U.S.

Department of Justice
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Effective Policing and

Crime Prevention
A Problem-Oriented Guide for Mayors, City Managers, and County Executives

Joel B. Plant and Michael S. Scott

Effective Policing and Crime Prevention

A Problem-Oriented Guide for Mayors, City

Managers, and County Executives

Joel B. Plant and Michael S. Scott

This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number

2006-CK-WX-K003 by the Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions contained herein
are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official
position of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific
agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered
an endorsement of the product by the authors or the U.S. Department
of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement
discussion of the issues.

The Internet references cited in this publication were valid as of April

2009. Given that URLs and web sites are in constant flux, neither the
author nor the COPS Office can vouch for their current validity.

© 2008 Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, Inc. The U.S. Department of Justice
reserves a royalty-free, nonexclusive, and irrevocable license to reproduce, publish,
or otherwise use, and authorize others to use, this publication for Federal Government
purposes. This publication may be freely distributed and used for noncommercial and
educational purposes.

www.cops.usdoj.gov

August 2009

1
Contents
Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. 4
Foreword. ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Letter from the COPS Office................................................................................................................... 6
Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 8
What Local Government Executives Should Know About Policing and
Crime Prevention. ........................................................................................................................ 11
The Police Function Is Much Broader Than
Crime Control.............................................................................................................................. 11
The Police Can and Should Do More Than Enforce the Law ............................................................... 13
The Criminal Justice System Is Not the Solution to All Public Safety Problems...................................... 14
The Police Exercise Substantial Discretion......................................................................................... 15
Standard Police Responses to Crime and Disorder Are Limited........................................................... 16
Effective Policing Requires Collaboration........................................................................................... 17
Police Should Be Rated by More Than Crime and Arrest Tallies and Response Times............................ 18
Crime and Disorder Are Heavily Concentrated ................................................................................... 20

The Local Government Executive’s Role in Policing and Crime Prevention...................................... 21

Treat Public Safety as a Local Government Function, Not Just a Police Function................................... 22
Adopt a Problem-Oriented Approach to Addressing Public Safety Concerns......................................... 24
Insist on Best (or Good) Professional Practices................................................................................... 25
Insist on Good Data Analysis to Inform Public Safety Policies and Practices......................................... 26
Emphasize Prevention...................................................................................................................... 27
Help Broker Responsibility for Addressing Public Safety Problems....................................................... 28
Develop Sensible Public Safety Indicators.......................................................................................... 29

2
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder........................................... 31
General Approaches......................................................................................................................... 31
Problem-Oriented Policing ........................................................................................................ 32
Situational Crime Prevention...................................................................................................... 33
Intelligence-Led Policing............................................................................................................ 34
Broken Windows Policing........................................................................................................... 35
Zero-Tolerance Policing............................................................................................................. 35
CompStat................................................................................................................................. 36
The Traditional Policing Model.................................................................................................... 36
Specific Responses to Some Common Public Safety Problems............................................................ 37
Control Alcohol Distribution and Consumption............................................................................. 38
Close Drug Markets ................................................................................................................. 39
Expect Property Owners and Managers to Control Activity in and around Their Properties.............. 40
Design and Manage Parks . ...................................................................................................... 41
Promote Safe Schools .............................................................................................................. 42
Reduce Vehicle Crime................................................................................................................ 43
Prevent Repeat Burglaries ........................................................................................................ 44
Prevent Shoplifting ................................................................................................................... 45
Control Speeding in Residential Neighborhoods ......................................................................... 46
Minimize Graffiti . ..................................................................................................................... 47
Control Disorderly Behavior on the Streets.................................................................................. 48
Control Street Prostitution . ....................................................................................................... 49
Don’t Waste Police Time............................................................................................................ 50

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 53
Appendix: Good Police-Community Problem Solving: Stories From the Field. ................................. 55
Summaries of the Winning Projects for the Herman Goldstein Award for
Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing, 1993–2008................................................................... 55

About the Authors. ................................................................................................................................ 63

3
Contents
 Acknowledgments
The authors of Effective Policing and Crime Prevention are indebted
to the anonymous peer reviewers and COPS Office staff for their
helpful comments and suggestions on matters of content, format, and
style. The authors especially acknowledge the contribution of Marcus
Felson of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, who first
articulated the need for such a guide and proposed the framework and
some content relating to specific crime-prevention recommendations.
Additionally, Herman Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin
Law School, Ron Clarke of Rutgers University, Rana Sampson (an
independent police consultant), San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders,
and Madison, Wisconsin, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz provided valuable
comments and suggestions.

