Page 28 - 1Proactive Policing

Pro-Active Policing

analyze the problems of a community, search for effective solutions to the problems, and evaluate
the impact of their efforts (National Research Council 2004).

In 1979 Herman Goldstein critiqued police practices of the time by noting that they were more
focused on the ―means‖ of policing than its ―ends.‖ He advocated for a paradigm shift in policing

that would replace the primarily reactive, incident driven ―standard model of policing‖ (Weisburd &
Eck, 2004) with a model that required the police to be proactive in identifying underlying problems

that could be targeted to alleviate crime at its roots.

Problem Oriented Policing is the primary strategy of Community Oriented Policing. The

community and police work together analyzing community problems and developing customized
responses to them.

Key elements of Problem-Oriented Policing:

 Focus on problems of concern to the public.
 Zero in on effectiveness as the primary concern.
 Be proactive.

 Be committed to systematic inquiry as a first step in solving substantive problems.
 Encourage the use of rigorous methods in making inquiries,
 Make full use of the data in police files and the experience of police personnel.

 Group like incidents together so that they can be addressed as a common problem.
 Avoid using overly broad labels in grouping incidents so separate problems can be

identified.
 Encourage a broad and uninhibited search for solutions.
 Acknowledge the limits of the criminal justice system as a response to problems.

 Identify multiple interests in any one problem and weigh them when analyzing the value of
different responses.

 Be committed to taking some risks in responding to problems.
 A problem is the basic unit of police work rather than a crime, a case, calls, or incidents.
 A problem is something that concerns or causes harm to citizens, not just the police.

Things that concern only police officers are important, but they are not problems in this
sense of the term.

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