I
n the last three decades, several concepts have been advanced to structure efforts to improve
policing. Among them have been team policing, neighborhood policing, community policing,
problem-oriented policing, and, most recently, quality-of-life policing. With much overlap, each
concept, as reflected in its name, emphasizes a different need, relegating other commonly advocated
reforms to a secondary role, shaped to support that need. This volume traces the efforts to
implement problem-oriented policing.
The emphasis in problem-oriented policing is on directing attention to the broad range of problems
the community expects the police to handle–the problems that constitute the business of the
police–and on how police can be more effective in dealing with them. A layperson may think this
focus elementary on first being introduced to it. Indeed, laypeople probably assume that police
continually focus on the problems they are expected to handle. But within policing, this focus
constitutes a radical shift in perspective.
Problem-oriented policing recognizes, at the outset, that police are expected to deal with an
incredibly broad range of diverse community problems–not simply crime. It recognizes that the
ultimate goal of the police is not simply to enforce the law, but to deal with problems
effectively–ideally, by preventing them from occurring in the first place. It therefore plunges the
police into an in-depth study of the specific problems they confront. It invites consideration of a
wide range of alternatives, in addition to criminal law, for responding to each specific problem.
Thus, problem-oriented policing draws the police away from the traditional preoccupation with
creating an efficient organization; from the heavy investment in standard, generic operating
procedures for responding to calls and preventing crime; and from heavy dependence on criminal
law as the primary means for getting their job done. It looks to increased knowledge and thinking
about the specific problems police confront as the driving force in fashioning police services.
The introduction of a new concept to policing is not a neat process, especially in the United States,
where approximately 17,000 police agencies operate with a high degree of independence and a
record of strong resistance to change. One would be naïve to expect dramatic results in a short
time. Indeed, when related to the total field of policing, progress toward achieving the shift in
emphasis called for in problem-oriented policing has, over the past two decades, been negligible–a
project here, a cluster of problem-solving efforts there. While "problem-oriented policing" has
become part of the policing vocabulary, pure examples of its implementation are hard to find;
various permutations of the concept are more common. Nevertheless, there have been some
indications of significant movement–examples of situations in which officers have identified a
specific problem, subjected it to in-depth analysis, and implemented a fresh, novel response that is
more effective in dealing with it. When this occurs, one sees the potential of the concept
confirmed. And when one assembles these efforts, as occurs at the annual Problem-Oriented
Policing Conference or in a publication such as this one, the results appear to be substantial.
Michael Scott has taken on the ambitious task, in this report, of describing what has happened in
claimed efforts to implement problem-oriented policing over the past two decades, both in the
United States and abroad. He is uniquely equipped to have done so, having been directly involved
with me in developing the concept in his days as a student; having had a wide range of experiences
in training, implementation and research relating to the concept; and having, throughout this period,
been a valued colleague. This was an extraordinarily difficult project. Except for mail and telephone
surveys, which have proved unsatisfactory in other contexts, and penetrating field inquiries, which
vForeword
Foreword