The concept of community policing gained wide acclaim in the U.S. when crime dropped drastically during the 1990s. In Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere, police departments established programs to build more local relationships, to better enhance community security. But how well does community policing work in other places? A new multicountry experiment co-led by MIT political scientist Fotini Christia found, perhaps surprisingly, that the policy had no impact in several countries across the Global South, from Africa to South America and Asia.The results are detailed in a new edited volume, “Crime,…
