Page 27 - 1Proactive Policing

Pro-Active Policing

The notion of predictive policing is attracting increasing attention from law enforcement agencies
around the United States as departments struggle to fight crime at a time when budgets are being

slashed, according to the New York Times. ―We‘re facing a situation where we have 30 percent
more calls for service but 20 percent less staff—and that is going to continue to be our
reality,‖ Zach Friend, crime analyst for the Santa Cruz Police Department, told the New York

Times. ―So we have to deploy our resources in a more effective way, and we thought this
model would help.‖

Problem-Oriented Policing:

Problem-oriented policing (POP), coined by University of Wisconsin–Madison professor Herman
Goldstein, is a policing strategy that involves the identification and analysis of

specific crime and disorder problems, in order to develop effective response strategies. For years,
police focused on the ―means‖ of policing rather than its ―ends‖, according to Goldstein. Goldstein
(1979) called to replace what he termed the reactive, incident-driven ―standard model of

policing‖. This approach requires police to be proactive in identifying underlying problems which
can be targeted to reduce crime and disorder at their roots. Goldstein‘s view emphasized
a paradigm shift in criminal law, but also in civil statutes and the use of municipal and community

resources. Goldstein‘s 1979 model was expanded in 1987 by John E. Eck and William Spelman
into the SARA model for problem solving.

This strategy places more emphasis on research and analysis as well as crime prevention and the
engagement of public and private organizations in the reduction of community problems.

Problem-oriented policing is an approach to policing in which discrete pieces of police business
(each consisting of a cluster of similar incidents, whether crime or acts of disorder, that the police

are expected to handle) are subject to microscopic examination (drawing on the especially honed
skills of crime analysts and the accumulated experience of operating field personnel) in hopes that

what is freshly learned about each problem will lead to discovering a new and more effective
strategy for dealing with it.

Problem-oriented policing (POP) is an analytic method used by police to develop strategies that
prevent and reduce crime. Under the POP model, police agencies are expected to systematically

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