Upon the conclusion of this course learners will be able to:

1. Explain the purpose of communities of practice as well as describe their general function
2. Identify factors which both enhance and inhibit engagement within communities of practice
3. Explain the importance of supporting communities of practice and describe ways in which support might be demonstrated
4. Describe how communities of practice might be specifically implemented within the criminal justice context

To participate in this course, learners need only an internet enabled device and inquisitive mind. Most participants, however, find that a desktop or laptop computer works best in facilitating their engagement with peers. This course is designed to unfold over an eight-week period. It will occur entirely asynchronously but will require the learner to login several times per week in order to stay on top of assignments and engage with peers.

While no exam will be utilized to demonstrate comprehension, learners are expected to fully participate in course activities. This is a collaborative space where each learner benefits from the engagement of others.

Each week, learners will be expected to review the lesson materials including media and supplemental readings (hereafter referred to as “updates”). They will also be prompted to comment on the material, write an update of their own, and offer short responses to the updates of at least two peers. Let’s practice now.

Comment: How do you expect to benefit from this course?

Update: Introduce yourself to your peers. In which branch of the criminal justice system are you employed (police, courts, or corrections)? In what capacity and for how long have you been employed?

Intended Learning Outcome: At the end of this section, the learner should be able to explain the purpose of communities of practice as well as describe their general function.

Watch the video below from its beginning until 3:15 for a broad overview of communities of practice. A more detailed exploration of the concept will follow.

(Skills Academia, 2022)

As you can see from the video above, communities of practice have been used broadly across a number of industries. They are ways of sharing knowledge that is tacit in nature and typically only acquired through experience in the field (Wenger et al., 2002). Communities of practice have traditionally been very informal, with self-selecting members setting their own agendas and leadership. Promising results from a number of fields, however, may be changing that (Nicolini et al., 2022). 

Communities of practice do not need to adhere to any one form and may vary in terms of their size, duration, location, and relationship to the organization (Blankenship & Ruona, 2007). They may form as a natural extension of relationships and shared curiosity or be constructed as a matter of conscious effort on the part of an interested organization. They may even be conducted via the internet completely asynchronously, much like this course. 

The short video that follows describes how one community of practice came together to solve a problem occurring at a remote location in another part of the world. Watch from the video in its entirety.

    (MikeSimpson64, 2010)

Important to note is that communities of practice can be isolated within one organization or span multiple. In the video above, geographically diverse divisions of a company communicated regarding problems of common interest. Consider the lessons this might impart for criminal justice practitioners who serve in the system's different divisions but in pursuit of common goals. 

Comment: Describe one standout idea from this week’s material. Briefly comment on why you found it so interesting.

Update: Find an example of a community of practice in the media or academic literature. Describe how it functions including the benefits it brings to its host organization.

Intended Learning Outcome: At the end of this section, learners should be able to identify factors which both enhance and inhibit engagement in communities of practice.

Communities of practice can meet synchronously in physical or virtual spaces, or they can convene asynchronously thanks to the communication affordances of the internet. Virtual participation, in fact, is said to increase community members' capacity for connection, information sharing, and engagement while limiting the interference of distance, time, and isolation (Abedini et al., 2021). Online, or virtual, communities of practice are particularly enticing for criminal justice practitioners thanks to the varied schedules they work. The ability to accommodate a broad range of availability can be critical in ensuring effective representation among interested parties. Consider, for example, the impact shift work has on the ability of police and correctional personnel to attend synchronous gatherings.

If a community of practice convenes during business hours, 9 AM for example, then those personnel assigned to night shift may not be able to attend. The typically less tenured personnel assigned to the night shift may bring a different perspective that would otherwise go unrepresented in this design. This would have the likely effect of limiting the broad applicability and innovative potential of the community.

Beyond hours and communication media, though, levels of member engagement deserve particular emphasis. Proper functioning of these communities is not possible without the sustained engagement of members (Peeters & Pretorius, 2020, Abedini et al., 2021). Fortunately, factors both facilitating and hindering engagement are described in the table below. 

Table 1. Engagement factors identified

In designing a community of practice, great effort should be made to promote facilitators of engagement while minimizing hindering factors. Remember that as you consider the design of potential communities of practice in your sphere. 

