Inventory of Promising Practices and Programs for Immigrant and Refugee Outreach

Compiled by the Police Executive Research Forum and the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force

The Police Executive Research Forum, with support from the Carnegie Corporation, has conducted research on policing and immigration issues for the past decade.  Through this research, PERF has documented many innovative outreach, training, and educational programs regarding the roles of police with respect to immigrant and refugee communities. 

In collaboration with the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force’s staff and members, PERF has developed a list of programs, linked at the bottom of this page, with brief summaries and contact information for personnel who can provide details about the programs.

The programs have been organized by the following topics:

• National Programs
• Community Academy Models
• Community Advisory Board Models
• Community Education and Training for Immigrants and Refugees
• Community Outreach – General Programs
• Cultural Competency Training for Officers
• Interagency Collaboration
• Liaison Officers
• Multilingual Outreach Programs
• Providing Direct Services
• Recruiting and Hiring from the Immigrant Community
• Youth Engagement

Next to each program description, you can find the agency (or agencies) that have that program, and a point of contact (POC) for you to consult if you would like more information regarding their programs.

Additionally, many of the initiatives included in this database are featured in the following publications:

• PERF’s publication, Community Policing in Immigrant Neighborhoods: Stories of Success
  
• PERF’s publication, Refugee Outreach and Engagement Programs for Police Agencies
  
• PERF’s publication, Strengthening Relationships between Police and Immigrant Communities in a Complex Political Environment: Multicultural Outreach and Engagement Programs for Police Agencies
  
• PERF’s publication, Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships to Prevent Violent Extremism
• PERF and LEITF’s publication, Building Trust with Immigrant Communities: Best Practices for Law Enforcement Agencies in Smaller Cities and Towns

PERF is grateful to everyone who contributed to our research, especially the police departments that hosted our site visits and executive sessions throughout the past decade. The agencies and officials we interviewed for this project were generous with their time, expertise, and willingness to serve as a resource for other agencies.

This inventory of programs is a living document that can be updated as additional information about new or existing programs becomes available.  Please contact the following PERF staff members if you would like more information about conducting immigrant and refugee outreach in your community, if you have a program you’d like included in this list of resources, or if you would like to receive a hard copy of any of the PERF publications listed above:

• Jessica Toliver, Director of Technical Assistance:  [email protected]
• Hyla Jacobson, Research Assistant, TA Division:  [email protected]

The names, titles, and affiliations listed throughout this doc­ument reflect the point of contact (POC) information at the time of initial publication of the inventory. Please contact PERF if your agency would like to make any POC information changes, or any changes to program descriptions, as we realize that programs may be subject to change.

Click here to view the list of programs