The National Institute of Justice announced the rollout of a “Measures of Community Perceptions” Challenge. Part of the Challenge.gov initiative started by the White House in 2010, the project is an open competition to develop new methods to capture community perceptions of police and public safety. NIJ said practitioners, researchers, startup companies, students and others may submit entries that include the views of all segments of the community; are cost effective, accurate and capable of low-burden administration on a systematic basis; and are able to be successfully deployed in cities of varying sizes. “Public perceptions of law enforcement hold a key to improving both police effective ness and community confidence in the justice system as a whole,” said NIJ Director Nancy La Vigne. “Through this challenge, we hope to gain a better understanding of how to measure attitudes and beliefs about law enforcement in a way that leads to better police-community relations and stronger bonds of trust.”
To ensure entries can be compared using similar methods, entries will be accepted under two categories: Category 1 for approaches that use a survey instrument and Category 2 for approaches that use non-survey instrument methods. A total of $175,000 is available and will be divided between two categories. NIJ said the format "encourages the development and testing of innovative ideas that leverage solutions from a range of scientific fields to serve the needs of the criminal justice community." The submission period ends July 31. More information is available at https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/innovations-measuring-community-perceptions-challenge.
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