This guide addresses homeless encampments, also known as transient camps. It begins by describing the problem and reviewing factors that contribute to it. It then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem and what is known about them from evaluative research and police practice. Homeless encampments are only one aspect of the larger set of problems related to homelessness, street life, and public disorder.
This guide addresses effective responses to the problem of graffiti—the wide range of markings, etchings, and paintings that deface public or private property. In recent decades, graffiti has become an extensive problem, spreading from the largest cities to other locales. Despite the common association of graffiti with gangs, graffiti is widely found in jurisdictions of all sizes, and graffiti offenders are by no means limited to gangs.
This guide deals with “gas drive-offs”—a form of theft in which motorists intentionally drive away from a convenience store or gasoline service station without paying for gas they have pumped into their vehicle’s tanks. The guide reviews factors that are correlated with an increased risk of this crime. It also covers employee theft related to gas sales; for example, when attendants make false reports of drive-offs and pocket the money the driver paid. The guide then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local gas drive-off problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem and what is known about these from research and police practice.
By Dennis Cheng
Extortion has become an endemic problem in Central America. To provide a comprehensive response to this crime, the countries of the region have begun to make use of asset forfeiture, a tool that reduces the financial assets available to organized crime.
This paper describes how this legal procedure has evolved and been applied in the region, sets out the advantages it offers in the fight against organized crime and proposes strategies for better implementation.
Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 18p,
By Kim Shayo Buchanan, Hilary Rau, Kerry Mulligan, Tracie Keesee, and Phillip Atiba Goff
Whether a group is dedicated to racism (a “hate group”), or advocates the overthrow of elected governments (a “paramilitary gang”), or both—no police officer or law enforcement agency should support or affiliate with it. Officers who support or affiliate with hate groups and paramilitary gangs undermine the mission of their law enforcement agency by allying themselves with lawbreakers and by undermining the department’s efforts to ensure equitable policing and earn community trust. These guidelines aim to assist law enforcement to 1) identify, discipline, and remove officers who intentionally affiliate with hate groups or paramilitary gangs, and 2) adopt institutional values, policies, and rules that will allow for no mistake about the department’s position: it is not appropriate for a law enforcement agency or a police officer to support or affiliate with hate groups or paramilitary gangs. We recommend that law enforcement agencies (“LEAs”) adopt the rules and best practices set out below, and make them public.
West Hollywood, CA: Center for Policing Equity, 2022. 24p.
By James R. Gillham
This book evaluates the newest efforts and initiative aimed at preventing burglary, discusses their merits and short- comings, and suggests how improvements might be incorporated in burglary prevention programs.
New York: Springer Verlag, 1991. 203p.
Edited by Ronald Clarke and Tim Hope
This book contains the papers given at a workshop organised by the Home Office (England and Wales) on the subject of residential burglary. This is a topic of much public concern, and I welcome the Home Office initiative in mounting the workshop. The contributors were all researchers and criminologists who have made a special study of burglary, and their brief was to consider the implications of their work for policy. As a policeman, I find their work of particular interest and relevance at this time when police performance, as traditionally measured by the clear-up rate, is not keeping pace with the increase in the numbers of burglaries coming to police attention. The finding that increases in burglary are more reflective of the public's reporting habits than of any significant rise in the actual level of burglary helps with perspective but offers little comfort to policemen. The 600/0 increase in the official statistics since 1970 is accompanied by a proportionate increase in police work in visiting victims, searching scenes of crime, writing crime reports, and completing other documentation. In some forces the point has been reached where available detective time is so taken up by the volume of visits and reports that there is little remaining for actual investigation. But because of the random and opportunist nature of burglary, it cannot be said with any confidence that increasing investigative capacity would make a significant and lasting impact on the overall burglary figures.
Netherlands: Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff Pub., 1984. 271p.
By Andromachi Tseloni, Rebecca Thompson and Nick Tilley
This work provides an overview of the scope of the problem and what can be done about it, drawing on extensive research evidence from projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (SDAI), and other sources. It reports detailed findings about which interventions are most effective for different population groups and how these measures can be implemented. It includes burglary prevention advice for homeowners, law enforcement and other public agencies, and makes recommendations for future research. In addition to being relevant to concerned citizens, police, policy-makers and crime prevention practitioners, this book will also be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice particularly those working on security and crime prevention, as well as urban planning and public policy.
Cham: Springer, 2018. 308p.
By Robin Cuypers, Pieter Raymaekers and Steven Van de Walle
The goal of this report is to provide policymakers with an overview of behavioural insights and interventions that aim to increase citizens’ awareness of domestic burglary prevention and encourage them to take prevention measures. In the report, we construct an evaluation framework and provide recommendations for four policy measures: neighbourhood watch groups; security surveys; police advice and police labels. We evaluate these measures using behavioural models, the Taxonomy of Choice Architecture Techniques and the EMMIE framework…..We recommend the simultaneous use of behavioural and traditional prevention measures, targeting both the intuitive and the reflective, the conscious and the unconscious, and the rational and emotional underpinnings of people’s decision making processes
Brussels: European Crime Prevention Network, 2022. 56p.
By Roger Matthews
Prostitution has become an extremely topical issue in recent years and attention has focused both on the situation of female prostitutes and the adequacy of existing forms of regulation. Prostitution, Politics & Policy brings together the main debates and issues associated with prostitution in order to examine the range of policy options that are available.
