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Vulnerable Communities Research Program
Projects:
- Modelling Inter-Group Violence
- National Social and Cultural Wellbeing Survey
- Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET)
The Vulnerable Communities program of research seeks to better understand the factors that create fertile grounds for inter-group conflict and radicalization, take stock of the current approaches for better dealing with problems in vulnerable communities and then test, under randomised field trial conditions, innovative ways that might reduce inter-group conflicts and problems in these vulnerable communities. Our program of work involves collection of survey data to understand citizen perceptions of the intergroup conflict, audits of current police practices to better address problems in these vulnerable areas, and a major randomised field trial that seeks, from the outset, to test what the police might do to reduce highly localised problems of conflict and disengagement. Our program, thus, comprises a number of key projects.
The Community Capacity Survey (CCS) comprises a survey of residents across 300 Melbourne and Brisbane suburbs to test an integrated ecological model that sought to explain spatial variations in intergroup conflict. Led by Chief Investigator Professor Lorraine Mazerolle and Associate Investigator Dr Rebecca Wickes, in partnership with CEPS Associate Investigators Associate Professor Tina Murphy and Dr Adrian Cherney, 2010 saw the successful execution of a $750,000 survey of nearly 10,000 respondents across the two cities. This has been a major undertaking for the UQ node of CEPS, auspiced within the Institute of Social Science Research. PhD student Elise Sergeant will complete her PhD in late 2011 using these data from the CCS, and CEPS Visiting Scholar, John Hipp will work with us to begin analysing our data and better understand the community dynamics of the intergroup conflict.
Completion of the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET) was also a major accomplishment for our UQ node of CEPS during 2010. In close partnership with the Queensland Police Service, and particularly CEPS Research Advisory Committee member Assistant Commissioner Peter Martin, CEPS Research Fellow Sarah Bennett and Chief Investigator Lorraine Mazerolle implemented the trial to test the impact on citizen perceptions of police when they use procedural justice principles of dignity, respect, neutrality, citizen participation in decision making and conveying trustworthy motives during police-citizen encounters. Launched in the highly diverse area of the Metro South region of Brisbane, the trial overwhelmingly shows the positive effects of police engagement with citizens during routine encounters (featured research on page 31).
Finally, our CEPS Australian National Survey will be launched in 2011. Our team has pilot tested some key survey questions in a special module attached to the “Living in Queensland” Household Survey of over 3,000 respondents. Ironically, this pilot test of questions asking people to report their preparedness and risk predictions for flood, cyclone and terrorist attack and thus serves as an incredibly well timed “pre” measure for the devastating floods and cyclones experienced in Queensland in early 2011. Our team will use this pilot survey to help inform government policy in the aftermath of these natural disasters.
In the QCET, National Survey and CCS, our teams are exploring the importance of police legitimacy and the legitimacy of institutions of government in better responding to problems in vulnerable communities. These linking themes of police legitimacy and community resilience serve as a focus for many of our academic papers underway as well as our student PhD and Honours projects.
Other smaller projects within the Vulnerable Communities Program provide important foundations for CCS, QCET and National Survey investments. These include our work in partnership with ANZPAA that sought to understand the range of police interventions in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities, our National Policing Improvement Agency (UK) funded systematic review and meta analysis of Legitimacy Policing, our SWOT Analysis of the South Australian Police Problem Solving Model, and our evaluation of the Queensland Police Coordinated Response to Youth At Risk (CRYPAR).
Chief Investigator Lorraine Mazerolle’s ARC Laureate Fellowship, awarded in July, provides further funding over the next five years to continue our efforts to establish research capacity to conduct randomised field trials with police in Australia and builds from our work on the CEPS funded QCET.
Publications:
More publications for Vulnerable Communities Research Program
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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.
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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.
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