Debra Cohen, Ph.D., and Cynthia Pappas oversaw the project for the
COPS Office. Phyllis Schultze conducted research for the guide at
Rutgers University’s Criminal Justice Library. Nancy Leach coordinated
the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing’s production process.
Suzanne M. Fregly edited this guide.

4
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Foreword
As a mayor, and a former police chief, finding and supporting effective
and fair ways to reduce crime and improve community safety is a top
priority. Too often, mayors and city managers hear from their police chief
“we need more cops.” No doubt, sometimes they are right but in many
cases, the answer is not more, it is that police agencies rely too often
on tactics that are heavily dependent on personnel rather than tactics
that engage and require others in our community to reduce crime. For
example, retail stores are in the best position to reduce shoplifting,
apartment owners are in the best position to prevent burglary or drug
dealing on their property, malls are the best situated to reduce auto theft
from their parking lots, and bars and nightclubs can create crime havens
or minimize offending opportunities. Holding these entities to account is
less costly than providing the policing personnel to cover their defaults
and an added benefit is it appropriately places the responsibility for crime
control on those who have the most power, authority, and ability to reduce
it. Otherwise, everyone else is subsidizing their defaults.

When we adopt this approach police chiefs fear they will be taken to task
as not being ‘business friendly.’ We need to give our chiefs our support for
approaches that are supported by analysis, evidence, and fairness. In that
same regard, when our chiefs want to adopt zero tolerance practices against
neighborhood communities, we need to express our concern because there
is no fairness when all individuals in an area are regarded as criminals. As
you know, policing, in this nation, is a complex endeavor. This brief guidebook
steers us through the research on policing, the evidence of what works and
what we should scrutinize more closely and offers up a series of legitimate
tools the police have and a city and community can use to reduce crime and
build public safety.

Jerry Sanders
Mayor
City of San Diego

5
Foreword
 Letter from the COPS Office
An essential role of local government is to ensure community
safety. Elected and appointed local government officials who are
held accountable for public safety need to understand how local
government can effectively control and prevent common public safety
problems. In addition to securing public safety for its own sake, a
community’s reputation for public safety heavily influences its appeal
as a place to raise a family or open a business. Mayors, city and county
managers, and council members have been instrumental in developing
partnerships with the Federal Government and bringing home the
resources needed to better protect their communities.

Community policing remains the strategy of choice for municipal

and county executives who understand that policing is a shared
responsibility and who are looking to strengthen partnerships,
build respect and appreciation between police and communities,
and implement effective crime-prevention initiatives. In fact, local
government executives have a direct role in addressing crime and
disorder in their communities through their ability to develop broad,
collaborative partnerships among government agencies, businesses,
and private citizens to implement effective public safety strategies.

Effective Policing and Crime Prevention: A Problem-Oriented Guide for

Mayors, City Managers, and County Executives is the latest tool from
the COPS Office and the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing that is
specifically designed for city and county executives actively engaged in
public safety. This guide reviews contemporary public safety strategies,
from adopting a community policing approach to implementing specific
responses to common public safety problems, and offers insight and
recommendations on how local governments can work with police to
address common public safety problems.

6
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
This guide is a companion to the Problem-Oriented Guides for Police
series produced by the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing and
funded by the COPS Office. These Guides provide valuable information
on how local police can more effectively address the multitude of public
safety problems that they routinely confront. The COPS Office is proud
to make this publication, along with an extensive library of resources,
available to municipal leaders eager to learn from best practices and
dutifully work to develop their own successful public safety strategies.

