Vulnerable Communities Research Program 

• Modelling Inter-Group Violence
• National Security and Preparedness Survey (formally the National Social and Cultural Wellbeing Survey
  
• Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET)
• Legitimacy and Policing

The Vulnerable Communities program of research seeks to better understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of communities vulnerable to growing levels of crime, disorder, inter-group violence and inter-group hostility. It is also concerned with empirically testing innovative policing approaches for creating greater citizen perceptions of police legitimacy in highly volatile and disadvantaged communities. Our program of work, to date, has concentrated heavily on data collection.

The Australian Community Capacity Study (ACCS) is a major longitudinal study that includes a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) survey and in-depth face-to face interviews with nearly 10,000 people across nearly 300 suburbs in Brisbane and Melbourne completed in 2011. In 2011, the project team proceeded to geo-code, clean and
analyse the ACCS data, with a technical report and initial analyses completed. The project team also spent time with CEPS Visiting Scholar Associate Professor John Hipp (University of California, Irvine), with six papers being developed.

The National Security and Preparedness Survey was implemented via Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) recruitment, followed by mail out/online surveys in November 2011. This survey seeks to benchmark public attitudes and perceptions of preparedness, community resilience and vulnerability in a post 9/11 environment of heightened
awareness. The survey will be in the field until the end of April 2012. We expect data analysis to begin in June 2012.

Through both of these projects, together with the completion of the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET) in 2010, project teams are exploring the importance of police legitimacy and the legitimacy of institutions of government in better responding to problems in vulnerable communities.

2011 also marked the launch of the Project ABILITY, funded by Professor Mazerolle’s ARC Laureate Fellowship. This project involves a partnership between Queensland Police Service, Department of Education and Training (Queensland), Department of Communities and researchers. The multiagency intervention model aims to reduce truancy and its underlying psychosocial risk factors in primary and secondary schools in a Brisbane Policing District. The pilot drew to a close in mid 2011 and a larger-scale randomised controlled field trial has been launched to test the effectiveness of the ABILITY model.

These linking themes of police legitimacy and community resilience serve as a focus for many of our academic papers already underway, as well as our student PhD and Honours projects.

Publications:

More publications for Vulnerable Communities Research Program

Abstract: This article explores the relative roles of social ties and collective efficacy in explaining community variations in violent victimization in Australia. Using data from a survey of 2,859 residents across 82 communities in the city of Brisbane, coupled with official reported crime data provided by the Queensland Police Service and Australian Bureau of Statistics census data for 2001, the authors employ multilevel statistical models to depict the relative importance of social ties and collective efficacy in predicting between-neighborhood violent victimization in an Australian context. Mazerolle, L.M., Wickes, R.L. and McBroom, J. (2010). Community variations in violence: The role of social ties and collective efficacy in comparative context. The Journal for Research in Crime and Delinquency, 47(1), 3-30.   http://jrc.sagepub.com/content/47/1/3.abstract

Abstract: Recent research suggests that communities can be collectively efficacious without dense networks and kith and kinship relations. Yet few studies examine how collective efficacy is generated and sustained in the absence of close social ties. Using in-depth interviews with local residents and key stakeholders in two collectively efficacious suburbs in Brisbane, Australia, this study explores the role of social ties and networks in shaping residents' sense of active engagement and perceptions of community capacity.   Wickes, R.L. (2010). Generating action and responding to local issues: Collective efficacy in context. The Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 43(3), 423-444.   http://anj.sagepub.com/content/43/3/423.abstract