data on measures of poverty and disadvantage to create a composite index of concentrated crime and poverty/disadvantage for each street segment in each city; 3) researchers identified the street segments with the highest index of concentrated crime and poverty in each city (defined as those in the top 10 percent). These street segments accounted for 39 to 50 percent of all reported crimes on residential streets and made up the final sampling frame of 6,336 households across the six cities; 4) researchers randomly sampled 1,000 households within the 6,336 households at each wave, and mailed letters to those households to inform them about their eligibility to participate in the survey, the purpose, benefits, and risks of participation, and when researchers would be in their neighborhood. Researchers partnered with community organizations to recruit and hire local residents to administer the surveys. Residents were trained and supervised by the Urban Institute research team. Over the course of the survey effort, survey teams of approximately 8 to 12 individuals attempted to contact one adult occupant at the randomly selected households. Surveys were administered in-person in English or Spanish using a paper and pencil instrument and were designed to take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Some respondents completed the survey over the phone with a member of the Urban Institute research team if they were unavailable when the survey team initially knocked on their door. Investigators endeavored to survey at least 200 residents in each city, by wave. The final sample of 1,278 was accomplished by spending approximately two weeks in each city, including at least one weekend day, in wave 1 (after knocking on 3,947 doors). The investigators second sample of 1,202 was accomplished over a similar time frame in wave 2 (after knocking on 4,916 doors). The Officer Training Survey sample included all officers who attended trainings required by police departments that participated in the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Community Survey Data DS2: Officer Training Survey Data DS3: Birmingham Administrative Data DS4: Fort Worth Administrative Data DS5: Minneapolis Administrative Data DS6: Pittsburgh Administrative Data DS7: Stockton Administrative Data
description: Community Survey: One adult resident in each of the households sampled based on indicators of poverty and crime. Officer Training Survey: All officers working in police departments that participated in the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: face-to-face interview; paper and pencil interview (PAPI)Additional information on the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice can be found by visiting Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center website.