Gary Cordner, Elizabeth Biebel

Problem-oriented policing was first introduced in an article by Herman Goldstein in 1979. It was formally field-tested in the 1980s in Baltimore County (Cordner, 1986) and Newport News (Eck and Spelman, 1987), given a wider audience through an Atlantic Monthly magazine article in 1989 (Wilson and Kelling), and systematically described and explained in Goldstein's 1990 book. Today, it is widely regarded as the most analytical and intellectually challenging strategy in the police arsenal.

Questions linger, however, about the implementation and practicality of problemoriented policing (POP). The SARA process (scanning, analysis, response, assessment) for carrying out POP is analytically and creatively demanding, as well as time-consuming. Some observers question whether police have the knowledge and skill to implement the SARA process properly. Police officers often question whether they have the time to do so.

The research reported here carefully examined problem-oriented policing in practice by ordinary police officers in one agency - the San Diego, California Police Department. The objective was to discover and describe the reality of everyday, streetlevel POP as practiced by generalist patrol officers. San Diego was chosen because of its reputation as a national leader in problem-oriented policing.

U.S. Department of Justice.. 2003. 28p.

By Foster & Associates

  In January 2022 York Regional Police (YRP or ‘the Service’) contracted Foster & Associates to ‘review and report on the provision of recommendations and best practices to enable York Regional Police to build and improve relationships with Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities’. The York Regional Police Board (YRPB or ‘Board’) identified recommendations made at its meeting on September 23, 2022 with the Black community and developed a list of 51 recommendations in total, 43 of which fell within the responsibilities of the Service. A preliminary document was tabled by the Chief with the Board on April 14, 2021 that identified activities already undertaken and in progress, signaling the intent to continue consulting with the Black community to advance positive change that builds trust and confidence in policing  

  Foster & Associates, 2023. 98p.  

By  Martin Lundsteen &  Miquel Fernández González 

Recent studies have argued for more nuanced understandings of zero tolerance (ZT) policing, rendering it essential to analyze the significance and actual workings of the policies in practice, including the context in which they are introduced. This article aims to accomplish this through a comparison of two case studies in Catalonia: one in the neighborhood of Raval in Barcelona and one in Salt—a municipality in the comarca (or county) of Girona. We identify a transformation in the use of ZT policies in Catalonia and a con‑tradiction between their social effects and proclaimed objectives. This article attempts to address how specific sociocultural groups gain power and privilege from these policies. The main argument is that a set of commonsensical ideas have become hegemonic, which allows and naturalizes certain sociocultural practices in urban space, while persecuting oth‑ers, fundamentally pitting two categories against each other: the desired civil citizen and the undesirable and uncivil stranger

Critical Criminology volume 29, pages837–852 (2021)

Law Enforcement Conduct Commission 

Police officers are the first responders to the majority of domestic and family violence incidents that take place in New South Wales. They play a critical role in keeping victims safe, detaining, or arresting offenders and applying for protection orders. Police attend 180,000 incidents a year – or about 500 every day. This chilling number highlights how important it is for police to be well trained, well equipped and have appropriate systems in place to deal with this sadly all too common crime. The NSW Police Force estimates that 40% of police work involves responding to domestic violence. The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission used data from complaints to look at the effectiveness of NSW Police Force processes and procedures in relation to domestic and family violence incidents. We used data from complaint investigations linked to incidents involving a police officer responding to domestic and family violence incidents between 2017 and 2021. We looked at matters in which police officers were involved in domestic and family violence incidents, as well as matters in which officers were investigated for conducting inadequate investigations into reports of domestic and family violence incidents. We saw that police officers had been involved in domestic and family violence incidents, and at times were charged with domestic violence offences. We saw issues such as poor record keeping practices and police with inadequate training in how to properly investigate domestic violence incidents. The Commission has made 13 recommendations to assist the NSW Police Force to strengthen its procedures and the way it investigates complaints about domestic and family violence. Police officers play a critical role as first responders to domestic and family violence incidents. However, addressing domestic violence issues cannot be solved by the NSW Police Force alone. …As we do our work, we will look at the impact these proposed changes have on the way police respond to these incidents and any complaints made about the way they have dealt with domestic and family violence.    

Sydney: The Commission, 2023. 92p.

