The Koban Consortium in Lisbon (2025)
February 2026 – For several years, Efus has been working with cities and in projects like Cutting Crime Impact (CCI) on the relationship between local police forces and citizens, an increasingly central issue in urban security. The KOBAN project, in which Efus is a partner, focuses specifically on community policing and addresses a growing challenge for law enforcement agencies: how to build trustworthy relationships with communities, both online and offline.
What is community policing?
Community policing is a policing philosophy that builds long-term partnerships between officers and the communities they serve. It focuses on regular presence in neighbourhoods, fostering trust, communication and mutual understanding. Rather than reacting solely to crimes, it emphasises proactive problem-solving and addressing the root causes of disorder. Officers work with residents, local organisations and businesses to identify concerns early and develop tailored solutions. This approach strengthens police legitimacy, reduces fear of crime and encourages community cooperation. In essence, community policing integrates the police into everyday community life to promote safety, prevention and shared responsibility.
Insights from the field
Within the KOBAN project, the city of Lisbon’s pilot focuses on strengthening police work through data use, notably via the development of an integrated and interoperable dashboard for officers. Designed to connect seamlessly with existing tools, this solution aims to provide a comprehensive, real-time overview of operations on the ground, enhancing situational awareness and operational effectiveness.
In addition, in the project, Efus interviewed local police officers from several European countries in order to better understand how community policing is implemented in practice. Their experiences show that while the philosophy is widely recognised, its concrete application varies significantly across national and local contexts.
In Italy, for instance, community policing can function at the regional level. In Greece, officers do not formally refer to their work as “community policing,” yet many of their practices such as approaching citizens, engaging in regular conversations, identifying everyday problems and solving them collaboratively, are very much in line with its principles. In Spain, the term “policía comunitaria” is explicitly used.
Across the different countries and local police forces, officers agree that communication is one of the most crucial aspects of this approach. In many situations, they need to adopt a more accessible, less formal way of speaking in order to gain the trust of local residents, especially those who tend to be more wary of law enforcement. Daily interactions, often centred on small but meaningful issues such as noise disturbances, neighbourhood disputes or public space concerns, are the foundation of their work and help create a climate of dialogue and cooperation. There is also a need for more police officers to ensure that citizens’ concerns are properly addressed and effectively handled.
“We are a little force (only 13 of us) so we have close contact with our citizens. Our approach focuses more on communication and engagement with residents rather than strict law enforcement. We know many of the people in our community personally, we often know their names, where they live, what they do, even details about their families. This close relationship allows us to work with them effectively.”
Kiriaki Magoulioti, Director of Municipal police, Kordelio- Evosmos (Greece)
The local context determines whether a unified model of community policing is in place or not. This helps explain why community policing practices differ so widely across Europe, even though they generally face many of the same challenges.
Despite the positive outcomes, several challenges persist. Budget limitations often restrict the capacity of local forces to fully develop or expand community policing initiatives. Many officers also believe that a European-level protocol or framework could be useful in the future, as it would offer clearer guidance and help harmonise practices across countries.
Looking ahead
Community policing is increasingly recognised as an essential component of urban security across Europe. The insights gathered through the KOBAN project show that while the philosophy is shared, approaches vary and could benefit from stronger common guidance. Cities evolve and citizens’ expectations change, developing and supporting community-centred policing strategies may be key to building safer and more trusting communities throughout Europe.
As Efus stresses in the Security, Democracy and Cities manifesto (2025) there is a need to base policing strategies on principles of co-production and community policing and to organise policing through a bottom-up partnership-based approach.
More resources:
- Thematic recommendations on Police
- EU-POLNET (European network of local police forces)
- Police-population relations: challenges, local practices and recommendations
- CCI factsheets on community policing
- Report from the thematic session of the Security, Democracy and cities conference
