Crime prevention and victim of crime assistance through collaboration

Missing People, sports associations, religious communities, women's shelters, and crime victim shelters are examples of non-governmental organizations that collaborate with the police. Not only in crime prevention, but also in victim of crime assistance in the aftermath of a crime.

The police authority and non-governmental organizations have both their own distinctive features and organisational criterions for the allocation of resources. The objective with this study is to explain organisational dilemmas in collaboration between the police authority and non-governmental organisations based on structural and cultural factors.

In our empirical analyses we apply an instrumental structural perspective and a cultural institutional perspective based in organizational theory. On the one hand, the formal structure influences decision-making, and this perspective assumes rational calculation to achieve high effectiveness. On the other hand, through an institutionalization processes, the organisation adapts to internal and external pressures and develop institutional cultural identities and informal norms. 

The data was collected from interviews with police officers with the task to achieve and obtain collaboration with the civic society in different forms, and from representatives from non-governmental organisations. 

The preliminary findings of our study point out that organizational mutual adaptation is necessary in long term partnerships to achieve shared problem solving. The police officers also face challenges within the organisation such as lack of support from colleges and management that aggravate an already difficult situation. Strategic police collaboration emerges when there is a need to gain peoples trust in priority areas, to undertake new challenges and face the problems of hate crimes and discrimination, and to solve new problems with juvenile criminality to mention a few examples.

Cecilia Jonsson, PhD and senior lecturer, Center for Police Research and Development Department of Police Work, Linnaeus University, Växjö Sweden. 2021