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Purpose: Extant literature indicates that individual perceptions of collective efficacy and incivilities are important in explaining fear of crime. These studies, however, often implicitly assume that the relationships between key variables do not differ between neighborhoods. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between perceptions of collective efficacy, perceptions of incivilities, and fear of crime and determine whether these relationships are constant between neighborhoods. Methods: Surveys were conducted using a sample of residents from four neighborhoods within Miami-Dade County. Structural equation models were used to examine the relationships between perceptions of collective efficacy, perceptions of incivilities, and fear of crime for each neighborhood separately. Tests for invariance were conducted to determine whether the coefficients from these models differed across neighborhoods. Results: Results from these analyses suggest that the relationship between perceptions of collective efficacy and fear of crime exhibit significant heterogeneity between neighborhoods, as do a number of other relationships. The relationships between perceptions of collective efficacy and perceptions of incivilities, and perceptions of incivilities and fear of crime do not exhibit heterogeneity. Conclusions: These results illustrate the importance of examining perceptions of collective efficacy within the neighborhood context. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

To date, most community policing research has taken place in large urban areas. Only a handful of studies, most using case study or small-N cross-sectional methodologies, have explored patterns of community policing in the small police agencies and nonurban areas that exist throughout much of the United States. Using data from the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, this study examines levels and patterns of community policing implementation in a sample of nearly 6,000 American law enforcement agencies serving populations less than 50,000. The authors find significant variations in levels of community policing activity by geographic region and department size, with larger agencies and those from the Western region of the United States practicing a wider range of community-policing-related activities. The implications of these findings are discussed for three areas: future research on the police, current federal community policing programs and policies, and the broader community policing reform movement.

In this article, we explore variations in procedural justice delivered in face‐to‐face encounters with citizens before and after the implementation of body‐worn cameras (BWCs). We draw on recent advances in the measurement of procedural justice using systematic social observation of police in field settings in the Los Angeles Police Department. Data collected on 555 police–citizen encounters are examined in bivariate and multivariate models exploring the primary hypothesis that BWCs affect procedural justice delivered by police directly and indirectly. Our results indicate that significant increases in procedural justice during police–citizen encounters were directly attributable to the effect of BWCs on police behavior as well as to the indirect effects on citizen disrespect and other variables. The implications for policy include explicit measurement and monitoring of procedural justice or elements such as officer discourtesy in departments adopting BWCs. Further research questions such as more detailed examination of citizens’ behavior changes under BWCs are also considered in the context of the findings.