Planning community policing together! Police-community partnerships planning and co-constructing safer neighborhoods.
Monica Diniz
Lisbon Municipal Police - Lisbon Municipality
Lisbon Municipal Police - Lisbon Municipality
Moderation: Dr. Anke Schröder
LKA Niedersachsen
Abstract:
One of the main challenges in local policing relates to the need to build safer neighbourhoods through the establishment of effective and trustful relationships between police and citizens. Community policing in Lisbon, developed by the Lisbon Municipal Police in 2009, has been built from the involvement of local partners and citizens in safety partnerships with the police and their participation in the process of putting in place community policing projects in different neighbourhoods of the city. This policing model is challenging to both the partnership, as well as to the police, since it requires an intensive participatory planning process, to jointly identify problems and resources, define the profile of the community policing teams and the training program to prepare them to foot patrol the designated neighbourhoods. Thus, police-community participatory planning also allows a transformation of the vision of the police towards the community, and moreover the police organization self-understanding of the value of adopting preventive and participatory policing models, contributing to its sustainable long-term support. In the neighbourhoods where this methodological path was forged, the exchange of visions and knowledge between police and partners enabled community policing teams to work more efficiently and closer to citizens, building safer neighbourhoods together.
Monica Diniz
Mónica Diniz is a sociologist (FCSH-Universidade Nova de Lisboa), master on sociology and planning (ISCTE-IUL) with research on policing practices and citizenship at the local level, that has been developing her work in the area of police-citizens cooperation, namely on the implementation of bottom-up collective approaches for crime-prevention and delivery of community policing projects. With professional background on international cooperation (Portuguese National Commission for UNESCO) and on youth risk behaviours and drug use prevention programs (Lisbon Municipality), works since 2008 in the Lisbon Municipal Police, with main responsibilities on police-community relationship and multi-agency cooperation, with a main focus on crime prevention, police-community safety partnerships and community capacity building on security and safety issues.
Over her career has been participating in several international cooperation projects on urban security, namely in the area of Criminal Prevention and Urban Planning (COST ACTION TU1203-Crime Prevention through Urban Design and Planning), on the intercultural mediation approach to urban security (project TIME – Train Intercultural Mediators for a Multicultural Europe – Erasmus +) and on community policing (project Cutting Crime Impact, Horizon 2020; project on technical-police cooperation for community policing training of the Municipal Guard of Praia City in Cape Verd, UCCLA and Camões Institute; and project IMPPULSE – Improving Police-Population understanding for local security, Erasmus +). Has been working also in the methodological transferability of the community policing model developed in Lisbon, both in national and international contexts, namely in cooperation with the Council of Europe. She is currently working in IcARUS project “Innovative Approaches to Urban Security” (Horizon 2020), in the field of prevention of juvenile delinquency.
Trainer on community policing model, targeting both police officers and civil society and on intercultural approach to urban safety. Author and co-author of several publications on Community Policing.
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Monday 12th of June 2023
4:00 - 4:45 pm
Room: Mahler Saal II