By Paul Pazen, Steven L. Byers, Cole Anderson, and Andy Archuleta

Public safety plays a critical role in the economic vitality of a community. Increasing population, attracting new businesses, generating a workforce, and bolstering the ability to attract tourism are all directly related to real and perceived safety challenges. If people are not safe, they cannot learn, work, or enjoy their communities. Ultimately, high crime rates result in a failure to thrive. It’s no secret that Colorado has been hit with a crime wave. Skyrocketing crime rates, fentanyl deaths, and the number one rank in the country when it comes to auto thefts, are all factors that have put Colorado’s economic future at risk and made Coloradans less safe. The question this report poses is: why has Colorado become less safe? A comparison of policing and crime rates in the two largest cities in Colorado, Denver and Colorado Springs, uncovers distinctly different trends in policing and police resources that have produced differing outcomes. For example, in Denver, the crime rate increased by 32% from 2010 to 2022 while the number of uniformed police officers decreased by 15.1%. A crime case is cleared when it has been solved and the clearance rates for violent crime in Denver have dropped 18.6% at a time when the crime rate is increasing. In Colorado Springs, the crime rate decreased by 15.9% and the number of uniformed police officers rose 5.7% from 2010 to 2022. Clearance rates for violent crime increased by 9.7% while the crime rate decreased. The criminal justice system includes police who investigate crime, district attorneys who prosecute offenders, and the Department of Corrections, which keeps offenders off of the streets and facilitates the reformation and re-entry of offenders. Each of these parts plays an important and unique role in keeping Coloradans safe and is represented by one side of the “crime triangle.” Much like a triangle, when one side collapses, the system collapses.

Greenwood Village, CO: Common Sense Institute (CSI) , 2023. 38p.

By The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 

  As Commissioners, we grounded our work every day in the memory of those whose lives were taken. Interacting with and learning from the individuals, families, and members of the communities most affected is an additional catalyst to the completion of our tasks. We have also been spurred on by the remarkable wisdom and generosity of everyone who contributed to our work: Participants and their counsel, witnesses (both through interviews and in public proceedings), experts, stakeholders, the media, community members, the wider public, and Commission staff. To all of you, we express our gratitude. This Report marks the end of our mandated responsibilities as a public inquiry and the shift to a shared responsibility to act. We do not absolve ourselves of obligations to contribute to the implementation of the Report’s recommendations in the days, weeks, and years to come. Yet acting on our recommendations is clearly in the hands and purview of others once the Commissioners have produced the Report. The leadership for this next phase includes those who participated in the Commission’s work; those external to the Commission, such as those who have reported on it and followed it; and others who have a formal, recognized duty to contribute to public safety and community well-being. We have said many times that this is a shared responsibility and opportunity. In Volume  6, Implementation, we expand on the importance of this collective responsibility, highlighting the significance of co-operation among politicians, policy-makers, institutions, organizations, community groups, and individuals right across society.   

Halifax, NS: Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2023. 83p.

By Daniel Birks, Michael Townsley and Timothy Hart  

Studies in the United States and Europe have demonstrated that burglary and vehicle crime exhibit consistent patterns, supporting the application of crime prediction techniques to proactively deploy police resources to reduce incidents of crime. Research into whether these techniques are applicable in an Australian context is currently limited. Using crime data from the Queensland Police Service, this study assessed the presence of spatio-temporal patterns in burglary, theft of motor vehicle and theft from motor vehicle offences in three distinct local government areas. After establishing the presence of spatiotemporal clustering, the forecasting performance of two predictive algorithms and a retrospective crime mapping technique was evaluated. Forecasting performance varied across study regions; however, the prediction algorithms performed as well as or better than the retrospective method, while using less data. The next step in evaluating predictive policing within Australia is to consider and design effective tactical responses to prevent crime based on the forecast locations and identified patterns.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice, 666. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2023. 22p.

