Improving police-public relationships through intergroup contact: A mixed-methods evaluation of the Voices communication intervention

Recent and growing scrutiny towards police due to high-profile interactions with the public have caused trust and confidence in police to suffer, and relationships between police and marginalized communities to be strained. We have struggled to make significant advances in creating and evaluating effective evidence-informed interventions to improve police-public relationships that are most conflicted. Decades of research demonstrating the value of contact hypothesis and intergroup communication interventions offer a path forward to reduce prejudice and conflict between police and community groups with high levels of intergroup anxiety toward police (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). 

The goal of this project is to implement and evaluate, through a mixed-methods design, an intergroup intervention (the VOICES model) to improve police-community relationships, especially for those community members disparately impacted by the criminal justice system, and law enforcement. The VOICES intergroup intervention model is an evidence informed dialogue based upon intergroup communication and contact hypothesis theories. VOICES is inspired by intergroup interventions shown to reduce prejudice and build trust between two groups with a history of conflict. Participants from a police department and community group will each attend a 4-hour dialogue session in an environment intended to create optimal conditions shown to facilitate successful intergroup communication and prejudice reduction (Allport, 1954). The research questions this project will answer are whether the implementation of intergroup communication interventions (the VOICES model) reduce negative attitudes and perceptions (e.g. prejudice and intergroup anxiety), increase positive attitudes and perceptions (e.g. empathy, trust) between police and community members, and improve police behavior towards the community (e.g. convergence, empathic behavior, procedural justice). Additionally, the project will investigate whether the perceived presence of optimal conditions (e.g. equal group status, common goals, intergroup cooperation, and institutional support) within the VOICES intervention moderate (and increase) the effects described above. This evaluation will include within-subjects pre/post surveys and systematic observations of officer communication via BWC footage as well as semi-structured interviews of participants after the intervention. 

Project activities include partnering with a police department and community groups, creating intervention agendas, and evaluating the interventions between police and community partners. Expected outcomes include development of best practice communication model to improve police-public relationships, reduce prejudice, and increase police legitimacy. Dissemination will occur through publications, presentations at academic and professional conferences and using free social media and web-based platforms to provide outcome summaries. CA/NCF