problem solving policing is proactive rather than reactive

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Research Will Shape the Future of Proactive Policing

Proactive policing — strategies and tools for stopping crime before it occurs — appears to be here to stay, but important challenges persist. Some relate to constructing more reliable measures of effectiveness — for instance, how to measure a strategy’s impact on crime when residents are reluctant to report it. Others are inherent in the approach, such as how to harmonize preventive strategies with community interests and protection of residents’ legal rights.

Research already in hand has persuaded leading criminologists that certain types of proactive policing, such as aspects of hot spots policing, can curb crime, especially in the near term and in targeted areas. Particularly in larger cities, law enforcement is leveraging powerful computer-based algorithms that analyze big data to isolate crime breeding grounds (place-based policing) and to pinpoint those likely to commit future offenses (person-based policing).

Where proactive policing theory and practice will lead law enforcement in coming years, researchers note, will depend in part on efforts to address research-related concerns such as:

• A need for wider use of more exacting research designs, such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs), to better evaluate the merits and replicability of promising policing methods.
• A need for more accurate measures of program success or failure, given recognition of the insufficiency of conventional measures. (For example, a low rate of calls for police service could reflect residents’ reluctance to report crime, rather than low crime.)
• Continued progress in convincing law enforcement leaders to advance high-utility research by executing protocols with fidelity to the model and adopting scientifically sound best practices.

At the same time, proactive policing approaches face the challenge of maintaining or strengthening law enforcement’s connections with the community — by continually building trust and working to institutionalize respect for residents’ legal rights while targeting persons who commit violent offenses. One concern related to community interests is the potential for data analysis algorithms to skew proactive policing activities in communities.    

If past is prologue, NIJ will remain a principal driver of proactive policing research nationally by funding and managing empirical studies along the spectrum of proactive policing approaches. As NIJ Director David B. Muhlhausen observed in a January 2018 column, “The promise of proactive policing strategies makes it critical that we understand their effectiveness through rigorous and replicable research.” [1]

Muhlhausen acknowledged the impact of a recent comprehensive study of proactive policing by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, funded in part by NIJ. The November 2017 National Academies final report, Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities, concluded after scouring the field of research that certain proactive policing methods are succeeding at reducing crime. [2] At the same time, the National Academies pointed to extensive gaps in proactive policing research as well as evidence that certain once-promising proactive policing approaches have not proved to be effective.

Calling recent decades a “golden age” of policing research, the National Academies report urged intensified research assessing the promise of proactive policing. “Much has been learned over the past two decades about proactive policing practices,” the report states. “But, now that scientific support for these approaches has accumulated, it is time for greater investment in understanding what is cost effective, how such strategies can be maximized to improve the relationships between the police and the public, and how they can be applied in ways that do not lead to violations of the law by police.”

Defining Proactive Policing

The term “proactive policing” encompasses a number of methods designed to reduce crime by using prevention strategies. By definition, it stands in contrast to conventional “reactive” policing, which for the most part responds to crime that has occurred. The National Academies report underscored that the intended meaning of proactive policing is broad and inclusive: “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. Specifically, the elements of proactivity include an emphasis on prevention, mobilizing resources based on police initiative, and targeting the broader underlying forces at work that may be driving crime and disorder.”

The report identified four categories within proactive policing: place-based, person-focused, problem-oriented, and community-based. Exhibit 1 presents descriptions of these classifications and the primary policing strategies that fall under each.

Notes from Table

[table note 1] National Institute of Justice, “ How to Identify Hotspots and Read a Crime Map ,” May 2010.

[table note 2] National Institute of Justice, “ Predictive Policing ,” June 2014.

[table note 3] National Institute of Justice, CrimeSolutions, “ Practice Profile: Focused Deterrence Strategies .”

[table note 4] National Institute of Justice, CrimeSolutions, “ Program Profile: Stop, Question, and Frisk in New York City .”

[table note 5] National Institute of Justice, CrimeSolutions, “ Practice Profile: Problem-Oriented Policing .”

[table note 6] Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Community Policing Defined (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, April 2009), 3.

[table note 7] Tom Tyler, “What Are Legitimacy and Procedural Justice in Policing? And Why Are They Becoming Key Elements of Police Leadership?” in Legitimacy and Procedural Justice: A New Element of Police Leadership, ed. Craig Fisher (Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 2014), 5, 9.

[table note 8] Tyler, “What Are Legitimacy and Procedural Justice in Policing?,” 9-10.

[table note 9] Robert J. Sampson and Stephen W. Raudenbush, Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods—Does It Lead to Crime ?, Research in Brief (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, February 2001), NCJ 186049; and George L. Kelling, “Broken Windows” and Police Discretion , Research Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, October 1999), NCJ 178259.

In the field, however, the lines between categories of proactive policing are often blurred. For example, William Ford, an NIJ physical scientist and senior science advisor, pointed out that a hot spots policing program — focusing resources on small, concentrated crime zones — may employ aspects of one or more other proactive policing approaches such as focused deterrence, community policing, or problem-oriented policing. That complexity can complicate evaluations of any one policing method.

History and NIJ’s Role

To discern NIJ’s role in proactive policing research going forward, Ford said, “Attention must be paid to the past, because we paved that ground.”

Early iterations of experimental proactive policing were innovative foot patrols focused on preventing crime and assessing the impact of patrolling squad cars. In the early 1970s, the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment yielded the fresh insight that routine patrolling in police cars was of limited value in preventing crime and making residents feel safer.

In the 1980s, studies of the source of 911 calls in Minneapolis helped lay the cornerstone of place-based policing, including hot spots techniques.

See the related article “From Crime Mapping to Crime Forecasting: The Evolution of Place-Based Policing”

In the 1990s, community policing took root, said Joel Hunt, NIJ senior computer scientist. By the 2000s, computers were supplanting push pins and wall-mounted crime maps. Data-driven policing strategies — typically employing algorithm-controlled electronic maps — began to emerge in the same decade, with extensive NIJ support. Focused deterrence, a strategy designed to discourage crime by confronting high-risk individuals and convincing them that punishment will be certain, swift, and severe, is a product of the current decade.

Collectively, research to date has discerned a stronger overall crime-reduction effect from place-based strategies — such as certain hot spots policing approaches — than from person-based strategies such as focused deterrence, Hunt noted. However, a recent meta-analysis of focused deterrence strategies by Anthony A. Braga, David Weisburd, and Brandon Turchan found that interventions that targeted gangs/groups and high-risk individuals were most effective in reducing crime. [3] The authors concluded that “the largest impacts are found for programs focused on the most violent offenders.” [4]

One example of a person-focused program initially falling short of expectations is the Strategic Subjects List pilot program implemented by the Chicago Police Department in 2013. The list consisted of 426 individuals calculated to be at highest risk of gun violence. The design called for interventions aimed at reducing violence by and toward those on the list, with a resultant reduction in the city homicide rate. An NIJ-sponsored study by RAND Corporation researchers found, however, that the Chicago pilot effort “does not appear to have been successful in reducing gun violence.” [5]

New NIJ funding is aimed at clarifying the factors informing commercial algorithms that drive certain proactive approaches, Hunt said. Work also continues on police legitimacy — establishing trust in the community’s eyes — and procedural justice, which falls under community policing.

Pushing for More Rigorous Research Methodologies

The National Academies and NIJ agree on the need for enhanced experimental program evaluations through rigorous RCTs. However, the conclusion by the National Academies that focused deterrence policy is effective is solely based on a number of quasi-experiments. RCTs randomly divide an experiment’s subjects into groups that receive the experimental treatment and control groups that do not. There is broad agreement that RCTs are generally the best methodology for establishing causality. To improve the scientific rigor of policing research, NIJ’s 2018 policing research solicitation made it clear that projects employing RCTs would be favored going forward.

As NIJ Director Muhlhausen explained during the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, “RCTs are a powerful tool in understanding what works and is scalable across contexts. When we know what works, we can fund what works.”

RCTs are valued as more reliable scientific methods not only for evaluating whether new policing methods work and can be replicated, but also for testing previous findings of less precise methods. For example, with support from NIJ and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, researchers employed RCTs to assess the effectiveness of a focused deterrence program model previously used to break up a drug market in a small Southern city. The original research, employing a quasi-experimental technique limited to that single site, found the treatment to be effective. But the subsequent RCT, using seven different areas, did not validate that finding: The treatment was found to be ineffective in three of five sites where implemented, while two sites were unable to implement it, researchers reported in 2017. [6]

NIJ scientists caution that RCTs, for all their benefits, are not a magic bullet for all experimental settings. “There are limits on situations in which they can be administered effectively,” said Hunt. For example, he said, “I can’t randomize where incidents occur, only the treatment, and then only in some cases.” Further, police chiefs can be reluctant to give a perceived treatment “benefit” to one group while denying it to control groups, Hunt added. RCTs can also be complex, partly because after the random assignment of subjects, researchers must examine key variables to ensure that treatments and control groups are properly split on those variables (e.g., age, race, and gender). RCTs can also be relatively costly to administer. However, RCTs are still the best research design available for establishing causality. NIJ strives to do RCTs wherever possible.

Representative Research in Process

NIJ’s 2017 grant solicitation statement in the policing strategies and practices area called for research on place- or person-based projects that can reduce crime “with minimal negative collateral consequences,” such as heightened community distrust of law enforcement. The 2017 solicitation thus embodied the NIJ five-year strategic plan’s emphasis on evaluating community engagement strategies and building community trust and confidence in law enforcement.

Two projects funded by NIJ in 2017 focus on evaluating the community impact of hot spots policing and problem-oriented policing initiatives, including development of new measures of law enforcement effectiveness. They are:

• A study of the impact of different strategies within hot spots on citizens’ perceptions of police in a Midwestern university town. The purpose is to demonstrate that police-community relations and police legitimacy can be strengthened, even in a hot spots policing environment.
• A 30-month RCT study of 100 hot spots in two medium-size Southeastern cities. The study is using community surveys designed to move “beyond unreported crime to also measure perceptions of safety, police legitimacy, and collective efficacy” (an overall community-police relations measurement). On the law enforcement side, the study team is also examining officer morale, officers’ perceptions of their roles, police-community relations, and the program’s impact on law enforcement policies and practice.

The 30-month study, with its call for new measures of the impact and effectiveness of policing methods, reflects a concern that simplistic measures of law enforcement success, such as number of arrests or citizen calls for service, are often misleading.

Demystifying Policing Algorithms

Algorithms inform law enforcement strategies by sorting and analyzing sometimes massive amounts of crime data to identify the highest risk places and individuals. NIJ currently supports research measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of commercial algorithms that are marketed to law enforcement agencies for crime mapping and related approaches. At the same time, NIJ scientists are comparing a naive algorithm model to contest entries from the Real-Time Crime Forecasting Challenge. (A naive model is one that assumes what happened before is what will happen next; e.g., the model forecasts that crime will occur this month in the place it occurred last month.)

Hunt, who is leading that in-house study, said commonplace scientific concerns with algorithm-dependent law enforcement strategies include the quality of data going in, how the data are introduced to the algorithm, and “what we do with the numbers at the back end.” Hunt observed that a crime data sample — and thus data-dependent algorithm output — can be biased when, for instance, community members no longer report crime.

Indeed, fewer than half of all violent and property crimes are reported to the police, according to the latest National Crime Victimization Survey. [7] Similarly, homicide clearance rates have reached near-record lows in several major U.S. cities due to increasing gang violence, witness intimidation, and a lack of community cooperation with law enforcement. [8] “Mutual cooperation between the police and the community is essential to solving crimes,” said NIJ Director Muhlhausen. “Unfortunately, some community members refuse to cooperate with criminal investigations, even though law enforcement is legitimately trying to serve and protect their community.”

Hunt said NIJ is pushing for greater transparency on the scientific foundations of support for commercial policing algorithms — that is, less of a “black box” approach by vendors. Academic researchers YongJei Lee, SooHyun O, and John E. Eck, the three members of a team that was among the winners of NIJ’s 2016 Real-Time Crime Forecasting Challenge, wrote that a lack of transparency and a “lack of theoretical support for existing forecasting software” are common problems with proprietary hot spots forecasting products. [9]

Procedural Justice

The National Academies report on proactive policing pointed to procedural justice as one of the methods lacking adequate research evidence to support — or to preclude — its effectiveness. NIJ is working to grow that evidence base through projects such as an ongoing police-university research partnership in a medium-size Mid-Atlantic city, funded in 2016. The research was designed to use surveys and other techniques to gauge police and citizen perceptions of procedural justice issues and to forge a better understanding of the benefits of procedural justice training, body-worn cameras, and the mechanisms of public cooperation, trust, and satisfaction.

One recent NIJ-supported study casts new doubt on the effectiveness of procedural justice training in a specific police application. The Seattle Police Department conducted training to “slow down” the thought processes of police officers during citizen encounters to reduce negative outcomes. The selected officers were deemed to be at risk because (1) they had worked in hot spots or other high-crime city areas, and (2) they had been involved in incidents in which they were injured or used force, or where a complaint had been filed about the officer or the incident.

As reported in NIJ’s CrimeSolutions.ojp.gov, a central web resource to help practitioners and policymakers learn what works in justice-related programs and practices, the Seattle Police procedural justice training initiative was rated as having “no effects,” positive or negative, on procedural justice in the community. [10] The rating was based on a study [11] utilizing an RCT of the program. The RCT found no statistically significant differences between the treatment group and the control group in the percentage of incidents resulting in an arrest, the number of times force was used, the number of incidents resulting in citizen complaints, and other key measures.

One challenge for research on justice-focused policing methods such as procedural justice and police legitimacy — as important as they may be to the ultimate goal of respecting citizens’ rights under law — has been distinguishing their impact from that of routine policing. Brett Chapman, an NIJ social science analyst, said of procedural justice generally that although the work is important, one “challenge is trying to demonstrate how it is dramatically different from what police have been doing for years.”

Research Quality Depends on Execution

Even if an experimental design is flawless, outcome quality can depend on agency cooperation and performance. For example, an NIJ-sponsored 2012 research report on a randomized trial of broken windows policing in three Western cities concluded that the results were negatively affected by problematic execution by the responsible law enforcement agencies. [12]

NIJ operates a national initiative designed to build law enforcement agency research competence. The Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science (LEADS) Scholars program develops the research capability of midcareer law enforcement professionals from agencies committed to infusing science into their policy and practice. LEADS scholars learn the latest research developments and carry that knowledge to the field.

Proactive Policing and the Fourth Amendment

On the street, the impact of proactive policing methods that involve law enforcement confronting suspects will be measured against the rule of law, including the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The boundaries concerning unlawful treatment of suspects by law enforcement are not always distinct. In 2000, the Supreme Court held in Illinois v. Wardlow [13] that police may conduct a street stop of a suspect with a lower threshold of reasonable suspicion if the stop occurs in a high-crime area. Thus, an individual’s particular location may effectively reduce his or her rights in a law enforcement interaction. Implicit in that location-specific adjustment of suspects’ rights is the Court’s recognition that, in those crime-prone areas, innocent citizens are at heightened risk of becoming victims of crime.

Rachel Harmon, a University of Virginia law professor, and a colleague pointed out in “Proactive Policing and the Legacy of Terry,” [14] “So long as police focus on high crime areas, they can effectively lower the behavior-based suspicious activity demanded for each stop.” Yet as scholar Andrew Guthrie Ferguson and a colleague observed in 2008, [15] the Supreme Court has not defined a high-crime area for Fourth Amendment purposes.

Whether or to what extent a law enforcement strategy can exist in harmony with Fourth Amendment protections will depend on program particulars. In Floyd v. City of New York , [16] a federal district court held in 2013 that New York City’s stop and frisk policy at the time represented unconstitutional profiling and barred the practice. But the Floyd proscription was limited to excessive aspects of stop and frisk in New York.

David L. Weisburd, an author of the National Academies study and the executive director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, noted but took exception to a narrative he sees being advanced by some scholars and commentators that deterrence-based policing strategies make constitutional violations inevitable. In a 2016 paper in the University of Chicago Legal Forum specifically referencing hot spots policing, Weisburd posited “that hot spots policing properly implemented is likely to lead to less biased policing than traditional strategies. Moreover, there is little evidence that hot spots policing per se leads to abusive policing practices.” [17]

Rachel Harmon and her colleague sounded a similar theme, relative to stop and frisk policies, in her 2017 article referenced above: “Although the proactive use of stops and frisks may make constitutional violations more likely, it seems feasible to design a proactive strategy that uses stops and frisks aggressively and still complies with constitutional law.” [18]

The Harmon article further argued that proactive strategies such as hot spots and preventive policing can avoid constitutional peril “by narrowing proactive policing geographically rather than demographically.” Thus, in Harmon’s view, “the same focused strategies that are most likely to produce stops that satisfy the Fourth Amendment may also be the most likely to be carried out effectively and without discrimination.” [19]

Weisburd, in his 2016 paper, identified a need for new proactive programming that aspires to broad justice impacts. He called for “a new generation of programs and practices that attempts to maximize crime control and legitimacy simultaneously.” [20] The contemporary NIJ-supported, community-focused research noted above seeks new pathways for harmonizing proactive policing strategies with progress on community justice values

About this Article

This article was published as part of NIJ Journal issue number 281 , released October 2019.