The COPS Office

7
Letter from the COPS Office
 Introduction
Establishing public safety is among local government’s fundamental
obligations to its citizens. The safety of one’s person and security
of one’s property are widely viewed as basic human rights and are
essential to the community’s overall quality of life. When the citizenry is
not, and does not feel, reasonably safe, other critical local government
functions such as economic development, government finance, public
education, stable housing, and basic local government services
become that much more difficult to provide. In short, a community’s
reputation for public safety heavily influences its appeal as a place to
raise a family or open a business.

If you are a mayor or county executive voters directly elected, or a

city or county manager elected officials appointed, you hardly need a
guide to remind you of this: your constituents do so regularly. And yet,
notwithstanding much popular rhetoric about the nature of crime and
what should be done about it, establishing real and perceived public
safety is one of local government’s more complex and challenging
undertakings.

This guide is intended to help you as a local government executive

better understand how local government in general, and local police
in particular, can more effectively meet public safety challenges. The
guide is a companion to several guides in a series known collectively
as the Problem-Oriented Guides for Police, produced by the Center
for Problem-Oriented Policing and published by the COPS Office. The
three series—the Problem-Specific Guides, Response Guides, and
Problem-Solving Tools Guides—represent a summary of the growing
body of knowledge about how local police can more effectively address
the multitude of specific and varied public safety problems that they
routinely confront.

This guide does not directly address other aspects of the local police
function, such as criminal investigation, emergency response, police
integrity, or political accountability, although how the police carry out
their crime-prevention function has profound implications for those
matters as well.

8
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
As a local government executive, you are held accountable for public
safety, and the perception thereof, in your community. In turn, you likely
delegate to your local police agency the primary responsibility for public
safety, at least that part of it that pertains to crime, nuisances, disorder,
and traffic safety. The voters or other elected officials may hold you
personally accountable for public safety and its perception regardless
of your actual authority over your local function.1 While you certainly
should rely on your police executives to understand public safety and
crime prevention in depth, you need to know enough to ensure that
police and other local government functions are being carried out
effectively, efficiently, and fairly.

This guide is deliberately brief because you are busy. It is not an 1

 Local government executives’
exhaustive academic treatise about policing and crime control, but it is legal authority over police
nonetheless based on solid research-based knowledge. The guide will operations varies considerably
across the United States, with
do the following: some executives having direct
and complete supervisory control
„„ Summarize what you should know about policing that directly over police, others having partial
affects public safety. supervisory control, and others
having little more than political
„„ Recommend how you as a local government executive can promote influence. Much of this guide
public safety and effective policing. pertains as well to the operations
of sheriff’s offices as it does to
„„ Present some of what is known about how local government
municipal police agencies, and the
can effectively control and prevent some common public safety term “police” is intended to refer
problems. to both.

9
Introduction
What Local Government Executives
Should Know About Policing and
Crime Prevention
The Police Function Is Much Broader Than
Crime Control
Citizens largely think of police as crimefighters. Certainly, Hollywood plays
up this image. They know that audiences won’t be terribly interested
in watching films and shows about police as service providers, traffic
controllers, and conflict managers. Audiences want action and they want
stories about the fight between good and evil. Police officers themselves
like and perpetuate this crime-fighting self-image, even though they
understand it represents but a partial truth about real policing. Real
policing is, of course, at least partly about crime-fighting. But it is about
much, much more, and it is inescapably complex.

In addition to dealing with such better-known crimes as murder, rape,

robbery, assault, burglary, and theft—which combined comprise only
about 10 percent of all police business—police are routinely expected
to deal with other offenses such as drug dealing and prostitution;
such nuisances as excessive noise and panhandling; and such safety
hazards as traffic crashes and crowd control, to name but a few. By
some counts, police routinely deal with hundreds of types of public
safety problems, each one different from another, each calling for
different and multifaceted responses.

Moreover, as the American Bar Association has stated so clearly below,

the police have multiple objectives that sometimes must be balanced
one against another. Police objectives include the following:

„„ Prevent and control conduct threatening to life and property,

including serious crime.
„„ Aid crime victims and protect people in danger of physical harm.
„„ Protect constitutional guarantees, such as the right of free speech
and assembly.

