Building Positive Police-Youth Relations in Connecticut
PROJECT EVALUATION RESULTS
By the Numbers:
· 43 youth participants of mini-grant projects completed post-project evaluation surveys. Youth were asked to self-report changes in perceptions and understanding of police after participating in the project, and to suggest ways to improve future projects.
· A comparison survey was administered to 31 demographically similar youth from the same organizations as the mini-grant teams, who did not participate in mini-grant projects.
· 43 youth from Middletown, Hamden, Manchester, Waterford, and Hartford (some in schools, others in youth-serving organizations) participated in professionally facilitated discussion groups in which they were asked to respond to a set of questions about their perceptions of and recommendations for youth-police relations. Most youth were male (70%) and described themselves as African American (45%), White (30%), or Latino/a (23%). Just over half of these youth were middle school-aged (54%) and the remaining youth were high school-aged (46%). The majority of these youth lived in urban communities (88%).
The results of the evaluation surveys, discussion groups,
and other conversations made it evident that the subject of
youth-police interactions/relationships elicits powerful
responses from young people. Connecticut youth in diverse
communities are extremely interested in participating in
discussions about police and youth, sharing deep-rooted and
complicated feelings and perceptions some of them have about
police. Results also indicated that these mini-grant
projects did have an impact on youth’s perceptions and
feelings about police, and facilitated new relationships
between police and youth.
Youth who participated in the mini-grant projects, in
contrast to the comparison group:
· Believed more strongly that it is possible to have a positive relationship with police officer
· Felt more strongly that there is at least one police officer that they have a good relationship with
· Felt more confident that if they were approached by a police officer the interaction would go positively
· In general, felt more positively towards police officers.
· Have more ideas about ways youth and police officers can build positive relationships
· Better understanding of the role of local police officers.
· Believed they were more likely to have positive interactions with police officers than they were before participating in the project.
· Overall, were very satisfied with their projects.