[note 1] David B. Muhlhausen, “ Director’s Message: Proactive Policing — What We Know and What We Don’t Know, Yet ,” National Institute of Justice, January 17, 2018.

[note 2] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2018).

[note 3] Anthony A. Braga, David Weisburd, and Brandon Turchan, “Focused Deterrence Strategies to Reduce Crime: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Evidence,” Criminology & Public Policy 17 no. 1 (2018): 205-250.

[note 4] Braga et al., p. 239.

[note 5] Jessica Saunders, Priscillia Hunt, and John S. Hollywood, “Predictions Put Into Practice: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of Chicago’s Predictive Policing Pilot,” Journal of Experimental Criminology 12 no. 3 (2016): 347, 366, doi:10.1007/s11292-016-9272-0.

[note 6] Jessica Saunders, Michael Robbins, and Allison J. Ober, “Moving from Efficacy to Effectiveness: Implementing the Drug Market Intervention Across Multiple Sites,” Criminology & Public Policy 16 no. 3 (2017).

[note 7] Rachel E. Morgan and Jennifer L. Truman, Criminal Victimization, 2017 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 2018), NCJ 252472.

[note 8] Aamer Madhani, “Unsolved Murders: Chicago, Other Big Cities Struggle; Murder Rate a 'National Disaster,’” USA Today , August 10, 2018.

[note 9] YongJei Lee, SooHyun O, and John E. Eck, “ A Theory-Driven Algorithm for Real-Time Crime Hot Spot Forecasting ,” NIJ award number 2016-NIJ-Challenge-0017, October 2017, 1.

[note 10] Program Profile: Procedural Justice Training Program (Seattle Police Department) , posted April 29, 2019.

[note 11] Emily Owens, David Weisburd, Karen L. Amendola, and Geoffrey P. Alpert, “Can You Build a Better Cop?” Criminology & Public Policy 17 no. 1 (2018): 41-87.

[note 12] Christine Femega, Joshua C. Hinkle, and David Weisburd, “Why Getting Inside the ‘Black Box’ Is Important: Examining Treatment Implementation and Outputs in Policing Experiments,” Police Quarterly 20 no. 1 (2017).

[note 13] 528 U.S. 119.

[note 14] Rachel Harmon and Andrew Manns, “Proactive Policing and the Legacy of Terry,” Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 15 no. 1 (2017): 49-71.

[note 15] Andrew Guthrie Ferguson and Damien Bernache, “The ‘High-Crime Area’ Question: Requiring Verifiable and Quantifiable Evidence for Fourth Amendment Reasonable Suspicion Analysis,” American University Law Review 57 no. 6 (2008): 1587-1644.

[note 16] 959 F. Supp. 2d 540 (S.D. N.Y. 2013).

[note 17] David Weisburd, “Does Hot Spots Policing Inevitably Lead to Unfair and Abusive Police Practices, or Can We Maximize Both Fairness and Effectiveness in the New Proactive Policing?,” The University of Chicago Legal Forum (2016): 661.

[note 18] Harmon and Manns, “Proactive Policing and the Legacy of Terry,” 59.

[note 19] Harmon and Manns, “Proactive Policing and the Legacy of Terry,” 61.

[note 20] Weisburd, “Does Hot Spots Policing … ,” 686.

About the author

Paul A. Haskins is a social science writer and contractor with Leidos.

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Community-Oriented Policing and Problem-Oriented Policing

In 1979, Hermon Goldstein observed from several studies conducted at the time on standard policing practices that law enforcement agencies seemed to be more concerned about the means rather than the goals of policing. He argued that law enforcement agencies should shift away from the traditional, standard model of policing and that police become more proactive, rather than reactive, in their approaches to crime and disorder (Hinkle et al., 2020; Weisburd et al., 2010). Goldstein’s work set the stage for the development of two new models of policing: community-oriented policing (COP) and problem-oriented policing (POP).

COP is a broad policing strategy that relies heavily on community involvement and partnerships, and on police presence in the community, to address local crime and disorder. POP provides law enforcement agencies with an analytic method to develop strategies to prevent and reduce crime and disorder, which involves problem identification, analysis, response, and assessment (National Research Council, 2018).

Although COP and POP differ in many ways, including the intensity of focus and diversity of approaches (National Research Council, 2004), there are several important similarities between them. For example, COP and POP both represent forms of proactive policing, meaning they focus on preventing crime before it happens rather than just reacting to it after it happens. Further, both COP and POP require cooperation among multiple agencies and partners, including community members (National Research Council, 2018). In addition, POP and COP overlap in that each involves the community in defining the problems and identifying interventions (Greene, 2000).

Although few studies focus on youth involvement in COP and POP, youths can play an important role in both strategies. In COP, youths often are part of the community with whom police work to identify and address problems. Youths can be formally involved in the process (i.e., engaging in local community meetings) or informally involved in efforts to strengthen the relationship between the police and members of the community. For example, a police officer on foot patrol may decide to engage with youths in the community through casual conversation, as part of a COP approach (Cowell and Kringen, 2016). Or police might encourage youth to participate in activities, such as police athletic leagues, which were designed to prevent and reduce the occurrence of juvenile crime and delinquency, while also seeking to improve police and youth attitudes toward each other (Rabois and Haaga, 2002). Using POP, law enforcement agencies may specifically focus on juvenile-related problems of crime and disorder. For example, the Operation Ceasefire intervention, implemented in Boston, MA, is a POP strategy that concentrated on reducing homicide victimization among young people in the city (Braga and Pierce, 2005).

This literature review discusses COP and POP in two separate sections. In each section, definitions of the approaches are provided, along with discussions on theory, examples of specific types of programs, overlaps with other policing strategies, and outcome evidence.

Specific research on how police and youth interact with each other in the community will not be discussed in this review but can be found in the Interactions Between Youth and Law Enforcement literature review on the Model Programs Guide.  

Community-Oriented Policing Definition

Community-oriented policing (COP), also called community policing, is defined by the federal Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services as “a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systemic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime” (Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, 2012:3). This policing strategy focuses on developing relationships with members of the community to address community problems, by building social resilience and collective efficacy, and by strengthening infrastructure for crime prevention. COP also emphasizes preventive, proactive policing; the approach calls for police to concentrate on solving the problems of crime and disorder in neighborhoods rather than simply responding to calls for service. This model considerably expands the scope of policing activities, because the targets of interest are not only crimes but also sources of physical and social disorder (Weisburd et al., 2008).

After gaining acceptance as an alternative to traditional policing models in the 1980s, COP has received greater attention and been used more frequently throughout the 21st century (Greene, 2000; National Research Council, 2018; Paez and Dierenfeldt, 2020). The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 articulated the goal of putting 100,000 additional community police officers on the streets and established the federal Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services. Research from 2013 suggests that 9 out of 10 law enforcement agencies in the United States that serve a population of 25,000 or more had adopted some type of community policing strategy (Reaves, 2015).

COP comprises three key components (Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, 2012):

• Community Partnerships. COP encourages partnerships with stakeholders in the community, including other government agencies (prosecutors, health and human services, child support services and schools); community members/groups (volunteers, activists, residents, and other individuals who have an interest in the community); nonprofits/service providers (advocacy groups, victim groups, and community development corporations); and private businesses. The media also are an important mechanism that police use to communicate with the community.
• Organizational Transformation. COP emphasizes the alignment of management, structure, personnel, and information systems within police departments to support the philosophy. These changes may include increased transparency, leadership that reinforces COP values, strategic geographic deployment, training, and access to data.
• Problem-Solving. Proactive, systematic, routine problem-solving is the final key component of COP. COP encourages police to develop solutions to underlying conditions that contribute to public safety problems, rather than responding to crime only after it occurs. The SARA model (which stands for Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment) is one major conceptual model of problem-solving that can be used by officers (for a full description of the SARA model, see Problem-Oriented Policing below).

At the heart of COP is a redefinition of the relationship between the police and the community, so that the two collaborate to identify and solve community problems. Through this relationship, the community becomes a “co-producer” of public safety in that the problem-solving process draws on citizen expertise in identifying and understanding social issues that create crime, disorder, and fear in the community (Skolnick and Bayley, 1988; Gill et al., 2014; National Research Council, 2018).

COP is not a single coherent program; rather, it encompasses a variety of programs or strategies that rest on the assumption that policing must involve the community. Elements typically associated with COP programs include the empowerment of the community; a belief in a broad police function; the reliance of police on citizens for authority, information, and collaboration; specific tactics (or tactics that are targeted at particular problems, such as focused deterrence strategies) rather than general tactics (or tactics that are targeted at the general population, such as preventive patrol); and decentralized authority to respond to local needs (Zhao, He, and Lovrich, 2003). One Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) survey of MCCA members found that some of the most common COP activities were officer representation at community meetings, bicycle patrols, citizen volunteers, foot patrols, police “mini-stations” (see description below), and neighborhood storefront offices (Scrivner and Stephens, 2015; National Research Council, 2018).

Community members who engage in COP programs generally report positive experiences. For example, residents who received home visits by police officers as part of a COP intervention reported high confidence in police and warmth toward officers, compared with residents who did not receive visits (Peyton et al., 2019). Notably, however, those who participate in COP–related activities, such as community meetings, may not be representative of the whole community (Somerville, 2008). Many individuals in communities remain unaware of COP activities, and those who are aware may choose not to participate (Adams, Rohe, and Arcury, 2005; Eve et al., 2003). Additionally, it can be difficult to sustain community participation. While police officers are paid for their participation, community members are not, and involvement could take time away from family and work (Coquilhat, 2008).

Specific Types of COP Programs

Because COP is such a broad approach, programs that involve the community may take on many different forms. For example, some COP programs may take place in a single setting such as a community center, a school, or a police mini-station. Other COP–based programs, such as police foot patrol programs, can encompass the entire neighborhood. The following are different examples of specific types of COP programs and how they can affect youth in a community.

School Resource Officers (SROs) are an example of a commonly implemented COP program in schools. SROs are trained police officers who are uniformed, carry firearms and a police department badge, and have arrest powers. They are tasked with maintaining a presence at schools to promote safety and security (Stern and Petrosino, 2018). The use of SROs is not new; SRO programs first appeared in the 1950s but increased significantly in the 1990s as a response to high-profile incidents of extreme school violence and the subsequent policy reforms (Broll and Howells, 2019; Lindberg, 2015). SROs can fulfill a variety of roles. They are intended to prevent and respond to school-based crime; promote positive relationships among law enforcement, educators, and youth; and foster a positive school climate (Thomas et al., 2013).

The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), the largest professional organization of SROs, formally defines the SRO roles using a “triad model,” which aligns with community policing models (May et al., 2004), and includes the three primary functions of SROs: 1) enforcing the law; 2) educating students, school staff, and the community; and 3) acting as an informal counselor or mentor (Broll and Howells, 2019; Fisher and Hennessy, 2016; Javdani, 2019; Thomas et al., 2013). There may be significant variability in how these roles and responsibilities are balanced, as they are usually defined through a memorandum of understanding between the local law enforcement agency and the school district (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016). Even with the SRO responsibilities formally spelled out, there may still be tensions and ambiguities inherent to the SRO position based on their positioning at the intersection of the education system and the juvenile justice system, which often have competing cultures and authority structures (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016). As members of the police force, the SROs may view problematic behaviors as crimes, whereas educators view them as obstacles to learning. Another ambiguity is that as an informal counselor/mentor, the SRO is expected to assist students with behavioral and legal issues, which may result in a conflict of interest if the adolescent shares information about engaging in illegal activities (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016).

Evaluation findings with regard to the effectiveness of the presence of SROs in schools have been inconsistent. In terms of school-related violence and other behaviors, some studies have found that SROs in schools are related to decreases in serious violence (Sorensen, Shen, and Bushway, 2021; Zhang, 2019), and decreases in incidents of disorder (Zhang, 2019). Others have found increases in drug-related crimes (Gottfredson et al., 2020; Zhang, 2019) associated with the presence of SROs in schools, and other studies have shown no effects on bullying (Broll and Lafferty, 2018; Devlin, Santos, and Gottfredson, 2018). In terms of school discipline, one meta-analysis (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016) examined the relationship between the presence of SROs and exclusionary discipline in U.S. high schools. Analysis of the seven eligible pretest–posttest design studies showed that the presence of SROs was associated with rates of school-based disciplinary incidents that were 21 percent higher than incident rates before implementing an SRO program. However, in another study, of elementary schools, there was no association found between SRO presence and school-related disciplinary outcomes, which ranged from minor consequences, such as a warning or timeout, to more serious consequences such as suspension from school (Curran et al., 2021).

Further, several studies have been conducted on the effects of SROs on students’ attitudes and feelings. One example is a survey of middle and high school students (Theriot and Orme, 2016), which found that experiencing more SRO interactions increased students’ positive attitudes about SROs but decreased school connectedness and was unrelated to feelings of safety. Conversely, findings from a student survey, on the relationship between awareness and perceptions of SROs on school safety and disciplinary experiences, indicated that students’ awareness of the presence of SROs and their perceptions of SROs were associated with increased feelings of safety and a small decrease in disciplinary actions. However, students belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups reported smaller benefits related to SROs, compared with white students (Pentek and Eisenberg, 2018).

Foot Patrol is another example of a program that uses COP elements. Foot patrol involves police officers making neighborhood rounds on foot. It is a policing tactic that involves movement in a set area for the purpose of observation and security (Ratcliffe et al., 2011). The primary goals of foot patrol are to increase the visibility of police officers in a community and to make greater contact and increase rapport with residents. Officers sometimes visit businesses on their beat, respond to calls for service within their assigned areas, and develop an intimate knowledge of the neighborhood. Additionally, police officers on foot patrols may offer a level of “citizen reassurance” to community members and may decrease a resident’s fear of crime by bringing a feeling of safety to the neighborhood (Wakefield, 2006; Ratcliffe et al., 2011; Walker and Katz, 2017). Another duty of foot patrol officers is to engage youth in the community, and some are instructed to go out of their way to engage vulnerable youth. For example, if an officer sees a group of youths hanging out on a street corner, the officer may stop and initiate casual conversation in an effort to build a relationship (Cowell and Kringen, 2016).

Though foot patrols limit the speed at which an officer can respond to a call (compared with patrol in a vehicle), research has found that community members are more comfortable with police being in the neighborhood on foot. Residents are more likely to consider an officer as “being there for the neighborhood” if they are seen on foot (Cordner, 2010; Piza and O’Hara, 2012).

While there are mixed findings regarding the effectiveness of foot patrols on crime (Piza and O’Hara, 2012), improved community relationships are one of the strongest benefits. Research has shown that foot patrol improves the relationships between community members and police officers through increasing approachability, familiarity, and trust Ratcliffe et al. 2011; Kringen, Sedelmaier, and Dlugolenski, 2018). Foot patrols can also have a positive effect on officers. Research demonstrates that officers who participate in foot patrol strategies have higher job satisfaction and a higher sense of achievement (Wakefield, 2006; Walker and Katz, 2017).

Mini-Stations are community-forward stations that allow police to be more accessible to members of a community. Mini-stations (also known as substations, community storefronts, and other names) can be based in many places—such as local businesses, restaurants, or community centers—and can be staffed by police officers, civilian employees, volunteers, or a combination of these groups, and have fewer officers stationed in them (Maguire et al., 2003). These stations allow officers to build on existing relationships with businesses in the area and give citizens easier access to file reports and share community concerns. Additionally, they are a means to achieving greater spatial differentiation, or a way for a police agency to cover a wider area, without the cost of adding a new district station (Maguire et al., 2003). Residents can also go to mini-stations to receive information and handouts about new policing initiatives and programs in the community. Police mini-stations also increase the overall amount of time officers spend in their assigned patrol areas. The concept of mini-stations stems from Japanese kobans , which gained prominence in the late 1980s. Officers who worked in kobans became intimately familiar with the neighborhood they served and were highly accessible to citizens (usually within a 10-minute walk of residential homes) [Young, 2022].

Mini-stations can also be helpful to youth in the community. For example, Youth Safe Haven mini-stations are mini-stations that are deployed in 10 cities by the Eisenhower Foundation. These mini-stations were first developed in the 1980s and are located in numerous youth-related areas, including community centers and schools (Eisenhower Foundation, 2011). In addition to crime outcomes (such as reduced crime and fear of crime), goals of youth-oriented mini-stations include homework help, recreational activities, and providing snacks and social skills training. Older youths can be trained to be volunteers to assist younger youths with mentoring and advocacy. There are mixed findings regarding mini-stations and their effect on crime rates, but research has shown that adults and older youths who participate in mini-station community programs (or have children who participate) are more likely to report crime, and younger youths are more comfortable speaking with police (Eisenhower Foundation, 1999; Eisenhower Foundation, 2011).