11
What Local Government Executives Should Know About Policing and Crime Prevention
 „„ Facilitate the movement of people and vehicles.
„„ Help those who cannot care for themselves, including the
intoxicated, the addicted, the mentally ill, the physically disabled,
the old, and the young.
„„ Resolve conflict between individuals, between groups, or between
citizens and their government.
„„ Identify problems that have the potential for becoming more serious
for individuals, the police, or the government.
„„ Create and maintain a feeling of community security.2

The police function’s complexity may well frustrate some citizens—as

well as some police and government officials—who desire simple and
straightforward police action, but it is a fact of life in a democracy.
The reasons why police might not be able to take certain popularly
supported actions might be because police simultaneously are obliged
to try to achieve other objectives.

For example, with regard to public demonstrations and gatherings,

police must balance the right of the public to assemble with the need
to ensure that other citizens can move about freely. With regard to
investigating crime, police must balance the search for evidence
against citizens’ civil liberties. With regard to chronic inebriates on the
street, police must balance the general public’s interest in safety and
2 
order against an obligation to provide care for incapacitated people.
This slightly modified version of
And so forth. Much of police work entails balancing and prioritizing
the ABA Standards on the Urban
Police Function is adapted from objectives.
Goldstein, Herman, Policing a Free
Society, Ballinger Publishing Co., These competing objectives should not paralyze police into inaction,
1977. The original ABA Standards
but good policing demands that the various objectives be reconciled.
are available online at www.abanet.
org/crimjust/standards/urbanpolice. As a local government executive, you can help the police by reminding
html#1-2.2. citizens of these challenges.

12
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
The Police Can and Should Do More Than Enforce
the Law
In trying to achieve their multiple objectives, police have at their
disposal a wide variety of tactics and strategies. Although many people
think that the main way police achieve their public safety objectives
is to enforce the law, in fact, police commonly do things other than
just enforce the law. In most interactions with the public, police do
not issue a citation or make an arrest. Indeed, even were it possible
for police to fully enforce the law—which it is not—it is unlikely that
most communities would tolerate such a thing. Sometimes strict
law enforcement is neither fair nor effective; indeed, sometimes it is
counterproductive to public safety, as, for instance, when it provokes
such widespread public hostility as to engender even more widespread
disorder and lawlessness.

Essential to fair and effective policing is the need to expand the range
of viable alternatives to criminal law enforcement so that police have
multiple tools from which to fashion effective responses to quite varied
public safety problems.

Examples of alternatives to criminal law enforcement police commonly

use to address particular public safety problems include the following:

„„ Mobilizing the community (as witnesses, to patrol the community,

for advocacy)
„„ Requesting that citizens exercise informal social control over one
another (e.g., parents over children, employers over employees,
coaches over athletes, teachers over students, military commanders
over soldiers, lenders over borrowers, landlords over tenants)
„„ Using mediation and negotiation skills to resolve disputes
„„ Conveying information (e.g., to reduce exaggerated fear, to generate
public awareness, to elicit conformity with laws that are not known
or understood, to show citizens how they contribute to problems
and ways to avoid doing so, to educate the public about the limits
of police authority, to build support for new approaches)

13
What Local Government Executives Should Know About Policing and Crime Prevention
 „„ Altering the physical environment to reduce opportunities for
problems to occur
„„ Enforcing civil laws (e.g., nuisance abatement, injunctions, asset
forfeiture)
„„ Recommending and enforcing special conditions of bail, probation,
or parole
„„ Intervening short of arrest (e.g., issuing warnings, placing people in
protective custody, temporarily seizing weapons, issuing dispersal
orders)
„„ Advocating enactment of new laws or regulations to control
conditions that create problems
„„ Concentrating attention on those people and circumstances that
account for a disproportionate share of a problem (e.g., repeat
offenders, repeat victims, repeat locations)
„„ Coordinating with other government and private services (e.g., drug
treatment, youth recreation, social services).

When one views policing in light of the objectives and methods

described above, it becomes more sensible to acknowledge that
enforcing the law is not an end in itself, but rather is one means among
several available to the police toward the objectives previously described.

