A meta-analysis of the impact of community policing on crime reduction

Abstract

Over the last few decades, many studies have been conducted to understand whether community policing (CP) has an impact on reducing crime rates. Yet there is still substantial controversy surrounding the question of the impact of CP on crime rates. Despite the broad understanding of CP, various types of measurement of crime statistics have led research- ers to conduct meta-analyses of the phenomenon. This study combines two previous meta-analyses of CP and Turkish and English online searches. We used the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA 3.0) statistical program to calculate the effect sizes of previous studies. We employed odds ratio (OR) as the effect size, since it is one of the most appropriate methods for proportions. We found no evidence suggesting that CP has an impact on reducing disorders, drug sales, or property crime, but it does have an impact on reducing crimes such as burglary, gun use, drug use, Part I crimes, and robbery, as well as fear of crime. Depending on crime type, CP can be a promising policing strategy to reduce crimes. und a statistically significant, positive impact of CP, despite the limitations of including only Turkish- and English-language studies.