Theoretical Foundation

COP approaches are usually rooted in two different theories of crime: broken windows theory and social disorganization theory (Reisig, 2010; National Research Council, 2018). Both focus on community conditions to explain the occurrence of crime and disorder.

Broken Windows Theory asserts that minor forms of physical and social disorder, if left unattended, may lead to more serious crime and urban decay (Wilson and Kelling, 1982). Visual signs of disorder (such as broken windows in abandoned buildings, graffiti, and garbage on the street) may cause fear and withdrawal among community members. This in turn communicates the lack of or substantial decrease in social control in the community, and thus can invite increased levels of disorder and crime (Hinkle and Weisburd, 2008). In response, to protect the community and establish control, the police engage in order maintenance (managing minor offenses and disorders). Four elements of the broken windows strategy explain how interventions based on this approach may lead to crime reduction (Kelling and Coles, 1996). First, dealing with disorder puts police in contact with those who commit more serious crimes. Second, the high visibility of police causes a deterrent effect for potential perpetrators of crime. Third, citizens assert control over neighborhoods, thereby preventing crime. And finally, as problems of disorder and crime become the responsibility of both the community and the police, crime is addressed in an integrated fashion. COP programs rooted in broken windows theory often use residents and local business owners to help identify disorder problems and engage in the development and implementation of a response (Braga, Welsh, and Schnell, 2015).

Social Disorganization Theory focuses on the relationship between crime and neighborhood structure; that is, how places can create conditions that are favorable or unfavorable to crime and delinquency (Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003). Social disorganization refers to the inability of a community to realize common goals and solve chronic problems. According to the social disorganization theory, community factors such as poverty, residential mobility, lack of shared values, and weak social networks decrease a neighborhood’s capacity to control people’s behavior in public, which increases the likelihood of crime (Kornhauser, 1978; Shaw and McKay, 1969 [1942]). Researchers have used various forms of the social disorganization theory to conceptualize community policing, including the systemic model and collective efficacy (Reisig, 2010). The systemic model focuses on how relational and social networks can exert social controls to mediate the adverse effects of structural constraints, such as concentrated poverty and residential instability. The model identifies three social order controls with decreasing levels of influence: 1) private, which includes close friends and family; 2) parochial , which includes neighbors and civic organizations; and 3) public, which includes police (Bursik and Grasmick, 1993; Hunter, 1985). Community policing efforts based on the systemic model can increase informal social controls by working with residents to develop stronger regulatory mechanisms at the parochial and public levels (Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003; Resig, 2010). Collective efficacy, which refers to social cohesion and informal social controls, can mitigate social disorganization. Community policing can promote collective efficacy by employing strategies that enhance police legitimacy in the community and promote procedurally just partnerships, to encourage residents to take responsibility for public spaces and activate local social controls (Resig, 2010).

Outcome Evidence

Although there are numerous programs that incorporate COP, there are limited examples of COP programs that directly target youth, and fewer that have been rigorously evaluated (Forman, 2004; Paez and Dierenfeldt, 2020). The following programs, which are featured on CrimeSolutions , are examples of how COP has been implemented and evaluated in different cities.

The Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS , developed in 1993, incorporates aspects of both community and problem-oriented policing (see Problem-Oriented Policing, below). The CAPS approach has been implemented by dividing patrol officers into beat teams and rapid response teams in each of the districts. Beat teams spend most of their time working their beats with community organizations, while rapid response teams concentrate their efforts on excess or low-priority 911 calls. Meetings occur monthly for both teams, and they receive extensive training. This structure enables officers to respond quickly and effectively to problems that they have not been traditionally trained to handle but have learned how to do by receiving training, along with residents, in problem-solving techniques. Civic education, media ads, billboards, brochures, and rallies have been used to promote awareness of the program in the community (Skogan, 1996; Kim and Skogan, 2003).

To evaluate the effects of the CAPS program, one study (Kim and Skogan, 2003) examined the impact on crime rates and 911 calls. Data were collected from January 1996 to June 2002, using a time-series analysis. The study authors found statistically significant reductions in crime rates and 911 calls in police beats that implemented the CAPS program, compared with police beats that did not implement the program.

Some studies have found that foot-patrol interventions make varying impacts on different types of street violence. Operation Impact , a saturation foot-patrol initiative in the Fourth Precinct of Newark, NJ, was selected as the target area based on an in-depth analysis of the spatial distribution of street violence. The initiative primarily involved a nightly patrol of 12 officers in a square-quarter-mile area of the city, which represented an increase in police presence in the target area. Officers also engaged in proactive enforcement actions that were expected to disrupt street-level disorder and narcotics activity in violence-prone areas. One study (Piza and O’Hara, 2012) found that the target area that implemented Operation Impact experienced statistically significant reductions in overall violence, aggravated assaults, and shootings, compared with the control area that implemented standard policing responses. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the target and control areas in incidents of murder or robbery.

With regard to community-based outcomes, other studies have shown that COP programs have demonstrated positive results. A COP intervention implemented in New Haven, CT , consisted of a single unannounced community home visit conducted by uniformed patrol officers from the New Haven Police Department. During the visits, the patrol officers articulated their commitment to building a cooperative relationship with residents and the importance of police and residents working together to keep the community safe. One evaluation found that residents in intervention households who received the COP intervention reported more positive overall attitudes toward police, a greater willingness to cooperate with police, had more positive perceptions of police performance and legitimacy, had higher confidence in police, reported higher scores on perceived warmth toward police, and reported fewer negative beliefs about police, compared with residents who did not receive home visits. These were all statistically significant findings. However, there was no statistically significant difference in willingness to comply with the police between residents in households that received home visits, compared with those who did not (Peyton et al., 2019).

Problem-Oriented Policing Definition

Problem-oriented policing (POP) is a framework that provides law enforcement agencies with an iterative approach to identify, analyze, and respond to the underlying circumstances that lead to crime and disorder in the community and then evaluate and adjust the response as needed (Braga et al., 2001; Hinkle et al., 2020; National Research Council, 2004). The POP approach requires police to focus their attention on problems rather than incidents (Cordner and Biebel, 2005). Problems, in this model, are defined “as chronic conditions or clusters of events that have become the responsibility of the police, either because they have been reported to them, or they have been discovered by proactive police investigation, or because the problems have been found in an investigation of police records” (National Research Council, 2004:92).

The POP strategy contrasts with incident-driven crime prevention approaches, in which police focus on individual occurrences of crime. Instead, POP provides police with an adaptable method to examine the complicated factors that contribute and lead to crime and disorder, and develop customized interventions to address those factors (National Research Council, 2018).

As noted previously, the idea behind the POP approach emanated several decades ago (Goldstein, 1979) from observations that law enforcement agencies seemed to be more concerned about the means rather than the goals of policing, or “means-over-ends syndrome” (Goldstein, 1979; Eck, 2006; MacDonald, 2002). In 1990, this work was expanded to systematically define and describe what it meant to use POP approaches in policing. During the 1990s, law enforcement agencies in the United States and other countries (such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom) began to implement POP strategies (Scott, 2000).

The traditional conceptual model of problem-solving in POP, known as the SARA model, consists of the following four steps (Weisburd et al., 2010; Hinkle et al., 2020; National Research Council, 2004):

• Scanning. Police identify problems that may be leading to incidents of crime and disorder. They may prioritize these problems based on various factors, such as the size of the problem or input from the community.
• Analysis. Police study information about the identified problem or problems, using a variety of data sources, such as crime databases or surveys of community members. They examine information on who is committing crimes, victims, and crime locations, among other factors. Police then use the information on responses to incidents — together with information obtained from other sources — to get a clearer picture of the problem (or problems).
• Response. Police develop and implement tailored strategies to address the identified problems by thinking “outside the box” of traditional police enforcement tactics and creating partnerships with other agencies, community organizations, or members of the community, depending on the problem. Examples of responses in POP interventions include target hardening, area cleanup, increased patrol, crime prevention through environmental design measures, multiagency cooperation, and nuisance abatement.
• Assessment. Police evaluate the impact of the response through self-assessments and other methods (such as process or outcome evaluations) to determine how well the response has been carried out and what has been accomplished (or not accomplished). This step may also involve adjustment of the response, depending on the results of the assessment.

The SARA model was first defined by a POP project conducted in Newport News, VA, during the 1980s. The Newport News Task Force designed a four-stage problem-solving process . A case study of the project revealed that officers and their supervisors identified problems, analyzed, and responded to these problems through this process, thus leading to the SARA model (Eck and Spelman, 1987).

Since the creation and development of SARA, other models have been established, in part to overcome some noted weaknesses of the original model, such as an oversimplification of complex processes or a process in which problem-solving is nonlinear. These other models include the following 1) PROCTOR (which stands for PROblem, Cause, Tactic or Treatment, Output, and Result); 2) the 5I’s (Intelligence, Intervention, Implementation, Involvement, and Impact); and 3) the ID PARTNERS (which stands for I dentify the demand; D rivers; P roblem; A im, R esearch and analysis; T hink creatively; N egotiate and initiate responses; E valuate; R eview; and S uccess) [Sidebottom and Tilley, 2010]. However, compared with these models, the SARA model appears to be used more often by agencies that apply a POP approach to law enforcement (Sidebottom and Tilley, 2010; Borrion et al., 2020).

A POP approach can be used by law enforcement agencies to address youth-related issues, including offenses committed by youths (such as gun violence, vandalism, graffiti, and other youth-specific behaviors such as running away from home or underage drinking.

For example, in the 2019–20 school year, about one third of public schools experienced vandalism (Wang et al., 2022). If a police agency wanted to tackle the problem of school vandalism , often committed by youth, they could apply the SARA model to determine the scope of the problem, develop an appropriate response, and conduct an overall assessment of efforts. A problem-oriented guide, put together by the Problem-Oriented Policing Center at Arizona State University, outlines the steps that law enforcement agencies can take to use the SARA model and address the issues of vandalism committed specifically at schools (Johnson, 2005).

Thus, during the scanning step of the SARA model, to identify the problem police would focus on the specific problem of school vandalism by examining multiple sources of data, including information gathered from both police departments and school districts. During the analysis step, police would ask about the specific school vandalism problems they are targeting, such as 1) how many and which schools reported vandalism to the police, 2) which schools were vandalized, 3) what are the characteristics (such as the age, gender, school attendance rate) of any youth identified as committing the vandalism, and 4) on what days and times the vandalism occurred. The analysis step also should include information from various data sources, including official reports to the police of school vandalism incidents, interviews with SROs, and information from students at the school (Johnson, 2005).

Once police have analyzed the school vandalism problem and have a clear picture of the issue, they would then move on to the response step. The response depends on what police learn about the vandalism problem at schools. For example, if police find that vandalism occurs because youths have easy access to school grounds, especially after school hours, they might suggest a response that improves building security. Finally, during the assessment stage, police would determine the degree of effectiveness of their response to school vandalism through various measures of success, such as the reduction in the number of incidents of vandalism, the decrease in the costs for repair of damaged property, and the increase of incidents (when they do occur) in which the person or persons who engaged in vandalism are identified and apprehended (Johnson, 2005).

Overlap of POP With Other Policing Strategies

POP shares several similarities and overlapping features with other policing models, such as focused deterrence strategies and hot-spots policing. Hot-spots policing involves focusing police resources on crime “hot spots,” which are specific areas in the community where crime tends to cluster. Hot-spots policing interventions tend to rely mostly on traditional law enforcement approaches (National Research Council, 2004; Braga et al., 2019). Focused deterrence strategies (also referred to as “pulling levers” policing) follow the core principles of deterrence theory. These strategies target specific criminal behavior committed by a small number of individuals who repeatedly offend and who are vulnerable to sanctions and punishment (Braga, Weisburd, and Turchan, 2018).

While POP, focused deterrence, and hot spots policing are three distinct policing strategies, there can be an overlap in techniques. For example, a POP approach can involve the identification and targeting of crime hot spots, if the scanning and analysis of the crime problems in a community reveal that crime is clustering in specific areas. Further, a hot-spots policing intervention may use a problem-oriented approach to determine appropriate responses to address the crime in identified hot spots. However, POP can go beyond examination of place-based crime problems, and hot-spots policing does not require the detailed analytic approach used in POP to discern which strategy is appropriate to prevent or reduce crime (Hinkle et al., 2020; National Research Council, 2018; Gill et al., 2018). Similarly, POP involves targeting resources to specific, identified problems, in a similar way that focused deterrence strategies target specific crimes committed by known high-risk offenders. However, focused deterrence strategies tend to rely primarily on police officers to implement programs, whereas POP may involve a variety of agencies and community members (National Research Council, 2004).

Although POP, focused deterrence, and hot-spots policing differ in some distinct ways (such as intensity of focus and involvement of other agencies), these strategies may often overlap (National Research Council, 2004).

POP draws on theories of criminal opportunity to explain why crime occurs and to identify ways of addressing crime, often by altering environmental conditions (Reisig, 2010). While much criminological research and theory are concerned with why some individuals offend in general, POP strategies often concentrate on why individuals commit crimes at particular places, at particular times, and against certain targets (Braga, 2008; Goldstein, 1979; Eck and Spelman, 1987; Eck and Madensen, 2012). Thus, POP draws on several theoretical perspectives that focus on how likely individuals (including those who may commit a crime and those who may be victimized) make decisions based on perceived opportunities. These include rational choice theory, routine activities theory , and situational crime prevention (Braga, 2008; Braga et al., 1999; Eck and Madensen, 2012; Hinkle et al., 2020; McGarrell, Freilich, and Chermak, 2007). These three theories are considered complements to one another (Tillyer and Eck, 2011).

Rational Choice Theory focuses on how incentives and constraints affect behavior (Cornish and Clark 1986; Gull, 2009). In criminology, rational choice theory draws on the concepts of free will and rational thinking to examine an individual’s specific decision-making processes and choices of crime settings by emphasizing their motives in different situations. The starting point for rational choice theory is that crime is chosen for its benefits. Thus, rational choice theory informs POP by helping to examine and eliminate opportunities for crime within certain settings. Eliminating these opportunities should help to intervene with a potential offender’s motives to commit a crime (Karğın, 2010).

Routine Activity Theory , formulated by Cohen and Felson (1979), is the study of crime as an event, highlighting its relation to space and time and emphasizing its ecological nature (Mir ó–Llinares , 2014). It was originally developed to explain macro-level crime trends through the interaction of targets, offenders, and guardians (Eck, 2003). The theory explains that problems are created when offenders and targets repeatedly come together, and guardians fail to act. Since its formulation, routine activity theory has expanded. In terms of POP, routine activity theory implies that crime can be prevented if the chances of the three elements of crime (suitable target, motivated offender, and accessible place) intersecting at the same place and at the same time are minimized (Karğın, 2010). The SARA problem-solving methodology allows law enforcement agencies to examine and identify the features of places and potential targets that might generate crime opportunities for a motivated offender and develop solutions to eliminate these opportunities, thereby preventing future crime (Hinkle et al., 2020).

Situational Crime Prevention was designed to address specific forms of crime by systematically manipulating or managing the immediate environment with the purpose of reducing opportunities for crime. The goal is to change an individual’s decisionmaking processes by altering the perceived costs and benefits of crime by identifying specific settings (Clarke, 1995; Tillyer and Eck, 2011). Situational crime prevention has identified a number of ways to reduce opportunity to commit crime, such as: 1) increase the effort required to carry out the crime, 2) increase the risks faced in completing the crime, 3) reduce the rewards or benefits expected from the crime, 4) remove excuses to rationalize or justify engaging in criminal action, and 5) avoid provocations that may tempt or incite individuals into criminal acts (Clarke 2009). Certain POP strategies make use of situation crime prevention tactics during the response phase, such as physical improvements to identified problem locations. These may include fixing or installing street lighting, securing vacant lots, and getting rid of trash from the streets (Braga et al., 1999).

Although the POP approach is a well-known and popular approach in law enforcement, there have been a limited number of rigorous program evaluations, such as randomized controlled trials (National Research Council 2018; Gill et al. 2018), and even fewer evaluations specifically centered on youth. 