Comment: Describe a standout idea from this week’s material. Briefly comment on why you found it so interesting.

Update: Describe one factor which might facilitate engagement and one factor which might inhibit engagement among the personnel in your organization. Comment on ways these might be increased or mitigated to improve engagement.

Intended Learning Outcome: At the end of this section, learners should be able to explain the importance of supporting communities of practice and describe ways in which support might be demonstrated. 

Supporting communities of practice can be key to their success or even survival. While traditional conceptions of communities of practice focused largely on the independent association of likeminded people, many organizations now make it a point to incentivize participation in these groups. 

Read the Harvard Business Review article linked below. It explores the importance of supporting communities of practice and the effects these efforts can have on organizations. 

https://hbr.org/2000/01/communities-of-practice-the-organizational-frontier  

As you move forward in this course, keep the three main tasks involved in supporting communities of practice in mind: 

1. Identifying potential communities (described as an awareness of aligned personnel working toward common goals who have yet to form a community)
2. Providing infrastructure (described as offering material support as well as intervening where necessary to overcome obstacles)
3. Measuring value (described as the ability to identify communities' utility via frequently non-traditional measures)

Consider the ways in which these efforts might be employed to support communities of practice in your organization. 

Comment: Describe a standout idea from this week’s material. Briefly comment on why you found it so interesting.

Update: Identify specific ways in which you might support a community of practice within your organization. What infrastructure or systems would you put in place and how might you defend the efforts to those who don’t see value in the group’s work?

Intended Learning Outcome: At the end of this section, learners should be able to explain how communities of practice might specifically be implemented in police or correctional environments. 

Moving toward specific applications of communities of practice to criminal justice, we now examine how the practice might be applied to policing. Recognize that police face evolving societal expectations and statutory/case law, as well as continually changing training requirements. New technlogies to assist them in their jobs are being introduced with great frequency, but many come with concerns related to potential abuse. Clearly, fostering the potential for practitioners to engage in meaningful exchange regarding their evolving standards and tactics holds great value.

A recent protest against police brutality (Gale, 2020)

Consider the case of the suburban police department highlighted in the article linked below. As you read, note how the personnel are empowered to innovate and incentivized to share acquired knowledge via channels put in place by Department leadership. 

https://www.police1.com/patrol-issues/articles/problem-solving-with-less-direct-police-intervention-vUIyUAdQ6BmFOa1e/    

In this case, the communities of practice function at multiple levels. Officers assigned to patrol shifts experiment with new tools and methods and debrief in an effort to identify successes or opportunities for improvement. Supervisors then report these stories to monthly meetings of the command staff for agency wide dissemination. Eventually, practices are reformed as successful strategies are identified and implemented Department wide. 

The support evident in this case includes explicit acceptance of the risks associated with experimentation as well as a commitment of time necessary to collaborate among line level personnel and Department leadership. Further, its design was a conscious construction of the organization. 

While this example is one of seeking broad change at an organizational level, consider the possibilities for communities of practice within the average law enforcement agency. What areas might benefit from a community of practice model, and how so? 

Comment: Describe a standout idea from this week’s material. Briefly comment on why you found it so interesting.

Update: In what other ways might a community of practice be employed within a law enforcement context? Using what you’ve learned so far, craft a specific scenario that would be improved by a community of practice. In what ways might the community address the issue?

Intended Learning Outcome: At the end of this section, learners should be able to describe how the community of practice model might be implemented in a court setting. 

Within the criminal justice system, the courts are composed of skilled legal practitioners each of which holds advanced legal knowledge and credentials. Whether serving as an attorney or judge, each of the practitioners has occasion to share their perspective for the benefit of others and to seek professional development opportunities with and through their peers. 

Those working within the courts frequently specialize in categories of law (i.e. criminal, civil, family law, immigration law, etc.). This creates pockets of specialized knowledge and lends itself to a community of practice model focused around particular problems. Consider the article linked below. It advocates for a community of practice model for the purpose of orienting new judges. 

https://reinventingtherules.com/2015/02/04/developing-communities-of-practice-for-new-judges/    

Professional development and orientation is not limited to new judges, though. The article that follows describes a process where law students participate in communities of practice in order to enhance their professionalism. 