The Criminal Justice System Is Not the Solution to

All Public Safety Problems
When fear of crime is on the rise, the public reflexively turns to its
police to “do something about it.” Commonly, the “something” the
public demands is for police to crack down by boosting arrests. And
while calls for police to crack down might satisfy citizens’ need to
express their frustration and condemnation of a situation they perceive
to be out of control, not all police crackdowns prove as effective as one
might hope; occasionally, they create their own civic problems.

The criminal justice system lacks both the capacity and the expertise
necessary to effectively address all public safety concerns. Its important

14
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
safeguards designed to ensure due process and protect defendants’
civil liberties help render the criminal justice system ill-suited for high-
volume business.

Relying too heavily on this expensive system designed primarily to deal

with serious and habitual offenders creates several important public
safety risks, including the following:

„„ It compromises the care and attention that it can give to the most
serious offenses and offenders.
„„ It detracts resources and attention away from other institutions
and systems that are equally essential to ensuring public safety.
Properly resourced and accessible systems for mental health,
substance abuse treatment, victim and witness protection, property
code enforcement, consumer product design, school discipline,
youth recreation, social services, civil law enforcement, and dispute
resolution, to name a few, are as important to police effectiveness
as is a well-functioning criminal justice system.
„„ It places undue pressure on police officers to distort and manipulate
their authority in ways not intended under the law and that can lead
to abuse allegations.
„„ It can strain police-community relations and erode public trust in
local government generally. This has proven particularly true in
some racial and ethnic minority communities.

The Police Exercise Substantial Discretion

Borne of practical limitations, a sense of justice, and the absence
of close supervision and immediate review, the police exercise a
tremendous amount of discretion at all levels of the police hierarchy,
including at the line level, where police officers decide how to
handle incidents. Police make discretionary decisions about all sorts
of matters, such as where and on what public safety problems to
concentrate resources, whether to formally enforce the law when they
have legal grounds to do so, and what methods to use in performing
their duties.

15
What Local Government Executives Should Know About Policing and Crime Prevention
 Although the law or policy might compel or constrain some police
discretionary decisions, on most matters there are choices to be made
from among a range of options. In some instances, police alone should
make those choices, but in many instances, the considered views of
citizens, community groups, and elected and appointed government
officials should inform police choices. Bringing police discretionary
decisions, particularly at the strategic level, out into the open where
they can be publicly deliberated and reviewed strengthens democratic
policing and can make the police more effective and fair.

Standard Police Responses to Crime and Disorder

Are Limited
An abundance of research evidence has demonstrated that some of
the common local government responses to crime and disorder, such
as hiring more police officers and deploying them in conventional patrol
and investigative modes, having police respond rapidly to all incidents,
having police patrol the streets in random patterns, and assigning all
criminal cases for follow-up investigation by detectives are of less-
certain value than commonly believed.3

This is not to say that these responses are necessarily ineffective or

unwarranted under all conditions, but only that local governments
and citizens should have more realistic expectations about what
public safety benefits such responses are likely to yield. Moreover, the
standard responses are tremendously expensive for local governments,
and you might reasonably expect a higher public-safety return on these
investments.
3 
For a comprehensive review As a local government executive, you and other elected officials
of research on policing see The
National Research Council, Fairness might be under considerable public pressure to demonstrate your
and Effectiveness in Policing: The commitment to public safety by pressing for these responses, but you
Evidence, The National Academies will leave yourself equally vulnerable to later criticism if these standard
Press, 2004.
responses fail to achieve their promise.

16
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Effective Policing Requires Collaboration
It might seem odd to say that, in spite of their authority, extensive
training, and often considerable resources, the police require the
support and assistance of others to fairly and effectively control and
prevent crime and disorder, but it is true for the following reasons:

„„ The number of police officers available for duty at any time is far
fewer than most citizens imagine, and they cannot possibly establish
a physical presence in all places at all times in a community.
„„ Police authority, great as it is for certain tasks, is often relatively
inadequate compared with what people expect of police.
„„ Police do not directly control most of the conditions that generate
society’s crime and disorder opportunities.
„„ Police authority is founded in part, of course, on what the law
grants, but the extent to which police can effectively use their legal
authority heavily depends on the public’s support of and trust in the
police, which police must constantly strive to cultivate and sustain.