One meta-analysis (Weisburd et al., 2008) reviewed 10 studies, which examined the effects of problem-oriented policing on crime and disorder. These included various POP interventions and took place in eight cities across the United States (Atlanta, GA; Jersey City, NJ; Knoxville, TN; Oakland, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Philadelphia, PA; San Diego, CA; and one suburban Pennsylvania area.) and six wards in the United Kingdom. The studies evaluated interventions focused on reducing recidivism for individuals on probation or parole; interventions on specific place-based problems (such as drug markets, vandalism and drinking in a park, and crime in hot spots of violence); and interventions that targeted specific problems such as school victimization. Findings across these studies indicated that, on average, the POP strategies led to a statistically significant decline in measures of crime and disorder.

The following programs, which are featured on CrimeSolutions, provide a brief overview of how POP has been implemented and evaluated in the United States. Programs with examined youth-related outcomes or a specific focus on youth are noted; however, most of the research on POP interventions does not focus on youth.

Operation Ceasefire in Boston (first implemented in 1995) is a problem-oriented policing strategy that was developed to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities. Specifically, the program focused on reducing homicide victimization among young people in Boston (Braga and Pierce, 2005). The program involved carrying out a comprehensive strategy to apprehend and prosecute individuals who carry firearms, to put others on notice that carrying illegal firearms faces certain and serious punishment, and to prevent youth from following in the same criminal path. The program followed the steps of the SARA model, which included bringing together an interagency working group of criminal justice and other practitioners to identify the problem (scanning); using different research techniques (both qualitative and quantitative) to assess the nature of youth violence in Boston ( analysis ); designing and developing an intervention to reduce youth violence and homicide in the city, implementing the intervention, and adapting it as needed ( response ); and evaluating the intervention’s impact ( assessment ). An evaluation of the program found a statistically significant reduction (63 percent) in the average number of youth homicide victims in the city following the implementation of the program. There were also statistically significant decreases in citywide gun assaults and calls for service (Braga et al., 2001). Similarly, another study found a statistically significant reduction (24.3 percent) in new handguns recovered from youth (Braga and Pierce, 2005).

Another program implemented in the same city, the Boston Police Department’s Safe Street Teams (SSTs) , is an example of a place-based, problem-oriented policing strategy to reduce violent crime and includes some components targeting youth. Using mapping technology and violent index crime data, the Boston Police Department identified 13 violent crime hot spots in the city where SST officers could employ community- and problem-oriented policing techniques such as the SARA model. SST officers implemented almost 400 distinct POP strategies in the crime hot spots, which fell into three broad categories: 1) situational/environment interventions, such as removing graffiti and trash or adding or fixing lighting, designed to change the underlying characteristics and dynamics of the places that are linked to violence; 2 ) enforcement interventions, including focused enforcement efforts on drug-selling crews and street gangs, designed to arrest and deter individuals committing violent crimes or contributing to the disorder of the targeted areas; and 3) community outreach/social service interventions, designed to involve the community in crime prevention efforts. Examples of these activities included providing new recreational opportunities for youth (i.e., basketball leagues), partnering with local agencies to provide needed social services to youth, and planning community events. One evaluation (Braga, Hureau, and Papachristos, 2011) found that over a 10-year observation period areas that implemented the SSTs interventions experienced statistically significant reductions in the number of total violent index crime incidents (17.3 percent), in the number of robbery incidents (19.2 percent), and in the number of aggravated assault incidents (15.4 percent), compared with the comparison areas that did not implement the interventions. However, there were no statistically significant effects on the number of homicides or rape/sexual assault incidents. The study also did not examine the impact on youth-specific outcomes.

The Problem-Oriented Policing in Violent Crime Places (Jersey City, N.J.) intervention used techniques from hot spots policing and POP to reduce violent crime in the city. The program and evaluation design followed the steps of the SARA model. During the scanning phase, the Jersey City Police Department and university researchers used computerized mapping technologies to identify violent crime hot spots. During the analysis phase, officers selected 12 pairs of places for random assignment to the treatment group, which received the POP strategies, or to the control group. During the response phase, the 11 officers in the department’s Violent Crime Unit were responsible for developing appropriate POP strategies at the hot spots. For example, to reduce social disorder, aggressive order maintenance techniques were applied, including the use of foot and radio patrols and the dispersing of groups of loiterers. During the assessment phase, the police department evaluated the officers’ responses to the problems, and either adjusted the strategies or closed down the program to indicate that the problem was alleviated. An evaluation found statistically significant reductions in social and physical incivilities (i.e., disorder), the total numbers of calls for service, and criminal incidents at the treatment locations that implemented POP techniques, compared with the control locations (Braga et al., 1999).

COP and POP are two broad policing approaches that, while sharing many characteristics, are still distinct—owing to the focus of their respective approaches. COP’s focus is on community outreach and engagement and does not necessarily rely on analysis methods such as the SARA model. For POP, the primary goal is to find effective solutions to problems that may or may not involve the participation of the community (Gill et al., 2014).

Though COP and POP may differ in their approaches, the end goal is the same in both models. Both are types of proactive policing that seek to prevent crime before it happens. COP and POP also both rely on cooperation from numerous different parties and agencies, including community members (National Research Council, 2018). The two models are similar enough that they often overlap in implementation. For example, the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) incorporates elements from both models. Using aspects of COP, police officers divide into beat teams and spend most of their time working with community organizations. With regard to POP, CAPS trains officers and residents to use problem-solving techniques that stem from its theoretical basis (Skogan, 1996; Kim and Skogan, 2003).

There are, however, limitations in the research examining the effectiveness of these models. For example, evaluation studies on COP and POP tend to focus on results related to crime and disorder; other outcomes, such as collective efficacy, police legitimacy, fear of crime, and other community-related outcomes are often overlooked or not properly defined (Hinkle et al., 2020; Gill et al., 2014). Exploring other community-related outcomes would be useful, as community involvement is an important component to both models. Further, some researchers have noted specific limitations to the implementation of COP and POP interventions. With regard to COP programs, for example, the definition of “community” is sometimes lacking. This can be an important factor to define, as community may mean something different across law enforcement agencies (Gill et al., 2014). Regarding POP programs, it has been noted that the rigor of the SARA process is limited and that law enforcement agencies may take a “shallow” approach to problem-solving (National Research Council, 2018:193; Borrion et al., 2020). To date, the research on both models has lacked focus on youth; only a few evaluations have focused on youth in either in the implementation process or in examined outcomes (Braga et al., 2001; Gill et al., 2018). Despite these limitations, however, the outcome evidence supports the effectiveness of COP and POP interventions to reduce crime and disorder outcomes.

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About this Literature Review

Suggested Reference: Development Services Group, Inc. January  2023. “Community-Oriented Policing and Problem-Oriented Policing.” Literature review. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.  https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/model-programs-guide/literature-reviews/community-oriented-problem-oriented-policing

Prepared by Development Services Group, Inc., under Contract Number: 47QRAA20D002V.

Last Update: January 2023

Problem Solving

Community policing emphasizes proactive problem solving in a systematic and routine fashion. Rather than responding to crime only after it occurs, community policing encourages agencies to proactively develop solutions to the immediate underlying conditions contributing to public safety problems. Problem solving must be infused into all police operations and guide decision-making efforts. Agencies are encouraged to think innovatively about their responses and view making arrests as only one of a wide array of potential responses. A major conceptual vehicle for helping officers to think about problem solving in a structured and disciplined way is the scanning, analysis, response, and assessment (SARA) model .

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Article Contents

• INTRODUCTION
• BACKGROUND OF POP
• METHODS AND FINDINGS OF THE UPDATED CAMPBELL COLLABORATION POP REVIEW
• MAIN FINDINGS OF THE UPDATED META-ANALYSIS
• WHEN DOES POP WORK BEST?
• LIMITATIONS
• CONCLUSIONS
• APPENDIX A: REFERENCES TO INCLUDED STUDIES (INCLUDING SUPPLEMENTAL PUBLICATIONS)
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When is problem-oriented policing most effective? A systematic examination of heterogeneity in effect sizes for reducing crime and disorder

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Joshua C Hinkle, David Weisburd, Cody W Telep, Kevin Petersen, When is problem-oriented policing most effective? A systematic examination of heterogeneity in effect sizes for reducing crime and disorder, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice , Volume 18, 2024, paae053, https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paae053

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This article presents results from a systematic review and meta-analysis of problem-oriented policing (POP). The results show an overall 33.8% relative reduction in crime/disorder in treatment groups relative to controls, which adds to evidence that POP is an effective strategy that police leaders should adopt. There is, however, a great deal of variation in effect sizes, and moderator analyses were conducted to examine when POP may work best. Preliminary findings suggest POP may have larger impacts when responses are broader and involve more partner agencies/groups, when more of the agency is involved in the program, and when targeting property crime and disorder. Importantly, our findings also show that shallower implementations of POP still had significant impacts and suggest that POP should be implemented even if an agency cannot initially carry out in-depth problem-solving. Future research should supplement meta-analyses with narrative reviews to further identify what makes POP most effective.

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Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

• Published: 16 May 2019
• Volume 14 , pages 145–177, ( 2019 )

Cite this article

• David Weisburd 1 , 2 ,
• Malay K. Majmundar 3 ,
• Hassan Aden 4 ,
• Anthony Braga 5 ,
• Jim Bueermann 6 ,
• Philip J. Cook 7 ,
• Phillip Atiba Goff 8 ,
• Rachel A. Harmon 9 ,
• Amelia Haviland 10 ,
• Cynthia Lum 1 ,
• Charles Manski 11 ,
• Stephen Mastrofski 1 ,
• Tracey Meares 12 ,
• Daniel Nagin 10 ,
• Emily Owens 13 ,
• Steven Raphael 14 ,
• Jerry Ratcliffe 15 &
• Tom Tyler 12  

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This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.

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The effects of community-infused problem-oriented policing in crime hot spots based on police data: a randomized controlled trial

Community Policing: The Relevance of Social Contexts

Introduction: Twenty-First-Century Policing—Between Evidence-Based Practice and Reflexivity

That figure declined to 191,851 SQF incidents in 2013, and further declined to 22,565 SQF stops in 2015, as a result of court challenges and a changing political environment. See http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data [May 2017].

The conclusions are numbered according to the chapters of the committee’s report in which they were developed (see National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018 ).

Studies reviewed for drawing conclusions include Braga et al. ( 2014b ), Clarke and Weisburd ( 1994 ), Ferguson ( 2012 , 2015 ), Gerell ( 2016 ), Gill and Spriggs ( 2005 ), Goldstein ( 1990 ), Gorr and Lee ( 2015 ), Hunt et al. ( 2014 ), Johnson et al. ( 2009 ), Kennedy et al. ( 2011 ), Koper ( 1995 ), La Vigne et al. ( 2011 ), McLean et al. ( 2013 ), Mohler et al. ( 2015 ), National Research Council ( 2004 ), Perry et al. ( 2013 ), Piza et al. ( 2014 , 2015 ), Ratcliffe et al. ( 2009 , 2011 ), Rosenbaum ( 2006 ), Santos ( 2014 ), Sherman and Eck ( 2002 ), Sherman and Weisburd ( 1995 ), Sorg et al. ( 2013 ), Weisburd and Eck ( 2004 ), Weisburd and Green ( 1995 ), Weisburd ( 2016 ), Weisburd et al. ( 2017 ), and Welsh and Farrington ( 2008 ).

Studies reviewed for drawing conclusions include Braga and Bond ( 2008 ), Braga et al. ( 1999 ), Cook and MacDonald ( 2011 ), Desmond and Valdez ( 2013 ), Eck and Spelman ( 1987 ), Eck and Wartell ( 1998 ), National Research Council ( 2004 ), Mazerolle et al. ( 2000 ), Taylor et al. ( 2011 ), and Weisburd et al. ( 2010 ).

Studies reviewed for drawing conclusions include Berk ( 2005 ), Braga et al. ( 2001 , 2013 , 2014a , 2018 ), Braga and Weisburd ( 2014 ), Corsaro et al. ( 2012 ), Fagan ( 2002 ), Groff et al. ( 2015 ), Koper and Mayo-Wilson ( 2006 , 2012 ), Ludwig ( 2005 ), McGarrell et al. ( 2001 ), National Research Council ( 2004 , 2005 ), Papachristos et al. ( 2007 ), Piehl et al. ( 2003 ), Ratcliffe et al. ( 2011 ), Rosenfeld et al. ( 2005 , 2014 ), Rosenfeld and Fornango ( 2014 ), Saunders et al. ( 2015 ), Sherman et al. ( 1995 ), Smith and Purtell ( 2008 ), Wallace et al. ( 2016 ), Weisburd et al. ( 2014 , 2016 ), and Wooditch and Weisburd ( 2016 ).

Studies reviewed for drawing conclusions include Augustyn ( 2015 ), Bennett ( 1990 ), Bottoms and Tankebe ( 2012 ), Braga et al. ( 2015 ), Cahill et al. ( 2008 ), Cavanagh and Cauffman ( 2015 ), Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium ( 1995 ), Connell et al. ( 2008 ), Cook ( 2015 ), Corman and Mocan ( 2005 ), Fagan and Davies ( 2003 ), Fagan and Piquero ( 2007 ), Giacomazzi ( 1995 ), Gill et al. ( 2014 ), Harcourt and Ludwig ( 2005 ), Hinds ( 2007 ), Jackson et al. ( 2012 ), Kelling and Sousa ( 2001 ), Koper et al. ( 2010 , 2016 ), Lindsay and McGillis ( 1986 ), MacQueen and Bradford ( 2015 ), Mazerolle et al. ( 2012 , 2013a ), Nagin and Telep ( 2017 ), National Research Council ( 2004 ), Owens et al. ( 2016 ), Pate et al. ( 1985a , 1987 ), Pate and Skogan ( 1985 ), Paternoster et al. ( 1997 ), Reisig et al. ( 2007 ), Robertson et al. ( 2014 ), Rosenbaum and Lawrence ( 2013 ), Rosenfeld et al. ( 2007 ), Sahin et al. ( 2016 ), Sherman ( 1997 ), Sherman and Eck ( 2002 ), Skogan et al. ( 2015 ), Tuffin et al. ( 2006 ), Tyler et al. ( 2010 ), Wallace et al. ( 2016 ), Weisburd et al. ( 2015b ), Wheller et al. ( 2013 ), Wilson and Kelling ( 1982 ), Wolfe et al. ( 2016 ), Worden and McLean ( 2014 ), and Wycoff et al. ( 1985 ).

Studies reviewed for drawing conclusions include Armitage and Monchuk ( 2011 ), Baker and Wolfer ( 2003 ), Bond and Gow ( 1995 ), Braga ( 2010 ), Braga and Bond ( 2009 ), Braga et al. ( 2014a ), Braga and Weisburd ( 2006 ), Brandl et al. ( 1994 ), Breen ( 1997 ), Brunson ( 2007 ), Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium ( 1995 ), Clancy et al. ( 2001 ), Colgate-Love et al. ( 2013 ), Collins et al. ( 1999 ), Desmond et al. ( 2016 ), Desmond and Valdez ( 2013 ), Epp et al. ( 2014 ), Fratello et al. ( 2013 ), Gau and Brunson ( 2010 ), Giacomazzi et al. ( 1998 ), Gill et al. ( 2014 ), Graziano et al. ( 2014 ), Hinkle and Weisburd ( 2008 ), Jesilow et al. ( 1998 ), Kochel and Weisburd ( 2017 ), Langton and Durose ( 2013b ), Miller et al. ( 2000 ), Miller and D’Souza ( 2016 ), National Research Council ( 2004 ), Pate et al. ( 1986 ), Ratcliffe et al. ( 2015 ), Rosenbaum et al. ( 2005 ), Segrave and Collins ( 2004 ), Shaw ( 1995 ), Skogan ( 1994 , 2009 ), Skogan and Hartnett ( 1997 ), Skogan and Steiner ( 2004 ), Tuffin et al. ( 2006 ), Tyler et al. ( 2014 ), Weisburd et al. 2008 , 2010 , 2011 , 2015a ), Weitzer and Tuch ( 2002 ), Worden and McLean ( 2017 ), and Wycoff and Skogan ( 1993 ).