Governments in different parts of the world have been struggling to develop constructive policies to deal with prostitution – as, for example, the British Home Office recently instigated a £1.5 million programme to help address the perceived problems of prostitution. In the context of this struggle, and amidst the publication of various policy documents, <EM>Prostitution, Politics & Policy develops a fresh approach to understanding this issue, while presenting a range of what are seen as progressive and radical policy proposals. Much of the debate around prostitution has been polarized between liberals – who want prostitution decriminalized, normalized and humanized – and conservatives – who have argued that prostitution should be abolished. But, drawing on a wide range of international literature, and providing an overview that is both accessible to students and relevant to policy makers and practitioners, Roger Matthews proposes a form of radical realism that is irreducible to either of these two positions.
Milton Park, Abingdon, UK: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008. 176p.
By Serguei Cheloukhine
This Brief provides an in-depth look at crime and corruption in Russian Law Enforcement, in the fifteen years since the 2009 police reforms. It focuses on corruption and organized crime at various levels of public services and law enforcement, how these organized crime networks operate, and how to enhance police integrity and legitimacy in this context.
It begins with a short overview of the history of law enforcement in the Soviet and Post-Soviet context, and the scope of organized crime on the operations of local businesses, public services, and bureaucratic offices. It provides an in depth examination of how organized crime developed in this context, to fill a void between the supply and demand of various goods and services. Based on an in-depth survey of police integrity and corruption in Russia, it provides key insights into how countries in a transition to democracy can maintain and enhance legitimacy of their police force.
Cham: Springer, 2017. 84p.
By Steve Herbert
Policing Space is a fascinating firsthand account of how the Los Angeles Police Department attempts to control its vast, heterogeneous territory. As such, the book offers a rare, ground-level look at the relationship between the control of space and the exercise of power. Author Steve Herbert spent eight months observing one patrol division of the LAPD on the job. A compelling story in itself, his fieldwork with the officers in the Wilshire Division affords readers a close view of the complex factors at play in how the police define and control territory, how they make and mark space.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 208p.
By Kam C. Wong
With nearly 20 percent of the world’s population located in China, what happens there is significant to all nations. Sweeping changes have altered the cultural landscape of China, and as opportunities for wealth have grown in recent years, so have opportunities for crime. Police Reform in China provides a rare and insightful glimpse of policing in the midst of such change. The book begins with a historical account of police reform in the region since 2000. Next, it discusses the difficulties encountered in trying to understand Chinese policing, such as outdated perceptions, misinformation, cultural ignorance, ideological hegemony, and problems with paternalistic attitudes. … Demonstrating how old ideologies are increasingly in conflict with the values and lifestyles of a new mentality, the book discusses steps that can be taken to improve professionalism. The final chapters investigate such problems as abuses of discretion and the improper use of firearms and highlight the importance of understanding the Chinese people, culture, values, and interests in order to truly effectuate successful police reform.
Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2011. 416p.
By David G. Bolgiano, L. Morgan Banks, III, et al.
A vigorous assessment and commentary on governmental uses of force, whether by civilian law enforcement officers in the United States or by military service members overseas, 'Virtuous Policing' presents strategies to ease rising tensions in citizen-law enforcement relations. The book particularly addresses the growing division between members of the police and citizenry due to a number of factors, including the effects of some press members who are more interested in cultivating sensational stories of 'rogue' cops than in discovering and disseminating facts
Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press [Imprint] Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. 256p.
Edited by Mike Stephens and Saul Becker
British policing faces major decisions about its future direction. Should it promote itself as a police force, dedicated to the attack on crime and public disorder, or should it adopt the mantle of police service, devoted to providing reassurance, flexibility to community wishes, and care? These are the critical decisions that the police face. The choice made will have implications for all citizens in our society. Together, a panel of eminent contributors examine the issues involved in this choice. They push the debate forward and show how complex are the interconnections between care and control within British policing. The implications are far-reaching and will influence not only the quality of policing but also the quality of life for all of us.
Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK:Palgrave Macmillan, 1994. 256p.
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.
By Tim Newburn
This new edition of the Handbook of Policing updates and expands the highly successful first edition, and now includes a completely new chapter on policing and forensics. It provides a comprehensive but highly readable overview of policing in the UK, and is an essential reference point combining the expertise of leading academic experts on policing and policing practitioners themselves.
Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 1994. 904p.
By Graham Denyer Willis
Shows how in Sao Paulo, Brazil, killing and the arbitration of normal killing in the name of social order are actually conducted by two groups the police and organized crime both operating according to parallel logics of murder.
Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015. 216p
By Cecilia MacDowell Santos
Women's Police Stations examines the changing and complex relationship between women and the state, and the construction of gendered citizenship. These are police stations run exclusively by police women for women with the authority to investigate crimes against women, such as domestic violence, assault, and rape. S?o Paulo was the home of the first such police station, and there are now more than 300 women's police stations throughout Brazil. Cecilia MacDowell Santos examines the importance of this phenomenon in book form for the first time, looking at the dynamics of the relationship between women and the state as a consequence of a political regime as well as other factors, and exploring the notion of gendered citizenship.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 246p.
Edited by Vicente Riccio and Wesley G. Skogan
In Brazil, where crime is closely associated with social inequality and failure of the criminal justice system, the police are considered by most to be corrupt, inefficient, and violent, especially when occupying poor areas, and they lack the widespread legitimacy enjoyed by police forces in many nations in the northern hemisphere. This text covers hot-button issues like urban pacification squads, gangs, and drugs, as well as practical topics such as policy, dual civil and military models, and gender relations.
The latest volume in the renowned Advances in Police Theory and Practice Series, Police and Society in Brazil fills a gap in the English literature about policing in a nation that currently ranks sixth in number of homicides. It is a must-read for criminal justice practitioners, as well as students of international policing.
New York: Routledge, 2017. 206p.