Policing a multicultural community: a case study of the Roma community in northeastern Slovenia

The authors analyze the level of implementation of community policing in Slovenia from the point of view of four sets: quality of police contact, perception level of crime and disorder, fear of victimization, and the level of community cohesion. The first part of the report presents the results of the research carried out on a sample of 51 members of the Roma community and 161 members of the non-Roma community in the municipality of Lendava in the northeastern Pomurje region of Slovenia. The results show that the implementation of community policing in the multicultural community studied was slightly above average, whereas statistically significant differences between the Roma and non-Roma population regarding community cohesion and perception of crime and disorder were discovered. Respondents from the Roma community reported perceiving disorder and crime in their environment less frequently, but they are less integrated into the community they live in compared to the non-Roma respondents.