Studies reviewed for drawing conclusions include Abuwala and Farole ( 2008 ), Baker ( 2016 ), Bradford et al. ( 2014 ), Brunson and Weitzer ( 2007 ), Chang ( 2015 ), Cohen-Charash and Spector ( 2001 ), Colquitt et al. ( 2013 ), Cordner ( 2014 ), De Angelis and Kupchik ( 2007 , 2009 )), Dillon and Emery ( 1996 ), Donner et al. ( 2015 ), Dunford and Devine ( 1998 ), Earley and Lind ( 1987 ), Farmer et al. ( 2003 ), Farole ( 2007 ), Gill et al. ( 2014 ), Greenberg ( 1990 , 1994 ), Hinkle and Weisburd ( 2008 ), Houlden et al. ( 1978 ), Jonathan-Zamir et al. ( 2015 ), Kelling ( 1999 ), Kim and Mauborgne ( 1993 ), Kitzmann and Emery ( 1994 ), Kochel ( 2012 ), LaTour ( 1978 ), Lind et al. ( 1973 , 1978 , 1993 , 2000 ), Lowrey et al. ( 2016 ), Ma et al. ( 2014 ), MacCoun ( 2005 ), MacQueen and Bradford ( 2015 ), Mastrofski ( 2015 ), Mazerolle et al. ( 2013b ), McGarrell et al. ( 1999 ), Miller ( 2001 ), Nagin and Telep ( 2017 ), Pate et al. ( 1985a , 1985b , 1985c ), Owens et al. ( 2016 ), President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing ( 2015 ), Renauer ( 2007 ), Sabath and Carter ( 2000 ), Renauer ( 2007 ), Rogers ( 2002 ), Sahin ( 2014 ), Sahin et al. ( 2016 ), Sargeant et al. ( 2013 ), Scott ( 2002 ), Schnebly ( 2008 ), Shute et al. ( 2005 ), Skogan ( 2006 ), Skogan and Hartnett ( 1997 ), Slocum et al. ( 2010 ), Sunshine and Tyler ( 2003 ), Taxman and Gordon ( 2009 ), Thibaut et al. ( 1972 , 1974 ), Thibaut and Walker ( 1975 ), Trinkner et al. ( 2016 ), Tuffin et al. ( 2006 ), Tyler ( 1988 , 2001 , 2006 ), Tyler et al. ( 2007 , 2014 ), Tyler and Fagan ( 2008 ), Tyler and Huo ( 2002 ), Tyler and Jackson ( 2014 ), Velez ( 2001 ), Voigt et al. ( 2017 ), Walker et al. ( 1974 ), Weisburd et al. 2016 , 2011 , 2015a ), Wemmers ( 2013 ), Wemmers et al. ( 1995 ), Wheller et al. ( 2013 ), Wolfe and Piquero ( 2011 ), Worden and McLean ( 2014 , 2016 ).

Studies reviewed by the committee include Najdowski ( 2011 ), Najdowski et al. ( 2015 ), O’Flaherty ( 2015 ), Sampson and Lauritsen ( 1997 ), Terrill and Reisig ( 2003 ), and Tonry ( 1995 ).

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This article draws heavily from the 2018 report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (“National Academies”), Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities; permission to reprint was granted courtesy of the National Academies Press. David Weisburd chaired the study committee authoring that report, and Malay Majmundar served as study director. This article is authored by the full study committee (Committee on Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime, Communities, and Civil Liberties), the members of which are listed in alphabetical order after the committee chair and the study director. While this article closely follows the report findings, we want to note that it is not a product of the National Academies and does not necessarily represent the positions of the National Academies.

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Weisburd, D., Majmundar, M.K., Aden, H. et al. Proactive Policing: a Summary of the Report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Asian J Criminol 14 , 145–177 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-019-09284-1

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Proactive Policing: Effects on Crime and Communities (2018)

Chapter: 2 the landscape of proactive policing, 2 the landscape of proactive policing.

The previous chapter provided a broad historical context and specific definition of proactive policing. But, having delineated a broad concept of proactive policing, the committee also notes that the various programs and interventions undertaken in the name of proactive policing differ greatly in terms of both what the police do and the theoretical models that inform their activities. Any description of proactive policing is made even more difficult by the fact that police activities span a wide array of responsibilities, many of them shared with state or federal law enforcement. For example, the committee decided not to examine proactive policing approaches to white collar crime, which are primarily carried out by federal law enforcement agencies. Similarly, we did not consider law enforcement efforts to deal with organized crime, international drug trafficking, or trafficking in human beings. The committee decided that while such activities are often proactive and may involve local law enforcement, they were not a part of the landscape of proactive policing that has come to be associated with municipal policing in American cities, which was the main focus of our discussions. This means, to a great extent, that the policing strategies reviewed in this report refer to those public, frontline policing strategies that have been applied to prevent or reduce ongoing, street-level crime and disorder harms.

In focusing on this range of proactive policing, we faced an additional problem. How could such a broad array of approaches be linked in ways that would help to draw broader conclusions about the broad mechanisms underlying prevention? The committee decided that an approach that identified what the key logic models of prevention were at the outset would pro-

vide for the greatest insights into understanding whether proactive policing was effective and whether and how it affects communities, the lawfulness of policing, and racial disparities and racial bias. Taking this approach meant that we recognized at the outset that policing in the real world would not conform simply to the prevention models we identified. In the real world of policing, practices may draw upon a variety of logic models for prevention. This makes sense when the goal is preventing crime rather than identifying the underlying theoretical mechanisms that create preventive outcomes. What this means in practice is that specific programs carried out in policing often fall across the categories defined by the committee.

The committee identified four broad approaches to crime prevention that summarize the directions that proactive policing has taken over the past few decades: place-based approaches, problem-solving approaches, person-focused approaches, and community-based approaches (see Table 2-1 ). While the police practices described in this report may include elements of multiple models of prevention, it is generally the case that they develop primarily as a response to the insights of one logic model in particular. For example, hot spots policing and predictive policing developed primarily in response to the insights underlying the logic model of place-based prevention (described below), whereas community-oriented policing and procedural justice policing rely primarily on a logic model emphasizing the key role played by communities in crime prevention. This does not mean that specific programs do not also draw from other logic models of prevention. Rather, it is possible to think about the broad directions of proactive policing in reference to these categories and, more generally (as we do in later chapters), to draw broader conclusions about why programs or practices have the impacts observed.

The place-based approach seeks to focus policing resources more efficiently and effectively by capitalizing on the concentration of crime incidents at certain locations, or microgeographic places, within a department’s entire jurisdiction . Policing strategies that take a place-based approach include hot spots policing, predictive policing, and use of closed circuit television (CCTV).

A second approach, referred to here as the problem-solving approach , seeks to take a scientific approach to diagnosing the problems that underlie a pattern of crime incidents. After identifying the causes of these problems, it attempts to tailor solutions to the problems by addressing their causes, thereby preventing (or reducing) future crime. Strategies that take this approach include problem-oriented policing and third party policing.

The third approach focuses on deterring crime by capitalizing on the insight that a small proportion of the crime-committing population commits a disproportionate share of the crimes. Strategies that employ this person-

focused approach include focused deterrence; repeat offender programs; and stop, question, and frisk (SQF).

The fourth approach, which we call the community-based approach, focuses on involving the community in defining the key problems of policing and on fostering the community’s role (as understood by a strategy’s logic model) in maintaining order and public safety. Strategies that take a community-based approach include community-oriented policing, procedural justice policing, and broken windows policing.

These four approaches have different implications for the outcomes of policing, whether those outcomes be crime control, a community’s evaluation of its police, the lawfulness of policing, or potential disparities or bias in the application of policing. To understand why and how these approaches have been used in actual policing programs and interventions, we will ask three questions for each approach:

• What factors underlay its emergence as a proactive policing approach?
• What are the main types of policing practices (here called strategies) that use this approach?
• What is the underlying logic model, and the evidence for that model, that informs strategies that adopt this policing approach?

Before applying the conceptual framework and its taxonomy of policing approaches and strategies to the real world and the research literature about it, two caveats are in order. First, as already noted, actual policing programs and implementations of proactive practices often incorporate elements that fall under two or more of the approaches as defined above; even more frequently, they combine elements from several strategies, as these are defined in this chapter. To aid comprehension, we reserve the terms “approach” and “strategy” for the taxonomic elements of the framework summarized in Table 2-1 . We reserve “logic model” for the rationale underlying an approach or a strategy implementing an approach. Second, although the committee has adopted terminology in common use in the research literature and in policing practice, we recognize that the strict characterizations given in this report will sometimes conflict with how these terms are used in one study or another. For purposes of our discussion, the committee has interpreted whatever terminology the original authors used into the terminology of our conceptual framework.

STRATEGIES FOR A PLACE-BASED APPROACH

Policing has always had a geographic or place-based component, especially in how patrol resources are allocated for emergency response systems

TABLE 2-1 Four Approaches to Proactive Policing

( Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy, 1992 ). In order for officers to respond quickly to citizen calls, police organizations developed geographically based systems that took into account the crime levels in particular areas. Under the standard model of policing, which emphasized shortening response times, police resources were organized using macrogeographies, which refers to areas the size of patrol officers’ beats, an organization’s precincts, or other relatively large administrative areas. In contrast to the standard model, proactive place-based policing (see Weisburd, 2008 ) focused on smaller, “micro” units of geography, often termed “crime hot spots.” Such a hot spot might be a single building or address; street segments or the faces of a street block; or clusters of addresses, block faces, or street segments with common crime problems.

Since the 19th century, scholars have found evidence that crime is more prevalent in some places than others ( Guerry, 2002 ; Quetelet, 1842 ; Mayhew, 1968 ). However, research emerging in the late 1980s showed that this concentration of crime occurred at a very microgeographic level. Place-based proactive policing developed in response to this growing body of evidence ( Sherman, Buerger, and Gartin, 1989 ; Sherman and Weisburd, 1995 ; Weisburd and Green, 1995 ). Its logic model was based on the research findings that crime incidence was highly concentrated in crime hot spots. As Sherman and Weisburd (1995 , p. 629) remarked in the first large-scale test of effectiveness of hot spots policing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, if “only 3 percent of the addresses in a city produce more than half of all the requests for police response, if no police are dispatched to 40 percent of the addresses and intersections in a city over one year, and, if among the 60 percent with any requests the majority register only one request a year ( Sherman, Buerger, and Gartin, 1989 ), then concentrating police in a few locations makes more sense that spreading them evenly through a beat.”

Important to the development of place-based policing are theoretical perspectives that also emerged during this period ( Braga et al., 2011 ; Weisburd and McEwen, 1997 ; Weisburd and Telep, 2010 ). Key to the standard model of police patrol had been the idea that opportunities for crime were common throughout the urban landscape (see Repetto, 1976 ). But with the entry of economists into the analysis of crime ( Becker, 1968 ; Ehrlich, 1973 ; Cook, 1986 ), the assumption that the crime rate was somehow determined by the number of “offenders” was challenged. The economic theory of crime conceptualized criminal behavior as a choice available to everyone, influenced by the perceived costs and benefits of available criminal opportunities. The crime rate, from this perspective, is determined both by the potential payoff to exploiting an opportunity (amount of “loot” in the case of property crime) and by the probability of arrest and punishment. The availability of attractive criminal opportunities

is thus one determinant of crime and is itself heavily influenced by private behavior of potential victims.

Routine activities theory ( Cohen and Felson, 1979 ), situational prevention ( Clarke, 1995 ), and crime pattern theory ( Brantingham and Brantingham, 1993 ) challenged the idea that criminal opportunities were unending and raised the question of whether specific places have characteristics that attract or generate crime. These perspectives, which are often termed “opportunity theories” (see Cullen, 2010 ; Wilcox, Land, and Hunt, 2003 ), suggested that reduction of crime opportunities at specific places would likely prevent crime without displacing it to other locations. 1 Using this theoretical background, advocates of place-based policing argued that traditional objections to targeting microgeographic hot spots—objections that assumed crime displacement—would be unlikely to offset the crime prevention gains generated by focusing policing on hot spots.

The underlying logic model of place-based policing—that police can capitalize on the strong concentration of crime at microgeographic places—has been confirmed in a large number of studies over the past few decades (see Andresen and Malleson, 2011 ; Braga, Papachristos, and Hureau, 2014 ; Brantingham and Brantingham, 1999 ; Crow and Bull, 1975 ; Curman, Andresen, and Brantingham, 2015 ; Pierce, Spaar, and Briggs, 1988 ; Roncek, 2000 ; Sherman, 1997 ; Sherman, Buerger, and Gartin, 1989 ; Weisburd and Amram, 2014 ; Weisburd et al., 2004 ; Weisburd and Green, 1995 ; Weisburd, Morris, and Groff, 2009 ; Weisburd, Maher, and Sherman, 1992 ; Weisburd, Groff, and Yang, 2012 ; Weisburd, 2015 ). These studies confirmed that microgeographic concentrations of crime do not necessarily conform to traditional ideas about crime and communities. In particular, neighborhoods that are considered troubled often have discrete locations that are free of crime, and crime hot spots do occur in neighborhoods that are generally viewed as advantaged and not crime prone (see, e.g., Weisburd, Groff, and Yang, 2012 ). A number of studies also suggested that hot spots of crime are often stable over long periods of time (see, e.g., Weisburd, Groff, and Yang, 2012 ; Andresen and Malleson, 2011 ).

Hot Spots Policing

Sherman and Weisburd (1995) developed the strategy of hot spots policing in the Minneapolis Hot Spots Patrol Experiment. Hot spots policing covers a range of police responses, but they all focus resources on locations where crime incidents have been highly concentrated. By focusing on microgeographic locations with high concentrations of crime, hot spots policing

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1 The four main dimensions of opportunity theory are (1) motivated offenders, (2) suitable targets, (3) guardianship, and (4) accessibility/urban form.

aims to increase the general deterrence of police actions, in this case by increasing perceptions of the certainty of enforcement action ( Durlauf and Nagin, 2011 ). There may also be a specific deterrent impact of hot spots policing, if offenders who are arrested because of increased patrols are thereby dissuaded from future offending. In addition to specific and general perceptual deterrence, police can also alter the situational opportunities that exist at hot spots by altering the environmental design of places (see, e.g., Clarke, 1997 ), engaging “place guardians” such as building managers or store owners ( Eck and Weisburd, 1995 ), and engaging communities at the hot spots ( Weisburd, Davis, and Gill, 2015 ). 2

Once a hot spot is identified, police may implement a range of tactics appropriate to the particular type of hot spot to prevent crime in the given microarea, and these tactics often incorporate elements typical of one or another of the other three proactive policing interventions discussed above (refer to Table 2-1 ). In 2008, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) conducted a survey on hots spots policing that was distributed to its general members. 3 The results of the survey indicate that when police engage in hot spots policing, they implement aspects of general patrol/enforcement strategies, an offender-oriented strategy, problem-oriented and community-oriented strategies, or a general investigative strategy. 4 Table 2-2 shows the use of each policing practice by the principal type of crime associated with

2 As noted earlier, actual policing practice often combines elements from two or more of the approaches. A hot spots policing practice that seeks to engage the community could easily become a hybrid of place-based and community-based approaches.

3 PERF agencies represent an important and influential group of the nation’s largest police forces. To be eligible for PERF general membership, one must be the executive head of a state or local police agency that has 100 or more employees and/or serves a jurisdiction of at least 50,000 persons. The survey discussed here was completed by 191 PERF agencies, representing a response rate of 63 percent. “The responding agencies were predominantly large, with a mean of 997 officers and a median of 315. Their service populations averaged nearly 460,000 and had a median size just below 161,000. Eighty-three percent of the [agencies] were municipal agencies, while the remainder consisted primarily of county [agencies] (13 percent).” The U.S. agencies in the sample represented all four primary regions of the United States (as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau), and their jurisdictions accounted for 21 percent of the country’s population in 2006 ( Koper, 2014 , pp. 126–127).

4 A general patrol/enforcement strategy can include such practices as directed patrol, traffic stops and field interviews, order maintenance, foot patrol, overtime saturation patrol, fixed police presence, and use of mobile suppression or saturation units. An offender-oriented strategy may consist of interventions that target known offenders, execute warrant services, and check on probationers and parolees. Problem-oriented and community-oriented strategies include problem analysis and problem solving, intervening at problem locations, community policing partnerships, and multiagency task force operations. General investigative strategies consist of interventions such as surveillance, decoy operations, buy-bust/reverse stings, and the use of technologies like surveillance cameras or gunshot detection systems ( Koper, 2014 ).

TABLE 2-2 Percentage of Responding Agencies Using a Proactive Policing Practice, by Principal Crime Type Associated with a Hot Spot

NOTE: n = 176 agencies.

SOURCE: Koper (2014 , p. 130).

a hot spot. 5 As these results illustrate, there is often overlap between tactics used in hot spots policing and tactics typically associated with the other proactive policing approaches in Table 2-1 . Box 2-1 describes a hot spots policing program in Sacramento, California, further demonstrating that police departments often use a range of tactics from different approaches at hot spots.

Predictive Policing

Predictive policing is a strategy for proactive policing that uses predictive algorithms based on combining different types of data to anticipate where and when crime might occur and to identify patterns among past criminal incidents. Predictive policing tends to focus on geospatial predic-

5 The underlying logic model of hot spots policing does not limit police to implementing only these practices. For example, the police could engage in community policing (foot patrol being one tactic often associated with community policing, another being door-to-door getting-to-know-you police interventions) or procedural justice.

tion of crime activity, and many police departments who adopt predictive policing approaches use computer software to generate maps of predicted crime activity. 6

Predictive policing takes data from disparate sources (both real-time crime data and frequently other noncrime data) and identifies patterns in the aggregated dataset. Police then use those patterns to anticipate, prevent, and respond more effectively to future crime. Predictive policing overlaps with hot spots policing but is generally distinguished by its reliance on sophisticated analytics that are used to predict likelihood of crime incidence within very specific parameters of space and time and for very specific types of crime.