For police to be effective, they must be able to work effectively not only
within the operations of the criminal justice system with which they are
most closely identified, but also within other social and governmental
systems, such as the following:

„„ Community organizations
„„ Government agencies, including local, state, and federal regulatory
systems and civil law enforcement systems
„„ Mental health systems
„„ Public health and emergency medical service systems
„„ Government and nongovernment social service agencies, including
those for drug and alcohol treatment and detoxification
„„ School systems
„„ Corporate and business communities
„„ Juvenile justice systems
„„ Alternative dispute resolution systems.

17
What Local Government Executives Should Know About Policing and Crime Prevention
 Police must develop effective policies, protocols, and working
relationships with all of these systems, as well as with the criminal
justice system, to achieve their objectives. As the local government
executive, you obviously have the greatest influence over the inter-
department working relationships and protocols, but you may well
have influence with respect to other systems through which you can
encourage or promote good relations with your police agency.

Police Should Be Rated by More Than Crime and

Arrest Tallies and Response Times
It should logically follow that if policing is a varied and complex
undertaking, one should assess police agencies as a whole, and
police officers as individuals accordingly. No more than we would
contemplate assessing other important government functions such as
public finance, public health, or public education by crude and one-
dimensional performance indicators should we assess the policing
function the same way. Yet, to a large extent, we commonly do.

We most commonly assess police agencies in terms of reported

crime, arrest numbers, cases solved, and patrol response times, but
these measures alone grossly distort the true picture of the quality of
policing and public safety. For example, since the true aim of policing
is to prevent crime and enhance the public’s sense of security, and
not merely to enforce the law for its own sake, simply counting arrest
numbers tells us rather little about police effectiveness.

Crime experts widely recognize that the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports
data—the principal crime index—are an incomplete and flawed
measure of both crime and police efficacy. Among the system’s more
widely recognized limitations are the following:

„„ Based on what is known from crime victimization surveys, as much

as one-half of all crimes committed are never reported to police.
Even many serious crimes go unreported to police.

18
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
„„ Notwithstanding Uniform Crime Reports coding rules, police
agencies vary considerably in how they classify incidents, thereby
making comparisons across police agencies difficult.
„„ The Uniform Crime Reports make no claim to measure other
important public safety indicators such as actual crime victimization,
traffic safety, nuisance levels and many other forms of disorder,
citizen perceptions of their safety and security, or citizen perceptions
of police fairness.4
There is a need to refine and improve the macro-level measures of
policing and public safety. The FBI’s new National Incident-Based
Reporting System is an important step toward improving measures of
reported crime insofar as it provides much greater detail about many
more crime types than the Uniform Crime Reports.5 But other macro
measures of policing and public safety are also important, such as:

„„ The local community’s sense of safety, security, and peace of mind

„„ Its confidence in the local police
„„ Traffic safety 4 
For an explanation of the
„„ The safety and welfare of its most vulnerable citizens (e.g., the methodology and limitations of
the Uniform Crime Reports, see
elderly, young, mentally ill, suicidal, drug- and alcohol-addicted, or
the annual reports of the Federal
physically handicapped). Bureau of Investigation, Crime in
the United States. The reports can
In addition, local governments should also improve micro-measures of be accessed online at www.fbi.gov/
how well the local government, police included, is addressing specific ucr/ucr.htm#cius.
public safety problems. Each type of public safety problem will warrant
a special set of performance measures tailored to that problem type. 5
 For a description of the National
For example, the measures for how local government and police are Incident-Based Reporting System,
responding to child abuse will differ considerably from measures for see the FBI’s web site at www.fbi.
how they are responding to retail theft. gov/ucr/ucr.htm#nibrs.

