Co-producing neighbourhood safety and the role of police perceptions – a case study of the Danish police co-commissioning with ethnic minority associations

This chapter explores the challenges and potentials of police co-commissioning with ethnic minority associations from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, a form of co-production rarely found in the literature.
Data stem from extensive field studies of community ‘dialogue meetings’ between the Danish police and local ethnic minority associations, where the citizens as ‘experts by experience’ and the police as conventional experts on policing meet in order to identify and prioritise future policing efforts to enhance community safety. We draw on both the co-production literature on co-commissioning and criminological literature on procedural justice and police performance and argue that a better understanding of how residents in these areas communicate with and perceive the police as a public authority can help create a better social platform for future co-production.