Predictive methods can be used to predict crime incidence by type, predict offenders, predict perpetrators’ identities, or predict victims of crime. For geospatial prediction of crime activity, many police departments use computer software to generate maps of predicted crime activity. Methods used to identify likely perpetrators of past crimes use available information from crime scenes to automatically link suspects to crimes; methods predicting potential victims of crimes identify at-risk groups and individuals, such as those in proximity to at-risk locations, individuals at risk of victimization, and individuals at risk of domestic violence ( Perry et al., 2013 ).

Making predictions is only half of predictive policing; the other half is carrying out interventions that act on the predictions ( Perry et al., 2013 ). Police combine predictions (and crime analysis more generally) with strategies and tactics at predicted locations. For example, in Shreveport, Louisiana, the police department used monthly predictions of locations of future crimes to drive a strategic decision-making model that included increasing officer awareness of hot spots in roll call and using predictions to implement a broken windows intervention ( Hunt, Saunders, and Hollywood, 2014 ).

Predictive policing as a strategy for proactive policing has its origins in the National Institute of Justice’s first predictive policing symposium, held in 2009 in Los Angeles. Participants at that meeting identified numerous

6 According to Ferguson (2012 , p. 265), predictive policing is a “generic term for any crime fighting approach that includes a reliance on information technology (usually crime mapping data and analysis), criminology theory, predictive algorithms, and the use of this data to improve crime suppression on the streets.” Ratcliffe (2014 , p. 4) defines predictive policing as “the use of historical data to create a spatiotemporal forecast of areas of criminality or crime hot spots that will be the basis for police resource allocation decisions with the expectation that having officers at the proposed place and time will deter or detect criminal activity.” However, predictive policing methods may at times also focus on predicting individuals who may become offenders or on predicting perpetrator identities using regression and classification models that include risk factors, statistical modeling to link crimes, and computer-assisted queries and analysis of intelligence and other databases ( Perry et al., 2013 ).

potential applications of predictive policing, but the primary actual use was the description of the time and location of future incidents in a crime pattern or series. For example, police in Richmond, Virginia, used predictive policing methods to analyze random gunfire incidents. Using this analysis to make predictions, they were able to anticipate the time, location, and nature of future incidents ( Uchida, 2009 ).

There are a number of companies that sell commercial predictive policing software (e.g., PredPol and HunchLab 2.0) as well as one program funded by the National Institute of Justice and available without charge. 7 These software programs require access to real-time crime data (and, sometimes, other noncrime data) that are geocoded, reliable, and fit for the analytic purpose. The software must also have an appropriate algorithm that can produce viable predictions when needed and produce them in a format that is easily translated to operational personnel. Beyond the software, in order to implement predictive policing, a decision-making system in the operational environment capable and willing to make resource allocation decisions based on the predictions is necessary, along with the adoption of appropriate tactics tailored to the crime problem (see Ratcliffe, 2014 ). We note, however, that a software program is not necessary to produce results akin to those produced by predictive policing software programs; with sufficient knowledge and under the right circumstances, a well-trained crime analyst could perform the activities of a dedicated software program.

Because the concept of predictive policing is relatively recent, there is a lack of clarity with regard to both the specifics of operationalization of these definitions and the specifics of the police strategies applied ( Santos, 2014 ). The effectiveness of predictive policing is difficult to establish because, to be a bona fide new policing strategy, it may require combining two components. The first is a software algorithm or prediction regime that is able to better predict future criminality than any existing alternative mechanisms (such as current software for crime mapping and/or the abilities of a crime analyst). Second, predicted grids should incur an operational response that is identified specifically with predictive policing.

Closed Circuit Television

CCTV is a surveillance technology comprising one or more video cameras connected in a closed circuit to a monitoring system. A CCTV system for proactive policing usually includes a number of cameras that can pan, tilt, and zoom in various directions; a mechanism to convey the real-time images to a monitoring location; a range of other elements that store,

7 The PROVE software utility is available at https://www.hunchlab.com/tools/prove [July 2017].

display, or otherwise monitor the camera live feed; and a human element whereby someone monitors the images either in real time or in response to an incident ( Ratcliffe, 2006 ). Though CCTV may be used reactively, the committee examines here the uses of CCTV for proactive policing; that is, when CCTV is used to view suspicious situations or disorders, to which police might be able to respond before the situation deteriorates into a crime incident.

How cameras are monitored varies significantly among police departments. When used proactively, CCTV cameras are actively monitored, requiring a person who watches the camera feed and can deploy personnel to the incident in real time. Some CCTV systems, such as in the town of Malmö, Sweden, are actively monitored only during weekend nights from midnight to 6 a.m. ( Gerell, 2016 ). Some systems may also have such high camera-to-operator ratios that doubt is cast as to the level of “active” monitoring actually taking place ( Smith, 2004 ; Piza et al., 2015 ).

CCTV cameras are used to increase the risks for offenders of committing crime and specifically comprise a formal surveillance mechanism that enhances or replaces the role of police or security personnel ( Welsh and Farrington, 2008 ; Clarke and Eck, 2005 ). In other words, prevention occurs if a potential offender is aware of the camera and makes the decision that the risk of capture outweighs the benefits of the imminent offense ( Ratcliffe, 2006 ). CCTV cameras placed overtly are hypothesized to generate a general deterrence mechanism that increases the perceived risk of capture among the general potential offender population, should a crime be committed. They also raise the possibility of specific deterrence by which any offenders who are captured through use of the camera scheme are dissuaded from future offending. This perceptual deterrence is therefore rooted in the certainty, severity, and celerity of punishment, where “deterrence is maximized by sanctions that are perceived as inexorable, burdensome, and expeditious” ( Apel, 2016 , p. 59). CCTV aims to heighten the last of these: perception of the celerity of enforcement action.

STRATEGIES FOR A PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACH

Herman Goldstein argued in 1979 that the police could be more effective in reducing crime if they took a more “problem-oriented” approach. Goldstein noted that the police had become so concerned with the means of policing that they had neglected the goals of policing. He called on police to refocus on those goals, which in his view could be defined as solving problems in communities ( Goldstein, 1979 , 1990 ). The logic model of problem solving assumes that if the police focus on specific problems, they will be more successful at reducing crime and other community problems. Strategies for a problem-solving approach, such as problem-oriented

policing and third party policing emerged from Goldstein’s work. 8 These problem-solving strategies seek to identify causes of problems and draw upon innovative solutions with attention to assessment.

Problem-solving strategies, with their analytic focus, often incorporate policing practices characteristic of other approaches. For example, in practice there is often overlap of problem-solving practices with practices typical of a place-based approach and a person-focused approach. As will be discussed below, interventions that primarily take a community-based approach often explicitly include elements characteristic of the problem-solving approach as well.

Problem-Oriented Policing

Problem-oriented policing is an analytic method for developing crime reduction tactics. This strategy draws upon theories of criminal opportunity, such as rational choice and routine activities, to analyze crime problems and develop appropriate responses ( Clarke, 1997 ; Braga, 2008 ; Reisig, 2010 ). Using a basic iterative process of problem identification, analysis, response, assessment, and adjustment of the response (often called the scanning, analysis, response, and assessment [SARA] model), this adaptable and dynamic analytic method provides a framework for uncovering the complex mechanisms at play in crime problems and for developing tailor-made interventions to address the underlying conditions that cause crime problems ( Eck and Spelman, 1987 ; Goldstein, 1990 ). Depending on the nuances of particular problems, the responses that are developed—even for seemingly similar problems—can be diverse. Indeed, problem-oriented policing interventions draw upon a variety of tactics and practices, ranging from arrest of offenders and modification of the physical environment to engagement with community members.

Historically, most police departments engaged in incident-driven crime prevention strategies. These departments sought to resolve individual crime incidents instead of addressing recurring crime problems ( Eck and Spelman, 1987 ). In his seminal article that challenged existing police policy and practice, Herman Goldstein (1979) proposed an alternative: police should search for solutions to the recurring problems that generated repeated calls. Goldstein described this strategy as the “problem-oriented approach” and envisioned it as a departmentwide activity. He intended for problem-oriented policing to also address the problem of unguided police discretion

8 Proactive partnerships with other organizations (such as code or liquor enforcement agencies, schools, probation, and private businesses), situational crime prevention, and crime prevention through environmental design are also commonly used as practices for a problem-solving approach. These are generally included in our review as third party policing practices.

(which could give rise to negative consequences such as improper use of force, ineffective crime reduction procedures, corruption, and discriminatory practices) and the “means-over-ends syndrome” (meaning an overemphasis on means, without appropriate attention to the goals, or ends).

Goldstein also emphasized from the outset that police engaged in problem-oriented policing should focus their efforts on problems the community cares about and that practices typical of a community-based approach should be among those considered in trying to reduce any given problem. Eventually the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) in the U.S. Department of Justice formally hybridized problem-oriented policing and community-oriented policing by making problem-oriented policing a key element of its community-oriented policing strategy (discussed below). Thus, like many of the strategies discussed in this chapter, problem-oriented policing is in practice often implemented in practice in conjunction with practices characteristic of other policing approaches.

Problem-oriented policing requires police to be proactive in identifying underlying problems and to develop an array of tactics to address the problem, not just a particular police tactic ( Goldstein, 1990 ; see also Weisburd et al., 2008 , p. 10). However, research suggests that it is often difficult for police officers to fully implement a problem-oriented policing strategy ( Cordner, 1998 ; Eck and Spelman, 1987 ; Clarke, 1998 ; Braga and Weisburd, 2006 ). Indeed, the research literature is filled with cases where problem-oriented policing programs tend to fall back on traditional methods and tend to have weak problem analysis components ( Buerger, 1994 ; Capowich and Roehl, 1994 ; Cordner and Biebel, 2005 ; Read and Tilley, 2000 ). Box 2-2 describes a problem-oriented policing program in the Jacksonville, Florida, Sheriff’s Office.

Third Party Policing

Third party policing draws upon the insights of problem solving but also leverages “third parties” who are viewed as significant new resources for preventing crime and disorder. The argument for third party policing asserts that the police cannot successfully deal with many problems on their own. Thus, the failures of the standard model of policing are inherent in the limits on police powers, and crime prevention requires police engagement with third parties. Using civil ordinances and civil courts or the resources of private agencies, police departments engaged in third party policing recognize that much social control is exercised by institutions other than the police (e.g., public housing agencies, property owners, parents, health and building inspectors, and business owners) and that crime can be better managed through coordination with these institutions, using means other than the criminal law.

Mazerolle and Ransley (2006 , p. 192) suggested that the growth of third party policing may be part of a larger transformation of governance in Western democracies away from state sovereignty and control and toward “networks of power.” Meares (2006 , p. 207) similarly suggested that third party policing bears similarities to certain forms of civil regulation (e.g., of accountants, lawyers, employers, and sports leagues) and that, given the pervasive forms of civil regulation today, it is not surprising that third-party efforts are becoming common in the enterprise of street crime control.

Again, there is often overlap in practice between third party policing and the other strategies examined by the committee. The focal point of third party policing can be people, places, or situations. Third party policing efforts are sometimes directed specifically at categories of people—such as young people, gang members, or drug dealers—and at other times at specific places, such as crime hot spots ( Mazerolle and Ransley, 2006 ,

p. 197). For example, police in southern California used regulatory policy to promote responsible management among operators of nuisance motels ( Bichler, Schmerler, and Enriquez, 2013 ). In Oakland, California, police implemented the “Beat Health” third party policing program to abate drug and disorder problems (see Box 2-3 ). Still other third party policing programs may seek to engage business improvement districts in crime prevention activities, such as coordinating private security services to complement public security ( Cook, 2011 ; Cook and MacDonald, 2011 ).

Third party policing interventions (and the problem-solving policing approach more generally) could also include strategic partnerships with private security entities. For example, there are now approximately 1,000 private Business Improvement Districts in the United States, funded by special assessments on owners within the boundaries of the district, that supplement public services.

STRATEGIES FOR A PERSON-FOCUSED APPROACH

In the standard model of policing, the primary goal of police was to identify and arrest offenders after crimes had been committed. But beginning in the early 1970s, research evidence began to suggest that the police could be more effective if they focused on a relatively small number of chronic offenders ( Pate, Bowers, and Parks, 1976 ). Similar to the research showing a concentration of crime at certain microgeographic locations, Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin (1972) found that a large proportion of crime was committed by a small proportion of offenders: just 6 percent of the juveniles they studied were responsible for 55 percent of juvenile arrests. These findings—the existence of a substantial, identifiable group of chronic offenders—were replicated in a series of other studies of criminal behavior (see, e.g., Farrington and West, 1993 ; Howell et al., 1995 ; Blumstein, Farrington, and Moitra, 1985 ).

These studies led to innovations in policing based on the logic model that crime prevention outcomes could be enhanced by focusing policing efforts on the small number of offenders who account for a large proportion of crime. From this perspective, the standard model of generalized investigation and prevention was deficient because it spread resources too broadly across the general criminal population. Specific deterrence could be gained by focusing on very high rate offenders who are responsible for a large part of the crime problem, and general deterrence would be enhanced by the message that high rate offenders are the focus of concentrated police activities. Such programs, at least in their development, rely not on the social or demographic characteristics of offenders as a method of allocation of police resources but rather on official data about crime.

Focused Deterrence

Offender-focused deterrence, also known as pulling levers, is a strategy that attempts to deter crime among a particular offending population and is often implemented in combination with interventions typical of a problem-solving approach ( Braga and Weisburd, 2012 ). Focused deterrence allows police to increase the certainty, swiftness, and severity of punishment in innovative ways. The first focused deterrence intervention, Operation Ceasefire, was implemented to reduce youth homicide in Boston during the mid-1990s ( Braga et al., 2001 ; Kennedy, Piehl, and Braga, 1996 ). This well-known program was designed to prevent violence by reaching out directly to gangs, saying explicitly that violence would no longer be tolerated, and backing up that message by “pulling every lever” legally available when violence occurred ( Kennedy, 1997 ). Box 2-4 gives a more detailed description of Operation Ceasefire. Central to the strategy is direct interaction with offenders and communication of clear incentives for compliance and consequences for criminal activity. Most offender-focused deterrence interventions target various criminally active groups and networks, including gangs and drug crews.

Focused deterrence interventions target specific behaviors by the relatively small number of chronic offenders who are viewed as highly vulnerable to criminal justice sanctions. The strategy aims to directly confront offenders—for example, by telling them that continued offending will not be tolerated and informing them how the system will respond if they violate behavior standards. An important aspect of the strategy is often the use of face-to-face meetings with offenders. McGarrell and colleagues (2006) suggested that these types of direct communication, followed up with appropriate enforcement responses to continuing violations, may cause offenders to reassess the risks of committing crimes. It is likely that other complementary crime-control mechanisms are at work in a focused deterrence strategy (see, e.g., Braga, 2012 ). Focused deterrence typically is incorporated in a hybrid intervention or program with elements of both the problem-solving and community-based approaches. According to Braga and Weisburd (2012 , pp. 349–350), “the emphasis is not only on increasing the risk of offending but also on decreasing opportunity structures for violence, deflecting offenders away from crime, increasing the collective efficacy of communities, and increasing the legitimacy of police actions.”

There have also been examples of focused deterrence applied to street drug markets and individual repeat offenders. In High Point, North Carolina, the Drug Market Intervention aimed focused deterrence at eliminating public forms of drug dealing such as street markets and crack houses by warning dealers, buyers, and their families that enforcement was imminent ( Kennedy and Wong, 2009 ; Corsaro et al., 2012 ; Saunders et

al., 2015 ). This intervention targeted individual “overt drug markets” and established a joint police-community partnership that identified individual offenders and notified them of the consequences they faced if they continued dealing in drugs. This partnership also provided support services for these individuals through a community-based resource coordinator, while conveying the message that there now was an uncompromising community norm opposed to drug dealing.

In a focused deterrence intervention in Chicago, parolees who had been involved in gun- and gang-related violent crimes and were returning to one of the highly dangerous neighborhoods selected for the intervention were required to attend “offender notification forums.” The forums informed

them that as convicted felons, they were vulnerable to federal firearms laws with stiff mandatory minimum sentences. The forums also offered social services and included talks by community members and ex-offenders ( Papachristos, Meares, and Fagan, 2007 ). The communications process at these forums was intentionally designed to promote positive normative behavior change by engaging the parolees in ways they were likely to view as procedurally just, rather than simply threatening.

