The latter developments in the governance of crime, disorder, and security in the United Kingdom emphasize that community engagement and co-production are centrally important. However, it is clear that there are dangers that already identified tensions will continue. The need to meet performance targets will continue to detract from community-oriented work, unless the two coincide. Also, cultural and institutional factors are likely to prove unfavorable to efforts to respond effectively to community needs. What this means is that the participation of publics needs to be understood in broad, inclusive, and often conflicting terms and understood that such efforts offer only limited guarantees in terms of establishing progressive agendas for community safety and neighborhood policing. Community continues to be at the heart of political and policy discourses surrounding policing, security, and community safety in the United Kingdom. While recognizing that there are powerful retrogressive and repressive elements to such contemporary debates, it is argued in this paper that this is an unstable and contestable policy terrain and that there are opportunities to develop notions of community that offer more progressive possibilities. This paper examines policy developments relating to Neighborhood Policing and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships in Britain to explore these issues. Notes, references