SJC Exchange Library

Originally posted by Julia Bowling on 01-04-2024

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We are excited to share new SJC Research Consortium publications produced by the University of Missouri - St. Louis (UMSL) on redefining community safety. UMSL conducted a mixed-methods research study in three SJC sites: Missoula County, Montana; St. Louis County, Missouri; and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The research team performed a descriptive media analysis, analyzed administrative data, and conducted surveys, interviews, and focus groups, using a group concept mapping approach to better understand perspectives of safety and top safety concerns.

Key findings for this project include:

• Each site faces unique physical and social concerns and challenges that directly impact how they perceive crime and safety.

• Media analyses reveal that though main crime concerns varied, legal system actors and government workers were the most frequent claimsmakers cited in stories about local crime-meaning that they are the main influencers in shaping the crime and justice narrative.

• Across study sites, the most important components to define safety were personal safety and security. While these aspects were more universal, the types of harm and daily concerns that participants reported varied greatly and were based on life experiences.

• The wide breadth of differences reported in harms experienced and daily concerns that form perspectives of safety highlight the need for conversations about safety to include as many diverse and representative community groups as possible.

• Project participants unanimously agreed that community safety should be a collective endeavor, but when it came to how it should be measured, viewpoints conflicted.

The team developed multiple products from this project: an executive summary, a full technical report, a Community Safety Concept Map which depicts a community-informed holistic definition of safety, a toolkit to guide other communities in their endeavors to define safety, and media briefs describing media analysis findings in St. Louis and Mecklenburg Counties. These products can be found here: https://islg.cuny.edu/resources/umsl-redefining-community-safety

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Julia Bowling
Research Associate
CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance
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