'It'd be the last resort you would ring the Guards': Disabled people's perceptions and experiences of the police in the search for safe community spaces

A growing body of literature has explored disabled people's inclusion in community spaces and the experiences of un/safety, hostility, and violence that threaten a sense of community belonging. Criminal justice responses and actors, most notably the police, are a key element in the complex nexus of human and non-human interrelations which shape encounters with safety in place. This chapter explores how disabled people perceive and experience the Gardaí (Irish police force) in creating safe/r community spaces. While some disabled people highlight significant barriers in their interactions with the Gardaí, other narratives point to positive relational interactions grounded in local community knowledge of trusted Gardaí officers. The chapter therefore calls for a need to attend to the situated contexts shaping disabled people's interactions with the Gardaí and asks how disabled people's everyday knowledges can question and expand notions of community safety as they are expressed in official discourses of policing bodies and strategies.