Thinking Like a Lawyer/Acting Like a Professional: Communities of Practice as a Means of Challenging Orthodox Legal Education (Baron & Corbin, 2012)

Clearly, promise has been demonstrated in the application of communities of practice to legal practitioners. How might these proofs of concept be translated to the criminal justice realm, though? 

Comment: Describe a standout idea from this week’s material. Briefly comment on why you found it so interesting.

Update: Describe a specific application of communities of practice to the courts. How might attorneys benefit from participation? How might judges? Are there applications where both might participate in communities of practice together?

Applications of the community of practice model to police and correctional settings as well as court settings have been established. But what of causes which tie all criminal justice practitioners together in these communities?

The police, the courts, and corrections each serve the overarching goals of the criminal justice system. Each function has its own unique protocols, procedures, and cultures which may affect the outcomes of those involved in the system's processes. As a byproduct, each may inadvertently contribute to costly delays or other inefficiencies which unnecessarily burden society and its interested members.

A poignant quote from William Ewart Gladstone (Quotefancy, 2017)

Take this opportunity to synthesize what you've learned so far about communities of practice in criminal justice settings and consider the case of search and seizure. Police and correctional personnel are the principal practitioners of search and seizure in the field while attorneys and judges adjudicate questions of Constitutional compliance in the courts. This adjudication is accomplished through often repeated adversarial motions between prosecutorial and defense attorneys and keeps defendants and victims in a state of limbo for frequently extended periods of time. A community of practice model focused on educating police, court, and corrections officials on the functions of their complementing branches is likely to clarify understanding and lead to better decisions and enhanced efficiency. 

In such a community, questions can be asked directly or scenarios like the one in the video linked below can be used to spur conversation. Discussion around the many nuances inherent in each case can be extraordinarily useful for criminal justice practitioners in adding context to knowledge of the other functions. Watch the video in its entirety and think about questions around it that might be asked within a community of practice. 

(Chad McCluskey, 2014)

Comment: Describe a standout idea from this week’s material. Briefly comment on why you found it so interesting.

Update: Propose another topic for a criminal justice community of practice to investigate. Make sure it is built around collaboration between police, court, and correctional personnel. How might the community function once all they players are involved? Can you think of any issues this broad involvement might bring? How might you get ahead of them to sustain engagement and involvement in the community?  

By now you have developed a far more in-depth understanding of communities of practice. You recognize how they function to facilitate information exchange and have developed a particular understanding of how they might apply to your organizational context. 

You have also been asked to consider how communities of practice might function in the other branches of the criminal justice system and what it might look like for the respective functions to come together in broader communities of practice. 

Your assignment now is to propose a community of practice you'd be comfortable supporting within your organization or a community to benefit multiple criminal justice organizations. In crafting your response, be sure to address the following:

1. What specific problem or problems is the community designed to investigate?
2. The design of the community: Is it in-person, online, or hybrid? Who would you like to see participate and why? 
3. Organizational support for the community: How will you support the community? Will you provide it a budget? Will it be allowed to function on agency time, or will participation be required off-duty? Will you invest in technology to facilitate the community's exchanges?
4.  What issues might you expect the community to encounter, and how would you attempt to mitigate them? 

This project will be reviewed by your peers in the course and measured against the following rubric. You will also review three peers' work against the rubric. You will have the opportunity to revise your project based on peer feedback before it is routed for final review by the instructor. 

Peer reviewed project rubric

This week, you will receive the completed works of three peers to evaluate against the rubric below. 

Peer reviewed project rubric

Please take this assignment seriously and offer annotations/comments to the work in an effort to improve your peers' final products. 

Through this course you have learned about theories behind communities of practice, the design of communities of practice, methods to support communities of practice, and how communities of practice might be applied to any of several criminal justice contexts. You have also been encouraged to think about how communities of practice might be adopted in your organizational setting and were asked to propose a plan for one's development. 

Please accept the gratitude of the instructional team and consider it a resource as you seek to apply the principles of this course to problems of practice in your organization. 

Your final task will be to submit your completed community of practice project assignment after applying any changes you choose to adopt based on peer feedback. 

Thank you for your efforts in this course!