Stop, Question, and Frisk

SQF has become one of the most controversial proactive policing strategies because police directly interact with citizens, using intrusive police powers. The legal authority to perform individual SQF is grounded in the landmark 1968 Supreme Court decision Terry v. Ohio. Terry v. Ohio and related decisions have concluded that police may stop a person based upon a “reasonable suspicion” that they are about to commit, are in the process of committing, or have committed a crime. 9 If a separate “reasonable suspicion” that the person is armed and dangerous exists, the police may conduct a frisk of the stopped individual. Given this standard, although situational factors are also relevant, Terry v. Ohio stops cannot be conducted lawfully without reference to the behavior of the individual being stopped. When carried out as a proactive policing strategy, an SQF program relies upon the legal authority granted in Terry v. Ohio and its progeny to engage in frequent stops in which suspects are questioned about their activities, frisked if possible, and often searched, usually with consent. 10

Stops, frisks, and arrests, whether reactive or proactive, are subject to the same legal standards. Traditionally, stops, frisks, and arrests are tools police use reactively as a means to address a particular crime they witness or have reported to them or to investigate specific suspicious behavior. In this context, harmless or ambiguous conduct often will not justify the resources that would be necessary to address it, and officers leave such conduct unaddressed rather than intrude on individuals. By contrast, as a proactive policing strategy, departments often employ coercion more expansively and to promote forward-looking, preventative ends. This strategic use of Fourth Amendment doctrine is legal ( Whren v. United States 517

9 The Supreme Court has not ruled as to whether Terry v. Ohio can be used to investigate a completed misdemeanor, and it has suggested that it might not be permissible. However, Terry can be used as the legal justification for police to investigate a completed felony ( United States v. Hensley , 469 U.S. 221 [1985]); see also Navarette v. California (572 U.S. ___ [2014]).

10 Police may perform a frisk (or pat-down) on an individual if, during a lawful stop, they have reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous. A frisk is a limited search of the person’s outer clothing for the purpose of discovering weapons ( Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1 [1968]).

U.S. 806 [1996]). See Chapter 3 of this report for a full discussion of the legality of SQF. Nevertheless, in this way, some deterrence-oriented proactive strategies generate incentives for officers to conduct more frequent and intrusive, and therefore liberty-reducing, searches and seizures, aided by the rules developed by the U.S. Supreme Court for reactive policing, than reactive policing would generate. 11 Today, police executives regard SQF as an important crime prevention tool (see, e.g., Terkel, 2013 ).

SQF programs often involve blanketing areas within a city with pedestrian stops to reduce violent crime, as was the case in Philadelphia (see Box 2-5 ). It is often assumed in these programs that such stops play a key role in deterring potential offenders, as it raises the probability of being stopped and searched by the police. Other cities have used SQF programs in an attempt to change perceived risks of engaging in particular crimes, such as gun and drug crimes.

Although we have categorized SQF as a strategy for a person-focused approach because of the legal requirement that police focus on the behaviors of specific people to undertake a stop, SQF has also been used as a proactive policing tactic aimed at controlling and preventing crime at specific places. For example, Weisburd, Telep, and Lawton (2014) found that SQF in New York City had been implemented as a type of hot spots policing tactic, where SQF stops were concentrated on specific high-crime streets. Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis have used SQF practices to address gun crime at hot spots (see Sherman, Shaw, and Rogan, 1995 ; Cohen and Ludwig, 2003 ; McGarrell et al., 2001 ).

Some scholars argue that the SQF strategy has negative consequences for communities (see Chapter 5 of this report; see also Fagan et al., 2010 ), and it has been criticized for targeting the young, non-Whites, and specific neighborhoods (see Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss, 2007 ; Ridgeway, 2007 ; Stoud, Fine, and Fox, 2011 ; see also Chapter 7 of this report). In New York City, a court found the SQF program of the New York Police Department (NYPD) to be unconstitutional and restricted the NYPD’s use of the strategy. See Chapter 3 of this report for a discussion of SQF’s legality.

STRATEGIES FOR A COMMUNITY-BASED APPROACH

The community-based approach seeks to enlist and mobilize people who are not police in the prevention of crime and the production of public safety. However, in this approach, the focus is generally not on specific actors such as business owners but the community more generally. While community-based strategies may incorporate practices typical of the other

11 Proactive strategies that emphasize narrowly focused deterrence are unlikely to have this effect.

proactive policing approaches, such as problem-solving or place-based policing, their key orientation is toward the community. In some cases, community-based strategies rely on enhancing the community’s ability to engage in collective action to do something about crime. This is often referred to as the “collective efficacy” of the community ( Sampson and Raudenbush, 1999 ). In other cases, the strategy seeks to change community evaluations of the legitimacy of police actions ( Tyler, 2004 ). These objectives are often intertwined.

Much of 20th century police reform attempted to assign the police the

core responsibility for crime control ( Fogelson, 1977 ; Kelling and Moore, 1988 ; Walker, 1977 ), whereas community policing reformers sought to encourage the clientele of the police to become “coproducers” of crime control, dealing not only with the immediate concerns of a specific incident but also with underlying issues that may aggravate crime problems. As the 2004 National Research Council report on policing stated, “community policing may be seen as [a] reaction to the standard models of policing. . . . While the standard model of policing has relied primarily on the resources of the police and its traditional law enforcement powers, community policing suggests a reliance on a more community-based crime control that draws not only on the resources of the police but also on the resources of the public” ( National Research Council, 2004 , p. 233).

The impetus for community-based policing strategies came in part from conflicts between the police and the public that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, especially among non-White and disadvantaged communities (see Chapter 1 ). The approach’s logic model developed from a growing research base that suggested that the community was key to crime control ( Reiss and Tonry, 1986 ; Skogan, 1992 ). One early indication that community involvement was important for controlling crime came from a large-scale study conducted in the late 1970s of rapid response to emergency calls to the police ( Spelman and Brown, 1981 ). Although the study overall found that increasing police response time would not lead to crime reductions, the researchers also concluded that citizen willingness to call the police was key to any potential crime prevention gains. Similarly, a series of studies in the 1970s and 1980s pointed to the importance of citizen cooperation in increasing police effectiveness (see, e.g., Reiss, 1971 ; Spelman and Brown, 1984 ).

Community-Oriented Policing

At its outset, community policing did not originate as a proactive approach to solving crime problems . In its original formulation, its proponents sought to give greater priority to a wide range of order maintenance and public service functions that had not been given priority during the “professional” reform era ( Goldstein, 1987 ; Greene and Mastrofski, 1988 ; Kelling and Moore, 1988 ; Rosenbaum, 1994 ). While it may be argued that service to citizens was always an important part of American police work (see, e.g., Wilson, 1968 ), community-based policing legitimated a set of roles for the police that had previously been unrecognized or underappreciated, especially in the way that governments measured police performance (crime, arrest, and clearance rates). In short, community-based policing at the outset did not necessarily define crime reduction, at least in terms of traditional measures, as a central element of its success (see, e.g., Klockars,

1988 ; Skolnick and Bayley, 1986 ). However, crime control became a key goal of community policing over time, making it attractive to national, state, and local community leaders sensitive to the high political priority crime control had assumed in the 1980s and 1990s.

As a strategy focusing on a community-based proactive crime prevention approach, community-oriented policing tries to address and mitigate community problems (crime or otherwise) for the future and to build social resilience, collective efficacy, and empowerment to strengthen the infrastructure for the coproduction of safety and crime prevention. These objectives reflect a variety of program theories (variants of the approach’s logic model as stated in Table 2-1 ) about the crime-prevention mechanism at work in community-oriented policing. For example, with practices such as neighborhood watch or police–citizen patrols, increased guardianship may create a deterrent effect. Guardianship may also be the result of building collective efficacy in neighborhoods, so that citizens feel empowered to apply informal social controls to risky behavior, suspicious incidents, or unsupervised youth. Skogan (1986 , 1990 ) discussed community-oriented policing as playing an important role in reducing fear and thereby lowering the chances of citizen withdrawal and isolation—two factors that, when left unchecked, may lead to further crime and disorder (see also the discussion below of broken windows policing ).

Community-oriented policing has been described as both a philosophy of policing and an organizational strategy ( National Research Council, 2004 ; Greene, 2000 ) in which police agencies embrace a vision of their function that is larger than just reacting to and processing crime ( Skogan and Hartnett, 1997 ). This vision generally entails the inclusion by police agencies of community groups and citizens in coproducing safety, crime prevention, and solutions to local concerns. Despite its longevity as a reform—it dates back more than three decades—there is still considerable variation in how community-oriented policing is defined. Nevertheless, a degree of consensus seems to have formed around treating it as an organizational strategy that embraces three core processes and structures ( Skogan, 2006b ): (1) citizen involvement in identifying and addressing public safety concerns, (2) the decentralization of decision making to develop responses to locally defined problems, and (3) problem solving. Each of these three elements of community-oriented policing could be implemented independently. What gives problem solving and decentralization a community-oriented policing character is when these elements are embedded in the community engagement (often called “partnership”) element. The inclusion of problem solving as an element again points to the overlap across the committee’s four approaches to proactive policing (refer to Table 2-1 ).

Early manifestations and research on community-oriented policing focused on tactics such as foot patrol, neighborhood watch, and community

meetings or newsletters. However, as noted above, the definition expanded to include practices from the problem-solving approach. More recently, community-oriented policing has encompassed such notions as building collective efficacy and empowerment (see Sampson, 2011 ); procedural justice and legitimacy (see Tyler, 1990 ); 12 and efforts to increase police accountability through citizen review boards, body-worn cameras, and improved complaint processes.

In 2014, the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), whose membership represents the largest police agencies in North America and the United Kingdom, conducted an electronic survey to better understand the community policing practices of its members. Of the 75 North American member agencies, 42 responded to the survey. Table 2-3 shows the number and percentage of departments who reported that they engaged in specific community-oriented policing practices. Some of these practices fall under the committee’s definition of proactive policing, but others do not. It should be noted that this list is not exhaustive of the sorts of tactics and activities that have been characterized as “community-oriented policing” (see Roth, Roehl, and Johnson, 2004 ).

Departments define and deploy what this committee means by a strategy of community-oriented policing in different ways; some view it as the responsibility of a special community-policing unit, while others view it as an organizational philosophy. Many agencies do both. (See Box 2-6 for a description of community-oriented policing in Chicago.) According to the 2014 MCCA survey, responding departments allocated personnel to perform community-oriented tasks using centralized, decentralized, or hybrid structures. Seventeen percent of agencies ( n = 7) used a centralized structure where only full-time community policing officers were deployed to conduct community-oriented policing activities; 21 percent ( n = 9) used a decentralized structure, which considered community-oriented policing exclusively a part of patrol officer duties; and the majority of respondents (62%; n = 26) used a hybrid structure with a combination of dedicated full-time staff, patrol officers, and special units engaging in activities aimed at community-oriented policing objectives ( Scrivner and Stephens, 2015 , p. 9).

Procedural Justice Policing

A more recent organizational innovation with a focus on the community-based approach is procedural justice policing. Like community-oriented policing, this strategy also assumes that the police cannot succeed in their efforts to control crime without the support of the public. However, in its efforts to change the public’s relationship with the police, procedural

12 Procedural justice and legitimacy are discussed in the next section.

TABLE 2-3 Prevalence of Use of Community-Policing Practices by North American Police Agencies Responding to the 2014 MCCA Survey

NOTE: MCAA = Major Cities Chiefs Assocation, POP = problem-oriented policing.

SOURCE: Scrivner and Stephens (2015 , p. 10).

justice policing focuses on how the police treat the public as individuals in everyday encounters. 13 Whereas community-oriented policing often focuses on giving the community the outcomes that it wants (e.g., more safety, more noncrime services, greater responsiveness to personal needs), procedural justice focuses on giving citizens police decision processes that manifest demonstrations of police fairness and regard for a person’s dignity. Fair and considerate police processes are presumed to render even unpleasant outcomes (an arrest or citation) less objectionable to the person on the receiving end.

Also, unlike community-oriented policing, procedural justice policing does not seek to enlist the public in coproductive activities during these routine encounters but rather seeks to impress upon the citizen and the

13 Conceivably, this strategy could include many other occasions when police and public interact, such as neighborhood association meetings attended by the police.

wider community that the police exercise their authority in legitimate ways. 14 According to the logic model of this strategy, when citizens feel that policing is legitimate, they are more inclined not only to defer to police

14 Legitimacy, within the context of the procedural justice literature, is “a property of an authority or institution that leads people to feel that authority or institution is entitled to be deferred to and obeyed” ( Sunshine and Tyler, 2003 , p. 514).

authority in the present instance but also to collaborate with police in the future, even to the extent of being more inclined not to violate the law. That is, procedural justice policing is based upon the idea that police shape the evaluative judgments citizens make about police performance (i.e., whether it is effective, fair, lawful), and these evaluations shape general orientations toward the police (i.e., police legitimacy). Legitimacy then shapes the behavior of citizens in terms of law abidingness, cooperation with authorities, and engagement in the community (see Chapter 5 of this report; see also Tyler, 2003 ). Therefore, when police engage in activities that promote procedural justice, they are presumed to enhance their perceived legitimacy not only among those who experience police contacts directly but also from a broader communication of their actions to the community more generally.

Procedural justice policing tries to encourage four main characteristics of police behavior that are viewed as affecting perceptions of police legitimacy: (1) Do they provide opportunities for voice, allowing members of the public to state their perspective or tell their side of the story before decisions are made? (2) Do they make decisions in ways that people regard as neutral, rule-based, consistent, and absent of bias? (3) Do they treat people with the dignity, courtesy, and respect that they deserve as human beings and as members of the community? (4) Do people believe that their motives are trustworthy and benevolent—that is, that the police are sincerely trying to do what is good for the people in the community?

The key to understanding the procedural justice strategy is that its elements focus on how people experience policing: whether they feel they have voice, whether they think the procedures are neutral, whether they feel respected, and whether they infer that the police are trustworthy. Trustworthiness is the key to accepting discretionary decisions, according to this logic model. The argument underlying the strategy is that the way people perceive these features of police action shapes whether people do or do not judge the police to be legitimate.

In deciding to include procedural justice as a proactive policing strategy, the committee recognized that many of the behaviors connected to procedural justice may also more generally be seen as a standard part of democratic policing ( Nagin and Telep, 2017 ). Although the committee agrees with this position, it recognizes that procedural justice policing has been presented by its advocates not only as “good police behavior” but also as a strategic approach to policing that should increase police legitimacy, citizen compliance, order, and safety in police-public encounters and should reduce crime in the long run (see, e.g., Tyler, Goff, and MacCoun, 2015 ).

While it may be true that treating people with respect and fairness can be seen as part of overall good practice, in procedural justice policing

the police modify their actions to consciously and deliberately mold the attitudes of the community in advance of events that might create conflict or crisis. Under the logic model informing this strategy, the police are instructed to do this in order to proactively influence what happens later. For example, the strategy may aim to create a climate in which the public is more willing to defer to police authority, in which people more willingly obey the law and help to solve crimes, and in which the public accepts that the police are acting with good intentions and should be given the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous situations. Sometimes such activities may come as a response to citizen calls for police service, and in this sense they may be seen as reactive. But they also may occur in community meetings or with other proactive contacts with the police. Moreover, even in responses to citizen requests for police service, under procedural justice policing police officers should seek to apply procedural justice principles not only to initiators of police responses but also to bystanders and offenders.

In this sense, the police act proactively by engaging in many types of actions designed to build a “reservoir of trust” in the community. Whatever the fit of procedural justice with democratic principles, procedural justice policing seeks to develop longer-term gains in terms of police legitimacy and crime. Advocates of this approach argue that an overarching focus on the principles of procedural justice is key to prevention and other outcomes. Indeed, it is sometimes presented as an alternative to other proactive policing strategies that focus on short-term crime-prevention gains:

We argue that these changing goals and style reflect a fundamental tension between two models of policing: the currently dominant proactive risk management model, which focuses on policing to prevent crimes and makes promises of short-term security through the professional management of crime risks, and a model that focuses on building popular legitimacy by enhancing the relationship between the police and the public and thereby promoting the long-term goal of police community solidarity and, through that, public-police cooperation in addressing issues of crime and community order. ( Tyler, Goff, and MacCoun, 2015 , p. 603)

Until recently, procedural justice practices were not explicit objectives of particular policies and programs but rather were simply observed in their “natural” state as the product of discretionary choices made by individual police officers in specific police–public interactions ( Mastrofski et al., 2016 ). The report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015) argued that procedural justice is an important aspect of building trust and legitimacy in communities, and therefore the task force called on departments to adopt procedural justice as a guiding principle. This call

has led to the development of a larger number of programs and policing interventions that explicitly promote procedural justice. 15

Box 2-7 describes how the King County, Washington, Sheriff’s Office has implemented principles of procedural justice in its work.

