Saginaw, Michigan

The city of Saginaw has seen violent crime increase to more than four times the national average. There are three major street gangs who are responsible for many of these acts, including a 2016 ten-week period of retaliatory violence which resulted in six homicides and 18 persons shot. Research has shown that restoring trust, improving cooperation, and engaging in police-community problem solving partnerships are key to violence reduction efforts. The Saginaw Police Department (SPD) plans to implement front porch roll calls in Saginaw neighborhoods and utilize a victim services specialist, offender notification meetings, and video surveillance technology to reduce violent crime. This multi-pronged approach will be known as the Saginaw Initiative to Reduce Violence (SIRV).

A pretest-posttest group-randomized trial will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the front porch roll calls. There are 19 neighborhoods within SPD’s four patrol areas which will be randomly assigned as part of the front porch roll calls (i.e., treatment) or business as usual (i.e., control; neighborhoods without any front porch roll calls).The Saginaw SPI will examine four broad research questions through this evaluation: in comparison to the control neighborhoods, do community members in front porch roll call neighborhoods (1) perceive the police as more legitimate, trustworthy, procedurally fair, or effective; (2) report greater willingness to cooperate with the police and partner with the police to solve local problems; (3) report fewer crime and disorder problems; and (4) perceive stronger neighborhood collective efficacy.