Citizen Focus And Community Engagement

Today's communities—whether they are currently strong, orstruggling to survive—face difficult challenges if they wantto be tomorrow's healthy, vibrant communities. The challenge forleaders and citizens of modern communities is not just to solvespecific problems today. Their real challenge is to keep learningfrom their experience so they can keep improving their communitiestomorrow. Results That Matter will provide a new governanceframework for using valuable tools of communityimprovement—especially performance measurement and citizenengagement—to empower communities to achieve the outcomestheir citizens most desire. Government and nonprofit managers willlearn how to combine these tools in new ways, not only to achieveone-time improvement of their organizations and communities, but tofoster continual community renewal and improvement. The benefitsand practicality of the framework and related practices will bereinforced by case examples from 25 communities across the country.The book will offer "how to" guidance to public and nonprofitmanagers, including promising practices for effective communities,and new roles for citizens, community leaders, and managers.

Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term "proactive policing" to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred. Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing. Proactive Policing reviews the evidence and discusses the data and methodological gaps on: (1) the effects of different forms of proactive policing on crime; (2) whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner; (3) whether they are being used in a legal fashion; and (4) community reaction. This report offers a comprehensive evaluation of proactive policing that includes not only its crime prevention impacts but also its broader implications for justice and U.S. communities.

This book provides information on government performance in fostering open and inclusive policy making in 25 countries.

This book explores the ways in which governments are putting citizens first in their policy-making endeavours. Making citizens the focus of policy interventions and involving them in the delivery and design is for many governments a normative ideal; it is a worthy objective and sounds easy to achieve. But the reality is that putting citizens at the centre of policy-making is hard and confronting. Are governments really serious in their ambitions to put citizens first? Are they prepared for the challenges and demands such an approach will demand? Are they prepared to commit the time and resources to ensure genuine engagement takes place and that citizens' interests are considered foremost? And, more importantly, are governments prepared for the trade-offs, risks and loss of control such citizen-centric approaches will inevitably involve?

This practical handbook offers guidance on good practice in core policing areas. It draws together practical advice across a wide range of police duties, along with extracts and explanations of official policy and guidance from ACPO, the National Policing Improvement Agency and the National Centre for Policing Excellence.

February 2009 marked the 10th Anniversary of the publication of the Inquiry into the events surrounding the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. This book marks this anniversary and examines various dimensions of the impact of Lawrence on policing policy and practice. It identifies a series of dimensions and processes associated with British policing in terms of the role that the Lawrence agenda has had on forming and/or shaping policy and practice in that particular area, and in doing so assesses the extent to which the original recommendations and issues raised within the Lawrence Inquiry have been reflected in policy, practice and, importantly policing outcomes in service delivery. The book integrates practitioner and academic reflection on the impact of Lawrence and includes contributions from some of the key policing figures who were involved in post-Lawrence implementation and development programmes. As such the book will be of interest to both an academic police studies/criminology audience and police-practitioner audiences.

Discover insider secrets of how America’s transportation system is designed, funded, and built – and how to make it work for your community In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn Jr. delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America’s transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did, and how to modernize transportation to better serve local communities. You’ll discover real-world examples of poor design choices and how those choices have dramatic and tragic effects on the lives of the people who use them. You’ll also find case studies and examples of design improvements that have revitalized communities and improved safety. This important book shows you: The values of the transportation professions, how they are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from those of the public. How the standard approach to transportation ensures the maximum amount of traffic congestion possible is created each day, and how to fight that congestion on a budget. Bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns on transportation projects, all while improving quality of life for residents. Perfect for anyone interested in why transportation systems work – and fail to work – the way they do, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is a fascinating insider’s peek behind the scenes of America’s transportation systems.