Broken Windows Policing

Another strategy of the community-based approach uses a very different logic model for the problem of crime control. Broken windows policing sees the key to crime prevention as operating in the informal social controls within communities ( Wilson and Kelling, 1982 ). Its focus, accordingly, is on how the police can reinforce and enhance such social controls, especially where informal social controls have become weak (see Weisburd et al.,

15 Procedural justice policing can follow both an internal and external model. Internal procedural justice refers to practices within an agency and the relationships officers have with their colleagues and leaders. It follows the logic model that those officers who feel respected by their organization are more likely to bring this respect into their interactions with the public. External procedural justice focuses on the ways officers interact with the public and how the characteristics of those interactions shape the public’s trust of the police ( Tyler, 1990 ; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003 ; Haas et al., 2015 ).

2015 ). It shares with community-oriented and procedural justice policing a concern for community welfare and envisions a role for police in finding ways to strengthen community structures and processes that provide a degree of immunity from disorder and crime in neighborhoods. Unlike community-oriented policing, this strategy does not emphasize the coproductive collaborations of police and community as a mode of intervention; rather it focuses on what police should do to establish conditions that allow “natural” community entities to flourish and promote neighborhood order and social/economic vitality.

The concept of broken windows policing developed out of a Police Foundation study, the Newark Foot Patrol experiment ( Police Foundation, 1981 ). The police officers walking patrol in the study were engaged in activities (e.g., closing down a bar early after being called twice to end brawls in that same bar) that might be seen as part of the policing task in the standard model of policing. However, from this study’s results and drawing on earlier studies by Zimbardo (1969) and Zimbardo and Ebbesen (1969) , Wilson and Kelling (1982) identified a link between social disorder and crime and suggested that the police ought to pay attention to many problems that may be seen as peripheral to the police function under the standard model. The broken windows hypothesis held that “untended” behavior (e.g., abandoned property, unruly youth behavior) could lead to the breakdown of community controls and that serious crime developed because the police and citizens did not work together to prevent urban decay and social disorder ( Weisburd and Braga, 2006b , pp. 14–15).

According to Wilson and Kelling (1982 , p. 31), “at the community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence.” The broken windows logic model posits an indirect pathway from disorder to crime through increased fear and, subsequently, the breakdown of informal social controls in the community. The fear-of-crime literature at the time provided fairly consistent support for a strong linkage between disorder and fear ( Garofalo, 1981 ; Garofalo and Laub, 1978 ; Hunter, 1978 ; see Hinkle, 2013 for a review), and early studies in this area can in some sense be seen as supporting the broken windows logic model.

Diminished informal or community social controls are thus a key component of the logic model underlying the broken windows concept of crime control. Wilson and Kelling (1982) argued that disorder problems, and the resulting increased levels of fear, lead to withdrawal from the community. This withdrawal takes two forms: people moving away and the remaining residents becoming less likely to intervene in community affairs. ‘‘Untended’’ behavior also leads to the breakdown of community controls ( Weisburd et al., 2015 ):

A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other’s children, and confidently frown on intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move, they refuse. . . . Such an area is vulnerable to criminal invasion. Though it is not inevitable, it is more likely that here, rather than in places where people are confident they can regulate public behavior by informal controls, drugs will change hands, prostitutes will solicit, and cars will be stripped. ( Wilson and Kelling, 1982 , pp. 31–32)

The nature of police “broken windows” interventions varies from informal enforcement tactics (warnings, rousting disorderly people) to formal or more intrusive ones (arrests, citations, SQF), all intended either to disrupt the forces of disorder before they overwhelm a neighborhood’s capacity for order maintenance or to restore afflicted neighborhoods to a level where community sources of order can now sustain it. The two most commonly implemented (separately or in combination) forms of broken windows policing have been the use of aggressive policing that uses misdemeanor arrests to disrupt disorderly social behavior to prevent crime (often referred to as “zero tolerance” 16 ) (see Taylor, 2006 ; Cordner, 1998 ; Eck and Maguire, 2006 ; Skogan, 2006b ; Skogan et al., 1999 ) and the use of problem-oriented or community-oriented policing methods to address disorderly conditions that might contribute to crime (see Kelling and Coles, 1996 ). Box 2-8 describes a zero tolerance version of broken windows policing that was implemented in New York City.

A broken windows strategy may also be used in conjunction with other proactive policing strategies. For example, in Jersey City, New Jersey, officers used aggressive order maintenance as a tactic to reduce violent crime at hot spots ( Braga et al., 1999 ). Similarly, a broken windows strategy was used in Los Angeles, through the Los Angeles Police Department’s Safer Cities Initiative, to target homeless encampments in the downtown “skid row” area that were believed to be linked to high rates of street crime and disorder. The tactics implemented for this initiative included breaking up encampments, issuing citations, making arrests, and maintaining a visible police presence in the area ( Berk and MacDonald, 2010 ).

16 However, Kelling and Sosa (2001) argued that the term “zero tolerance” is often used derisively to describe broken windows policing interventions in which officers consistently use discretion and routinely assess the circumstances surrounding offenses, and therefore, they argue, the use of the term may be inaccurate for these interventions.

THE DIFFUSION OF PROACTIVE POLICING ACROSS AMERICAN CITIES

To what extent have these four proactive policing approaches spread across the landscape of American policing? To answer that question, the committee drew on data collected from the National Police Research Platform (NPRP), PERF, and MCCA. The PERF and MCCA surveys have already been described earlier in this chapter.

Overall, it is clear that many departments claim to be using multiple proactive policing innovations. The NPRP, the most comprehensive and representative survey gathering this information, uses a diverse national sample of approximately 100 municipal police and sheriff’s agencies, of which the majority are agencies that have between 100 and 3,000 sworn officers. Between October and December 2013, the NPRP conducted a survey of its participating agencies, asking knowledgeable persons within the organization to indicate whether specific innovations had been adopted, whether department policy regarding an adopted innovation had been established

TABLE 2-4 Innovations Adopted by Departments, with and without Formal Policy, from the 2013 National Police Research Platform (NPRP) Survey ( n = 76)

NOTE: The NPRP survey asks departments if they are engaged in “community policing.” The survey’s use of “community policing” is equivalent to the committee’s articulation of “community-oriented policing.”

SOURCE: Adapted from Mastrofski and Fridell (n.d. , p. 2).

and, if so, in what year. 17 Seventy-six of the 100 police agencies completed the questionnaire. 18 Interestingly, the survey results suggest that there is very wide use of proactive policing in medium-to-large police agencies in the United States. Mastrofski and Fridell (n.d. , p. 3) reported that three-quarters of the responding departments adopted at least 8 to 10 “innovations.” 19 Table 2-4 lists the findings relevant to proactive policing.

The most commonly employed proactive policing innovation according to this survey was community-oriented policing, which more than 90 percent of agencies claim to be employing, supported by formal policy. Using the taxonomy adopted for this report, 9 of 10 local law enforcement agencies with more than 100 sworn officers reported in 2013 that they had adopted community-oriented policing with supporting formal policies ( Mastrofski and Fridell, n.d. ). Community-oriented policing became popular among police leaders in the 1990s ( Roth, Roehl, and Johnson, 2004 )

17 The median number of sworn officers for the entire NPRP was 274; the median for the 2013 department-characteristics survey was 255.

18 Although 24 NPRP agencies did not complete the survey, the profile of survey respondents did not differ markedly from the total NPRP sample ( Mastrofski and Fridell, n.d. , p. 1).

19 The 2013 NPRP survey designated the following as innovations: evidence-based policing, video recording (CCTV), CompStat, broken windows policing, early intervention systems, problem-oriented policing, procedural justice policing, hot spots policing, crime analysis, and community policing ( Mastrofski and Fridell, n.d. , p. 3).

and was especially attractive because of the availability of federal grants, issued by the COPS Office, to support community-oriented policing programs ( Reisig, 2010 , p. 20). The popularity of this strategy has seemingly been sustained despite declining funding in the latter part of the 2000s.

Perhaps surprising, given the relatively later emergence of procedural justice policing on the American police reform agenda, an almost equal number of departments (89.5%) claim to have implemented practices for this strategy in their department. While the depth of involvement and commitment to these strategies cannot be gauged by the surveys, the data suggest that police agencies across the United States are concerned about police legitimacy (as defined in the procedural justice logic model) and view community-based policing interventions as key to their work.

Ninety-one percent of departments surveyed claimed to use hot spots policing, again pointing to very high penetration of this strategy in American policing. Problem-oriented policing was also widely noted, with about 82 percent of responding NPRP departments claiming to use this strategy. Use of broken windows policing was claimed by 79 percent of NPRP respondents.

PERF conducted the Future of Policing Survey in 2012. The survey instrument was distributed to 500 police departments across the country, and nearly 200 police departments responded. While the PERF Survey was directed at its membership, which generally consists of larger and more progressive police agencies, the results provide a picture of the use of proactive policing strategies similar to the NPRP results (see Table 2-5 ). In this case, community-oriented policing, problem-oriented policing, and directed patrols/focused deterrence were the strategies most commonly used. Targeting known offenders and hot spots policing were also common, with almost

TABLE 2-5 Prevalence of Use of Proactive Policing Strategies by Percentage of Agencies Responding to the 2012 Future of Policing Survey ( n = 200)

SOURCE: Police Executive Research Forum (2014 , p. 50).

TABLE 2-6 Police Departments in 2007: (1) Using Computers for Hot Spot Identification, (2) Using Community-Policing Officers, (3) with Separate Full-Time Community-Policing Units

SOURCE: Reaves (2010) .

80 percent of departments claiming to use these strategies. Not surprisingly, predictive policing, which is a newer innovation, was less commonly employed. 20 Although the agencies affiliated with PERF do not constitute a representative sample of all U.S. police agencies or of any subset thereof (e.g., large agencies), they may serve as a good indicator of likely trends in the use of strategies among larger police agencies (see Koper, 2014 , p. 126).

The largest and most representative of the surveys to provide information on proactive policing is the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) Survey, administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). BJS collects data from a representative sample of local police departments and provides national estimates on a variety of agency characteristics. The survey is completed every 3 years. Table 2-6 displays the 2007 survey findings on hot spots and community policing,

20 In addition, to date, most departments implementing predictive policing must first purchase predictive policing software. This upfront cost may slow adoption of the strategy.

TABLE 2-7 Police Departments in 2013 with Community-Policing Mission Components

SOURCE: Reaves (2015) .

and Table 2-7 presents the 2013 survey findings on community policing. 21 One advantage of the LEMAS survey is that it allows one to look at the variability in policing strategies by department size—and the overall story that emerges from these findings is that the claimed use of proactive strategies declines as the size of departments declines.

The prevalence of SQF is not examined by any of the above surveys, possibly because few departments created formal policies or structures to implement it, or possibly because of the controversy surrounding use of this strategy. 22 However, one relevant survey data source, the 2011 BJS Police-Public Contact Survey, found that of the 62.9 million people ages 16 and older with one or more police contacts in 2011, 7.3 percent (4.59 million) reported the contact was an involuntary street stop or arrest or other involuntary contact (not an involuntary traffic stop). 23 Among those individuals reporting an involuntary contact, 19.1 percent (72,083 indi-

21 BJS uses the term “community policing,” which corresponds with the committee’s use of the term “community-oriented policing,” as both emphasize collaboration with communities, support through agency management structures, and problem solving (see Reaves, 2010 , p. 26).

22 Though SQF is not a formal strategy in most police departments, it is used by all police departments in response to reasonable-suspicion observations or calls for service.

23 The Police-Public Contact Survey does not identify the police department with which the person interacted.

viduals) reported being searched or frisked ( Langton and Durose, 2013 , pp. 2, 11–12). Between 2003 and 2010, reported SQF stops in New York increased almost four-fold from 160,851 to about 600,000 ( Weisburd, Telep, and Lawton, 2014 ). At its peak in 2011, the NYPD reported 685,000 SQFs (for a population of 8.5 million). 24 Philadelphia and Los Angeles also saw substantial increases in pedestrian stops made by the police in the first decade of the 21st century. In Philadelphia, police reported 250,000 stops (in a city of 1.5 million) in 2009, double the number in 2007. Los Angeles reported 244,038 stops (in a city of 3.85 million) in 2008, double the number of stops in 2002 ( Jones-Brown, Stoudt, and Moran, 2013 ).

These data tell us that many of the proactive policing approaches described in this chapter are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of strategies that have been diffused across the landscape of American policing. Although the surveys are informative and present a general picture of American policing, especially among large departments, they do not offer a complete picture. For example, it is not known with certainty what motivates police organizations to embrace these innovations. One hypothesis is that these adoptions are motivated by “technical” concerns, such as a desire to reduce crime and to create and maintain safe communities ( Mastrofski and Uchida, 1993 ; National Research Council, 2004 , pp. 308–312). Police departments may also be motivated by federal funding incentives or in response to federal litigation (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of the U.S. Department of Justice’s litigation strategy). 25 Still another perspective, sometimes termed “institutional theory,” suggests that the motivation is the pursuit of legitimacy among one’s peers and support from an organization’s stakeholders. According to this hypothesis, police leaders may adopt strategies in the absence of hard evidence that they work in a technical sense (or even in the face of evidence that they do not work) simply because they perceive that their peers, especially high-visibility leaders in the field, are touting those strategies or using them. And this motivation, according to institutional theory advocates, can account for the rapid diffusion of certain police innovations in the past few decades ( Weisburd et al., 2003 ; Willis, Mastrofski, and Weisburd, 2007 ). Where institutional pressures are strong for adoption, there can be a tendency to garner the benefits of “being on board” with the innovation without having fully implemented it.

24 That figure declined to 191,851 SQF incidents in 2013, and further declined to 22,565 SQF stops in 2015, as a result of court challenges and a changing political environment. See http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data [May 2017]. Chapter 3 of this report discusses Floyd v. City of New York (2013).

25 As described above, for example, community-oriented policing was an especially attractive innovation for police departments because of the availability of federal grants, issued by the COPS Office, to support community-oriented policing programs ( Reisig, 2010 , p. 20).

These surveys of police agencies also do not collect information relevant for determining with confidence the fidelity with which each strategy was implemented, how frequently it is actually used, or the scope of its use (how many people use it) within the department ( Maguire and Mastrofski, 2000 ). Moreover, it is unclear whether departments consistently report their practices across surveys. Systematic data are lacking on how many resources (e.g., staffing levels) are devoted to each proactive strategy; also lacking are systematic data on how they are targeted.

Further complicating researchers’ ability to estimate the prevalence of proactive policing approaches is that the standard way to calculate staffing levels for a given proactive strategy is to tally the number of officers assigned to a unit charged with that strategy. However, the problem with this estimation is that usually the officers assigned to engage in that proactive strategy are also charged with engaging in many other activities, and agency records do not readily distinguish proactive-program efforts from other efforts. For example, officers assigned to specialist community-based policing or problem-solving units also may have responsibilities for responding to calls for service (reactive policing). And officers whose basic job assignment is traditional reactive patrol in the same neighborhood may also take opportunities during their discretionary time to engage in community policing and problem solving.

Even thoroughly researched proactive projects (e.g., Skogan, 2006b , pp. 59–64) do not provide much information on the “dosage” of staff time and activities ( Mastrofski and Willis, 2010 , p. 83). In the few instances where detailed time-management studies have been executed via systematic observation by researchers, the finding is that although community-policing specialists spent more time on community-policing and problem-solving activities than generalist patrol officers in the same department, the norm for community-policing specialists remained the traditional, reactive encounter ( Parks et al., 1999 ; Smith, Novak, and Frank, 2001 ). Surveys that simply gather department staffers’ general impressions of how much officers engage in a given strategy are vague or even misleading. New methods are therefore necessary to determine the prevalence, scope, and frequency of the use of various policing innovations throughout law enforcement agencies in the United States. We return to this issue in our concluding chapter, where we discuss the committee’s recommendations for new data collection on proactive policing.

Each of the four approaches to proactive policing identified by the committee is derived from a different logic model, each focusing on a different method for preventing crime and disorder. A place-based approach seeks to

capitalize on empirical findings about the concentration of crime in small microgeographies. A problem-solving approach assumes that when the police focus on solving specific problems, rather than applying broadly defined generalized strategies, greater crime-prevention gains will be achieved. In a person-focused approach, empirical data on the concentration of crimes among a small part of the criminal population form the key element of the logic model. And finally, with a community-based approach, the importance of the community in solving crime problems is the primary logic model of prevention. In practice, these approaches often entail overlapping police strategies and programs in the field, an issue that we will turn to in later chapters, as the committee assesses the impacts of proactive policing that are more difficult to isolate and examine. One conclusion that can be drawn from reviewing these approaches is that they are, overall, used widely in American policing. The widespread use of proactive policing practices makes careful assessment of their consequences for crime, communities, legality, and bias and discrimination particularly important.

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.

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