Papers From the Harvard Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety
Following are the papers from the second Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety, sponsored by NIJ and the Harvard Kennedy School's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
The papers from the first executive session have become become a foundation for police executive training across the nation and we hope that these new papers have a similar impact.
| Title, Author and Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Police Discipline: A Case for Change (pdf, 27 pages) by Darrel W. Stephens June 2011 |
This paper describes the challenges law enforcement agencies nationwide experience with current disciplinary procedures and offers alternate approaches that can improve internal morale and external relationships with the community. Stephens also highlights proactive approaches (such as education-based discipline, mediation, peer review and early intervention) that some agencies are employing to manage and reform officer behavior. |
| The Persistent Pull of Police Professionalism (pdf, 20 pages) by David Alan Sklansky March 2011 |
This paper suggests that the past model of police professionalism has been updated as a result of technology and federal funding. Sklansky explains that 1960s police professionalism was not about tactics, such as random patrol, but rather about the governing mindset behind policies. By the early 1980s, this professional policing model was discredited, giving birth to community policing, which also focused more on ideas and policy and less on tactics. Community policing was seen to have shortcomings, such as being vague and not reducing serious crime. Today, professional policing is mounting a comeback. Community policing, however, is still valuable. Although the community policing model is incomplete, a model of "advanced community policing" could address unanswered specifics about the nature of community policing that would help law enforcement agencies, police researchers and the public resist the persistent pull of police professionalism. |
| Moving the Work of Criminal Investigators Towards Crime Control (pdf, 38 pages) by Anthony A. Braga, Edward A. Flynn, George L. Kelling and Christine M. Cole March 2011 |
This paper points out the challenges to police executives in moving the work of criminal investigators toward a more active
role in crime control. The paper provides research on the effectiveness of criminal investigators, the problem-oriented approach
to crime control and intelligence-led policing. The authors suggest ways to allocate proactive and problem-solving work between
criminal investigators and patrol officers. The paper concludes with examples by the authors of moving the work of criminal
investigators at the Milwaukee Police Department, the New York Police Department, the Victoria Police in Australia, and police
agencies in the United Kingdom. |
| Toward a New Professionalism in Policing (pdf, 27 pages) by Christopher Stone and Jeremy Travis March 2011 |
In the 1980s, community policing replaced the traditional crime-fighting model of policing, often referred to as "professional policing." Community policing was an improvement over the previous policing paradigm (one that the authors argue was more truly professional than the command-and-control model that it replaced) and represented a great change in how police officers did their jobs. The authors argue that it is now time for a new model for the 21st century, one that they call a "New Professionalism." Their framework rests on increased accountability for police in both their effectiveness and their conduct; greater legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry; continuous innovation in tactics and strategies for interacting with offenders, victims, and the general public; and national coherence through the development of national norms and protocols for policing. |
| Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm (pdf, 24 pages) by David Weisburd and Peter Neyroud January 2011 |
This paper urges the police to take ownership and make use of science in the policing task. The authors commend the police
industry for embracing innovative management strategies and crime control and prevention policies over the last two decades,
but argue that as a whole, the profession has been hesitant to adopt scientific, evidence-based policies and practices resulting
in a fundamental disconnect between science and policing. The authors discuss existing research that supports their contention and lay out a proposal for a new, science-based policing paradigm. They describe the adoption this paradigm as necessary if the police industry is to "retain public support and legitimacy, cope with recessionary budget cuts, and...alleviate the problems that have become part of the policing task." |
| Governing Science (pdf, 36 pages) by Malcolm K. Sparrow January 2011 |
This paper argues that the emphasis on using evidence-based practices from social science research and methodology to establish operational and program agendas for policing practice only limits and distracts from more relevant and substantive contributions from natural sciences methodology (e.g., pattern recognition); traditionally productive avenues of observation, investigation and inquiry (e.g., crime analysis); and problem-oriented policing as more effective responses to crime in communities. |
| Making Policing More Affordable: Managing Costs and Measuring Value in Policing (pdf, 20 pages) by George Gascón and Todd Foglesong December 2010 |
During the last 25 years, the costs of policing have risen dramatically across the nation. This rise in costs has spurred
debates among city managers, elected officials, and police chiefs on how best to pay for policing — a debate that has only
become sharper with the current fiscal crisis among state and local governments. This paper looks at the rising costs of policing
in one medium-sized U.S. city (Mesa, Ariz.), and asks two major questions 1) What is driving up the costs of policing? 2)
What return on their investment in policing are cities and their residents receiving? The paper compares policing costs and returns for Mesa with other nearby cities in the vicinity of Phoenix and with other medium-sized cities across the country. It then considers strategies now being tested for managing the rising costs of policing, including efforts to cut spending, raise productivity, revalue the benefits of policing and reengineer operations. |
| The Changing Environment for Policing, 1985-2008 (pdf, 16 pages) by David H. Bayley and Christine Nixon September 2010 |
This paper explores the differences in the environment for policing between 1985 and 2008. Policing in the United States was under siege in the 1980s; crime had been rising from the early 1960s and research showed that traditional police strategies were not working (e.g., hiring more police, random motorized patrolling, foot patrols, rapid response to calls for service and routine criminal investigation). Recent research has reconfirmed this, even though crime has declined dramatically since 1990. However, the panel found that police could reduce crime when they focused operations on particular problems or places and supplemented law enforcement with other regulatory and abatement activities. |
| One Week in Heron City: A Case Study by Malcolm K. Sparrow September 2009 |
One Week in Heron City follows Chief Laura Harrison's through her first week on the job in this fictional city of 400,000.
We invite you to eavesdrop and see how law enforcement agencies might eliminate pre-established mentalities and see problems
in a new light. Chief Harrison enters a city:
Chief Harrison discovers that progress is slow made despite all the department's problemsolving efforts — Compstat, intelligence-led and evidence-based policing, community policing. |
Date Modified: June 10, 2011
