Building trust: Working with Muslim communities in Australia

  The Community Policing Partnerships Project (CPPP) was one of eight projects implemented under the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Community Partnerships for Human Rights (CPHR) program. The CPHR’s central goal was to increase social inclusion and to counter discrimination and intolerance towards Australia’s Muslim and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Under the CPPP, police and communities worked together to plan and administer 38 projects across Australia. This report provides a review of the outcomes of these projects and provides some key findings and learnings for future community policing initiatives. Evidence from the CPPP projects suggests that the individual experiences of many police and community participants were positive and beneficial. Establishing trust and building relationships between Muslim young people and local police officers was a key focus of many of the projects under the CPPP. Often this was achieved by providing opportunities for positive interaction between police and young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and by providing information regarding the support available to young people (Office of Multicultural Interests, 2009, p. 26). Many of the CPPP projects broke down stereotypes, improving previously tense relationships. However, projects such as those under the CPPP will need to reach deep into police organisations and communities involved to bring about significant and lasting change in the nature of police–community relationships. This report discusses some of the key learnings from the CPPP and other community policing initiatives. This report finds that in addressing social inclusion, countering discrimination and intolerance, and building mutual trust and respect, community policing initiatives need to address the: complex underlying social conditions when tackling core issues such as social inclusion, to optimise relationships between police and communities adversity faced by young people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds by increasing the factors that mitigate risks they face, and so facilitate their ability to contribute to the local economy in the future danger of defining problems in terms of communication and awareness, which can at times gloss over real, deep-seated, underlying conflicts and sources of tension potentially adverse practical consequences that may flow from using the concept of ‘community’ in the context of community policing initiatives. There is a risk that community policing initiatives may perpetuate or exacerbate the very problem they are attempting to defuse by the manner in which they define or name the problem. The most effective approaches will focus more directly on the dynamics of police–youth relationships rather than on overemphasising ethnic or religious background. Community policing initiatives must also: avoid overemphasising the formal education of minority community members about their rights and responsibilities. For community members, these may be articulated as concerns about informal belonging, respect, recognition, fair treatment and dignity acknowledge that the concept of ‘community’ is often not inclusive of those most affected by policing. The consensual overtones of community can hide the fact that a few select voices and interests—often those of the most respectable and powerful—can often come to represent the whole community be realistic about the possibilities, limitations, challenges and pitfalls of community policing programs, which can be affected by the priority, resources and planning they receive. It is important that projects such as those implemented under the CPPP are integrated into other ongoing police and community activities and are guided by a long-term view of the issues. This necessarily involves evidence-based planning, policy and research that takes a long-term view and is informed by how immigration shapes the dynamics of social and community change and the implications of such change for social cohesion and policing issues. This report finds that in the absence of a broad, long-term view police services and other criminal justice agencies may be left to deal, reactively, with failings in other areas of public policy; that, if ignored, complex social problems may translate into problems of law and order; and that simplistic causal explanations may prove ineffective and counterproductive. This report demonstrates the need for a more concerted government response and a strategic research, policy and planning framework if maximum benefit is to be derived from community policing initiatives such as the CPPP