Evidence-based policing

?
  • Created by: amyoakey
  • Created on: 26-12-19 14:26

What is it? Example

  •       “Of all the ideas about policing, one stands out as the most powerful force for change: police practices should be based on scientific evidence about what works best” (Sherman, 1998, p. 2).
  •        Officers, supervisors and command staff should not only be armed with the right equipment, knowledge of the law, proper procedures, and defensive protection, but also have as much knowledge about what tactics and strategies work best to fight crime so that they can make good decisions while patrolling or carrying out investigations.
  •        Scared straight program - program brings youth offenders to visit maximum-security prisons to see the severity.
1 of 6

What is its significance?

  • Proactive rather than reactive
  • Tailored and focused rather than general in nature
  • place-oriented as opposed to focusing only on people and reactive arrests.
  • A change in practice such as police applying knowledge from training, systematically collecting data and observations, using scientific methods (experiments, analysis, prediction, evaluation) to assess and guide practice,
2 of 6

Why important in period of Austerity?

When looking at informal and formal deterrents to domestic abuse, it was found that the per cent with a subsequent assault of someone who was unemployed was at 16.7% out of twenty, when those who are employed are only at 6.2% out of twenty. Those who are poorer may just be arrested due to looking poor in a situation but those who are employed and have good money behind them, maybe classed as just an argument, 

3 of 6

problems?

The matrix demonstration project team

  • While proactive, place-based, and tailored/focused strategies can be very effective in reducing, preventing and controlling crime, these approaches are new to policing and also "go against the grain" of traditional policing.
  • The 911 system ingrains a reactive, response-only approach to policing, overemphasizing responding to calls for service rather than preventive approaches that can reduce calls for service.
  • Training in the academy focuses on reinforcing a procedures-based, reactive approach to policing, which also can overemphasize this function of law enforcement.
  • Crime analysis may not be readily available to give officers a more accurate understanding of hot spots of crime, repeat offenders, location of high-risk addresses, or trends in the beat. 
  • There are also arguments that officers are too busy to be proactive. Yet we know that anywhere between 40-80% of an officer’s time is not spent answering calls for service and is uncommitted.
4 of 6

Displacement of crime?

Hesseling, 1994 - 5 possible types of displacement 

  • Alternative opportunities might be found in other geographical locations (spatial displacement)
  • at other times (temporal displacement)
  • or for other targets (target displacement) 
  • they may be made possible through the use of methods or tools not previously employed (tactical displacement)
  • or an offender may focus on a different outcome, such as committing theft against the person rather than a burglary (crime type displacement).
5 of 6

Arguments

Johnson, Guertte & Bowers, 2014.

The notion that crime will simply relocate in the aftermath of situational focused crime prevention is absent in the research literature. 

Clarke and Weisburd (1994)

Clarke and Weisburd (1994) argued that interventions could actually reduce the risk of crime to targets not directly subject to intervention, such as those located nearby. They termed this possibility a Diffusion of crime control benefits

Johnson, Guerrette & Bowers (2014); Telep, Weisburd, Gill, Vitter & Teichman (2014)

Systematic reviews suggest that the most likely outcome in situational crime prevention is neither displacement or diffusion. Evidence suggests these can positively reduce crime and disorder and positively improve police-community relations. 

6 of 6

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar Criminology resources:

See all Criminology resources »See all policing resources »