Introduction

Good neighbourhood policing work can build public confidence in policing. However, it also has the potential to build stronger communities. This was recognised in the earliest days of reassurance policing, and in the various White Papers produced by the then-Labour government that set the context for the Neighbourhood Policing Programme. This chapter examines whether community-building remains a desirable or realistic goal for neighbourhood policing; the evidence around the contribution of community policing to social capital and collective efficacy; how police can contribute to stronger communities in the longer term, and whether this is simply too much of an extension to the police remit at a time of straitened resources.

The chapter begins by looking at the policy context for community policing. It outlines the role of community building in the early pilots of the National Reassurance Policing Programme (NRPP), where communitybuilding was included as a specific outcome. It examines the policy and guidance on community-building of the early New Labour years and where it went; how austerity has affected government conceptions of the police role; and how the establishment of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) has revitalised community-building, through their wider remit and the flourishing of public health approaches, as a desirable end to which policing can work.

It then explores the nature of social capital and the different types of capital that scholars have identified, and how neighbourhood policing fits into this. The chapter identifies ways in which neighbourhood policing can enhance ‘bridging’ and ‘linking’ capital, and the ‘collective efficacy’ of communities – but also the problems with measuring the strength of communities in this way. There is a possibility that in modern urban communities, a strong community is not one where residents physically intervene to prevent crime and disorder, but one where they are willing to call the police. This has implications for the amount of demand generated in the short term by improvements in local policing.

Longer-term demand also remains a concern for forces, however, and the next section outlines three emerging approaches to community-building. These are community resilience and resilience policing; public health approaches; and asset-based community development.