By Michael Gennaco, Stephen Connolly and Julie Ruhlin

In the summer of 2019, Vallejo officials were responding to a time of transition for the City’s Police Department. The chief was newly retired, and the search for a new leader was underway against a backdrop of recent incidents – including fatal officer-involved shootings – that had prompted public concern and even demonstrations. It seemed as if a number of individual encounters were fitting all too well into larger, troubling narratives about American law enforcement: deadly force under disputed circumstances that affected minority subjects to a disproportionate extent, and strained relationships with residents that arose from and contributed to that reality while raising issues of trust and public confidence. Leadership within Vallejo’s city government decided that the time was right to take a step back and to assess the Department’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities in a new way. The City engaged an outside consultant to conduct this assessment.

This report is the product of that review. It was prepared by OIR Group, a team of private consultants that specializes in police practices and the civilian oversight of law enforcement. Since 2001, OIR Group has worked exclusively with government entities in a variety of contexts related to independent outside review of law enforcement, from investigation to monitoring to systems evaluation. Our members have provided oversight in jurisdictions throughout California, as well as in several other states.

Playa del Rey, CA:  OIR Group, 2020. 74p.

By The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science

 In 2019, the Chicago Police Department, in partnership with the Policing Project at New York University (NYU), implemented the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative (CNPI). This initiative is composed of two interrelated goals: To measure CNPI’s impact, CORNERS built a multi-method research design capturing perspectives of residents and police in CNPI districts through in-depth interviews, systematic observations at police and community meetings and events, quasi-experimental statistical analyses, and analysis of key documents detailing CNPI activities.

Chicago: The Center, Northwestern University, 2023. 66p.

By The Center for Public Safety Management

The Center for Public Safety Management, LLC (CPSM) was commissioned to review the operations of the Little Rock Police Department. While our analysis covered all aspects of the department’s operations, particular areas of focus of this study included: identifying appropriate staffing of the department given the workload, community demographics, and crime levels; the effectiveness of the organizational structure; and efficiency and effectiveness of division/unit processes. We analyzed the department workload using operations research methodology and compared that workload to staffing and deployment levels. We reviewed other performance indicators that enabled us to understand the implications of service demand on current staffing. Our study involved data collection, interviews with key operational and administrative personnel, focus groups with line level department personnel, on-site observations of the job environment, data analysis, comparative analysis, and the development of alternatives and recommendations. Based upon CPSM’s detailed assessment of the Little Rock Police Department, it is our conclusion that the department, overall, provides quality law enforcement services. The staff is professional and dedicated to the mission of the department. Through this report, we will strive to allow the reader to take a look inside the department to understand its strengths and its challenges. We sincerely hope that all parties utilize the information and recommendations contained herein in a constructive manner to make a fine law enforcement agency even better. As part of this Executive Summary, we offer general observations that we believe identify some of the more significant issues facing the department. Additionally, we also list key recommendations for consideration; we believe these recommendations will enhance organizational effectiveness. Some of these recommendations involve the creation of new job classifications; others involve the reassignment/repurposing of job duties to other sections and units. Oftentimes these types of recommendations require a substantial financial commitment on the part of a jurisdiction. In the case of the Little Rock Police Department, some may be accomplished by a realignment of workload and/or reclassification of job descriptions. It is important to note that in this report we will examine specific sections and units of the department and will offer a discussion of our observations and recommendations for each.

• More...

  The list of recommendations is extensive. Should the Little Rock Police Department choose to implement any or all recommendations, it must be recognized that this process will not take just weeks or even months to complete, but perhaps years. The recommendations are intended to form the basis of a long-term improvement plan for the city and department. It is important that we emphasize that this list of recommendations, though lengthy, is common in our operational assessments of agencies around the country and should in no way be interpreted as an indictment of what we consider to be a fine department. While all of the recommendations are important, we suggest the Little Rock Police Department in conjunction with other city departments, the city council, the city manager, and members of the community decide which recommendations should take priority for implementation.   

Washington, DC: Center for Public Safety Management, 2022. 212p.

By Andrew Bacher-Hicks and Elijah de la Campa

Millions of Americans—particularly young men of color—are stopped on the street by police
each year. This form of proactive policing has been embraced by cities across the country as a
way to maintain order in high-crime neighborhoods and deter more serious crimes before they
occur. However, civilian stops rarely lead to an arrest and little is known about the social
impacts of frequent, unproductive interactions with police. In this paper, we leverage the quasi-
random movement of New York City police commanders across police precincts to estimate the
net impact of stop and frisk policing on students’ long-run educational attainment. We find that
a commander’s predicted effects on stops—based on data from one precinct—is highly predictive of changes in average stops after that commander enters a new precinct. We find that increased exposure to police stops has negative effects on high school graduation, college enrollment, and college persistence. These effects are substantially larger for black students, the racial group overwhelmingly stopped by police. However, we also find increases in overall school safety and evidence of positive spillovers for white and Asian students, who are less likely to interact with the police directly. These results highlight the social effects of criminal justice policy and have important implications for inequality.

