Reports by citizens are a great source of information for the police. Local residents often know well what is going on in their neighborhood and which situations are suspicious. In this study, an online survey was conducted to investigate what drives citizens to report to the police. A wide range of individual, social and institutional drivers were explored. The results show that the more often people have reported anything to the police in the past, the higher their risk perception, self-efficacy, citizen participation and police legitimacy. Furthermore, participants with a higher degree of self-efficacy, response efficacy, trust in the police and police legitimacy appeared to be more willing to report in the future. An open question regarding what motivates people the most to report show that response efficacy (the idea to what extent reporting has an effect on increasing safety and reducing crime) and altruistic values (justice, to help society and punish the perpetrators) were mentioned most frequently.

In former times, citizens themselves were responsible for ensuring and protecting their own safety. Over the years, this responsibility largely shifted to the government, partly due to the establishment of an institutionalized police force. In recent years, citizens have increasingly reestablishing themselves in domain of social security. Citizens are engaged in tasks that are traditionally seen as primarily the responsibility of the police, such as law enforcement, criminal investigation and immediate in case of emergencies.
Technology can be considered as one of the major driving forces behind this increasing contribution of citizens in the field of security. Technology makes it possible to quickly find and share information and enhances people’s ability to deal with cognitively complex tasks. In a certain way, technology democratizes police work by making the skills and tools available for every citizen.
In this article we will discuss the value of a specific form of technological support for citizens in their search for missing persons: the missing persons app ‘Sarea’. The Netherlands has a high number of missing persons and in many incidents citizens start searching themselves. Often, this citizen initiatives are uncoordinated. Therefore, an app has been developed by the police to help citizens start and coordinate their own searches for a missing person.

Citizen engagement in public safety is increasing rapidly. This trend, also known as responsibilisation, causes new dilemmas for (local) goverments. This article is based on a case study on a local group in the Dutch municipality Neder-Betuwe. These vigilantes arrest suspects by using extensive and professional equipment. By using the theory of normative practices this article compares the practices of the vigilantes and the local police. Their attitude to themes as safety, community values and the core values of the Dutch rule of law differs. This puts pressure on cooperation between vigilantes and police officers.

Citizens investigating crimes themselves is a growing trend, because of democratization of information (e.g. social media), tools (e.g. apps) and knowledge (e.g. explanimations on YouTube). More and more citizens do their own research as modern Sherlocks. The police has to handle these trends in line with participant wishes and the law, but does not yet have concrete tools to do so. This article explores how the police participate in contemporary citizen criminal investigations, including the difficulties and benefits experienced. The obtained insights of the presented research serve as guidance, which can help police officers understand how to participate with citizens who have started, or want to start, a criminal investigation. The presented model explains how police can use it to better guide and stimulate, but also stop or protect citizens in their investigative activities. An app with professional guidance was piloted in four police units to participate with citizens that do their own research and learn from expectations and experiences. Citizens need guidance, but more importantly expect a certain degree of reciprocity in collaborating with police in criminal investigations.

Over the years, the use of data and digital technology in neighbourhood watch groups for prevention and detection of crime and citizens initiatives to enhance public safety has increased due to social and technological changes of citizen participation in coproduction of safety and digitization of economy and society. This causes a transition towards a new technology regime, a shift from a ‘closed’ information and communication technology regime owned by governmental organizations towards (inter)national ‘open’ platforms, which in turn challenges the current policy regime. This transition creates new societal expectations and challenges, often with contrasting dynamics. For instance, citizens are becoming the so-called ‘eyes and ears’ for government in prevention and detection of crime in neighbourhoods, while professionals are increasingly expected to coproduce safety with citizens through new forms of prevention and detection. With the rise of data and digital technology such as platforms and applications citizens are increasingly enabled to take the lead and initiate collaboration and organize new forms of prevention and surveillance in their own neighbourhoods.
Both in literature as in public policy practice, neighbourhood prevention and crime detection in general is addressed. However, less attention is spent on the role and impact of data and digital technology. We propose this is an issue because the emerging digital technology regime requires a new conceptual view wherein citizen initiatives are no longer perceived as merely instrumental to government interventions, but are understood as coproducers of public safety in their neighbourhoods, as part of a broader societal shift in which citizens are enabled by digital technology to organize their own data environments. Based on the introduction of digital coproduction, we illustrate four case examples to explain which opportunities for safety professionals and local governments arise to create a policy regime that suits the emerging digital technology regime.

This article focusses on the use of information of citizens who conducted their own investigation in a criminal procedure. Three questions are important in such a situation: 1) is the prosecution of the suspect based largely or entirely on the information of the civilian?, 2) was this information obtained lawfully? and 3) is the information reliable? In this article these questions are discussed.

It is often assumed that digital neighbourhood watch groups lead to more emergency calls and more arrests by the police. This article revolves around the question whether or not these groups actually contribute to reducing crime in the Netherlands. It does so by looking at recent studies and the results of researchers’ own ‘realist evaluation’ of the city of Rotterdam’s policy on digital neighbourhood watch. The latter includes a reconstruction of the program theory and ten case studies with different types of groups. The reconstruction of program theory revealed two main routes to crime reduction: 1) more emergency calls and more arrests by the police and 2) more social control. Chat histories have been studied and moderators, participants, non-participants and professionals were interviewed on their perception of active mechanisms and on the efficacy of their group. None of the respondents believed their group led to an increased number of arrests, but interviews and chat histories show that crime can be reduced by means of social control. Social control by neighbours limits the opportunity for crime and disturbs criminal acts. Other studies in the Netherlands support this finding. The article closes by putting digital neighbourhood watch in a citizen’s perspective with suggestions to improve the efficacy of digital neighbourhood watch groups and the notion that for citizens, crime reduction is not the only or principal goal.