By Vedat KARĞIN*

The effectiveness of crime prevention programs can be best understood through systematic analysis of the past studies that examined the effectiveness of crime prevention programs. The purpose of this paper was to show whether POP is effective in preventing crime and provide the most up-to-date information regarding the effectiveness of POP in crime prevention. Six of eight evaluation studies reviewed in this paper produced strong evidence that POP was an effective strategy in preventing all kinds of crime including serious violent and property crimes. Two evaluations found no positive impact of the programs on crime but these evaluations suffered from serious methodological problems. It is concluded that POP is an effective crime prevention strategy and should be continued to be supported.

Academia EDU. Polis Bilimleri Dergisi: 12 (3). 22p.

By Rachel Boba a and John P. Crank

Problem-oriented policing (POP) has emerged as a fertile area of innovative police research and practice. Its core ideas have existed for over 20 years; however, research suggests that POP has been routinized into the practice of few police departments. This paper argues that POP has not gained widespread adoption because of the inclination to make line officers the central actors in POP’s implementation. It presents an integrated model reconsidering how problems are defined, analysis is used, and how problem-solving accountability is distributed throughout an organization and builds upon the strengths of traditional policing – information-gathering, centralized command, and accountability structure.

Routledge. Police Practice and Research Vol. 9, No. 5, December 2008, 379–393

By Adrian Leigh, Tim Read and Nick Tilley

Much police work is incident-driven and officers frequently find themselves returning to deal with similar or related incidents they or their colleagues have faced in the past. The concept of Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) is about examining patterns of incident clusters to identify and tackle underlying problems within the community. The active involvement of the community and external agencies is often vital to the identification of problems and the development of strategies to solve them. The originator of the concept, Herman Goldstein, believes that the whole of the police service needs to be oriented to problems. The perceived benefits of POP include:

• a better-served public whose concerns are attended to at source;

• officers with enhanced job satisfaction from bringing the public real benefits; and,

• more manageable demands on the police because underlying problems are solved, reducing repeat calls.

Since POP was first proposed in 1979, it has been widely adopted in the United States. There have also been a number of efforts to implement it in England and Wales. Despite overlooking some elements of POP proposed by Goldstein, past initiatives have been labelled Problem-Oriented Policing because they have taken on board his most important tenet: that officers should tackle the root cause of related incidents, rather than repeatedly returning to them. Whilst forces have adopted a variety of approaches, most initiatives have been relatively small-scale and have affected only a small number of dedicated officers. All have recorded mixed success, although none has established a formal means by which to assess outcomes. In particular, none of the past POP initiatives in England and Wales has adopted a formal and systematic model linking incident identification and analysis with the construction of responses and subsequent assessment of the actions taken. At the time of writing, both Surrey and Thames Valley were intending to introduce POP on a much wider scale and in a form closer to that originally proposed by Goldstein.

London Home Office. Crime Detection and Prevention Series Paper 75. 1996. 72p.

By Gloria Laycock

This guide is about embedding POP in your organisation. It is written primarily for senior officers and managers and is intended to complement a sister guide on problem-solving in practice. This guide is not a step-by-step manual - there is no single road to or recipe for implementing POP. Instead, what follows is a review of what is known about implementing and sustaining POP, with recommended resources provided at the end. The guide has three parts. The first part outlines the core features of POP. The second part makes the business case for POP as an operating model for contemporary policing. The third part discusses three conditions conducive to the successful implementation of POP – leadership, understanding and infrastructure – and provides examples of good and poor practice. The guide ends with a self-assessment tool to help you determine your organisation’s readiness for and progress in implementing POP.

London. College of Policing. 2020. 26p.

Michael S. Scott

In the last three decades, several concepts have been advanced to structure efforts to improve policing. Among them have been team policing, neighborhood policing, community policing, problem-oriented policing, and, most recently, quality-of-life policing. With much overlap, each concept, as reflected in its name, emphasizes a different need, relegating other commonly advocated reforms to a secondary role, shaped to support that need. This volume traces the efforts to implement problem-oriented policing.

The emphasis in problem-oriented policing is on directing attention to the broad range of problems the community expects the police to handle–the problems that constitute the business of the police–and on how police can be more effective in dealing with them. A layperson may think this focus elementary on first being introduced to it. Indeed, laypeople probably assume that police continually focus on the problems they are expected to handle. But within policing, this focus constitutes a radical shift in perspective.

Problem-oriented policing recognizes, at the outset, that police are expected to deal with an incredibly broad range of diverse community problems–not simply crime. It recognizes that the ultimate goal of the police is not simply to enforce the law, but to deal with problems effectively–ideally, by preventing them from occurring in the first place. It therefore plunges the police into an in-depth study of the specific problems they confront. It invites consideration of a wide range of alternatives, in addition to criminal law, for responding to each specific problem. Thus, problem-oriented policing draws the police away from the traditional preoccupation with creating an efficient organization; from the heavy investment in standard, generic operating procedures for responding to calls and preventing crime; and from heavy dependence on criminal law as the primary means for getting their job done. It looks to increased knowledge and thinking about the specific problems police confront as the driving force in fashioning police services.

This publication was supported through Grant #98CKWXK052 from the Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions expressed herein are the author's and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice. October 2000. 46p.

By Brian Freemantle

KGB By Brian Freemantle delves into the shadowy world of espionage, taking readers on a thrilling journey through the intricate web of Soviet intelligence. In this gripping tale, Freemantle masterfully weaves together a narrative filled with suspense, betrayal, and unexpected twists. As the protagonist navigates the dangerous landscape of Cold War politics, they must confront their own demons while unraveling a conspiracy that threatens to change the course of history. Freemantle's expert storytelling and attention to detail make KGB a must-read for fans of espionage fiction.

Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 1984 192 pages