Working paper, 2020. 60p.

By Sally Harvey

This literature review summarises the findings of international studies of what works in police practice to reduce residential burglary, drawing largely on the outcomes of research in the UK, the US and Australia. Residential burglary is one of the most common crimes, of great concern to the general public as reflected in crime victim surveys, and regarded as a major problem by police forces studied in the literature. Internationally there has been an increasing adoption of proactive policing with considerable research effort aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of crime prevention approaches. As part of this evaluative effort, the question ‘what works?’ has been applied to initiatives to reduce residential burglary.

Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Justice, 2005. 114p.

Edited by Gorazd Meško, Charles B. Fields, Branko Lobnikar and Andrej Sotlar

Policing in Central and Eastern Europe has changed greatly since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Some Central and Eastern European countries are constituent members of the European Union, while others have been trying to harmonize with the EU and international requirements for a more democratic policing and developments in accordance with Western European and international policing standards, especially in regard to issues of legality and legitimacy. This timely volume examines developments in the last two decade to learn the nature of these changes within Central and Eastern Europe, and their impact on police culture, as well as on society as a whole.

For the twenty countries covered, this systematic work provides: short country-based information on police organization and social control, crime and disorder trends in the last 20 years with an on policing, police training and police educational systems, changes in policing in the last 20 years, police and the media, present trends in policing (public and private, multilateral, plural policing), policing urban and rural communities, recent research trends in research on policing – specificities of research on police and policing (researchers and the police, inclusion of police researchers in policy making and police practice) and future developments in policing.

Cham: Springer, 2013. 332p.

Read/Download

By Aaron Chalfin, David Mitre-Becerril and Morgan C. Williams, Jr.

In December 2014 and January 2015, police officers in New York City engaged in an organized slowdown of police work to protest the murder of two police officers who were targeted by a gunman while sitting in their patrol car. An influential 2017 article in Nature Human Behaviour studies the effect of the NYPD’s work slowdown on major crimes and concludes that the slowdown led to a significant improvement in public safety. Contrary to the remainder of the literature, the authors conclude that proactive policing can cause an increase in crime. We re-evaluate this claim and point out several fatal weaknesses in the authors’ analysis that call this finding into question. In particular, we note that there was considerable variation in the intensity of the slowdown across NYC communities and that the communities which experienced a more pronounced reduction in police proactivity did not experience the largest reductions in major crime. The authors’ analysis constitutes a quintessential example of an ecological fallacy in statistical reasoning, a logical miscalculation in which inferences from aggregated data are mistakenly applied to a more granular phenomenon. We raise several additional and equally compelling concerns regarding the tests presented in the paper and conclude that there is little evidence that the slowdown led to short-term changes in major crimes in either direction.

Department of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania. Department of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University , 2021. 38p.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term “proactive policing” to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred.

Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing.

Proactive Policing reviews the evidence and discusses the data and methodological gaps on: (1) the effects of different forms of proactive policing on crime; (2) whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner; (3) whether they are being used in a legal fashion; and (4) community reaction. This report offers a comprehensive evaluation of proactive policing that includes not only its crime prevention impacts but also its broader implications for justice and U.S. communities.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2018. 408p. .

By Arbet Fetiu and Pablo Madriaza

For the purposes of this study, we adopted the following working definition of "radicalization leading to violence": [translation] "the process whereby an individual or group adopts a violent form of action, directly related to a politically, socially or religiously motivated extremist ideology that challenges the established political, social or cultural order" (Khosrokhavar, 2014, pp. 8-9). Although this definition guided our research, it was merely a working definition; a systematic review requires the inclusion of numerous viewpoints and specific definitions used by the different researchers.

International Centre for the Prevention of Crime. Montreal. Quebec. 2015. 147p.