19
What Local Government Executives Should Know About Policing and Crime Prevention
 Crime and Disorder Are Heavily Concentrated
Crime and disorder are not evenly distributed across your community.
Rather, they are heavily concentrated: among relatively few offenders,
happening to relatively few victims, occurring in relatively few places,
and involving relatively few target types. Investing in the data collection
and analysis tools necessary to identify the repeat offenders, repeat
victims, hot spots, and products most likely to be stolen can greatly
help police and local government focus their attention where it is
most needed.

Recommended for further information:

Clarke, Ronald V. and John E. Eck. Crime Analysis for Problem-Solvers:
In 60 Small Steps. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2005. www.popcenter.org/
learning/60steps.

National Research Council of the National Academies. Fairness and

Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence. Washington, D.C.: The National
Academies Press, 2004.

Goldstein, Herman. Problem-Oriented Policing. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.

20
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
The Local Government Executive’s Role
in Policing and Crime Prevention
With all that you have to concern yourself with as the local government
chief executive—taxes, budgets, and finance; physical infrastructure;
public transportation; water and air quality; economic development;
legislation; labor negotiations; personnel matters; public relations;
political relations; etc.—it might be tempting to defer public safety
to the police to handle. This might be especially tempting if you lack
formal authority over and control of the police department. After all,
policing can be a complex and messy business, with lots that can go
wrong. Establishing a bit of distance from the police can sometimes
seem the wiser political course.

But leaving public safety entirely to the police is a mistake. Policing

can be done well and effectively with the right leadership and support,
including yours. We hope this guide, along with the more detailed
information contained in the Problem-Oriented Guides for Police, will
help demystify policing and crime prevention, providing clear, sensible,
and practical recommendations for many public safety problems.

An overarching theme of the Problem-Oriented Guides for Police is that

law enforcement alone, and police alone, will not effectively address
most public safety problems. Police have a strong and important
role to play, but so do others in local government, other government
agencies, nongovernment organizations, the business community, and
the general community. As the local government chief executive, you
have both the formal and the moral authority to insist on sound public
safety policies and practices and to compel the collaboration necessary
to achieve them.

On the following pages are some recommendations regarding your role

in promoting good policing and crime prevention.

21
The Local Government Executive's Role in Policing and Crime Prevention
 Treat Public Safety as a Local Government
Function, Not Just a Police Function
Your strongest role with regard to public safety is as the supervisor of
the various department heads reporting to you. Although many people
think only of the police, fire, and emergency medical services as public
safety agencies, in fact, nearly every local government department
plays some important role in promoting public safety. The following are
examples:

„„ Building inspection and code enforcement: Enforces building

codes that help ensure that property owners are responsibly
maintaining their properties, which discourages crime in and around
them.
„„ Economic development: Influences an area’s mix of commerce,
which influences the types of people present in the area on various
days and at various times of the day, which in turn influences crime
opportunities and crime prevention.
„„ Government attorney: Responsible for much of the civil law
enforcement, which is especially important for ensuring responsible
property management that reduces crime and disorder risks.
„„ Mass transit: Regulates passengers’ conduct and its
transportation vehicles’ and stations’ design and security.
„„ Mental health: Responsible for providing crisis intervention and
community care for many mentally ill people, some of whom
otherwise might become criminal offenders or victims.
„„ Parking: Influences traffic flow through parking regulations and
controls the design, maintenance, and security of publicly owned
parking facilities, which affects the safety and security of vehicles
and the people in them.
„„ Parks and recreation: Responsible for the design, maintenance,
and organized activities in parks, all of which influence the parks’
crime and disorder levels. Also is responsible for recreation
programs that draw youth away from crime.

22
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
„„ Planning and community development: Approves site plans at
the lot, building, neighborhood, and community levels, the proper
design of which can discourage crime through the application of
crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED, commonly
pronounced “sep ted”) principles.
„„ Public health: Responsible for controlling the spread of
communicable diseases, including sexually transmitted diseases
commonly spread by prostitutes and drug addicts.
„„ Public housing: Establishes and enforces standards of good
conduct among tenants.
„„ Public libraries: Regulates patrons’ conduct in the libraries and
can provide youth with a safe and productive place to be when not
in school.
„„ Public works: Responsible for street lighting, which affects many
nighttime crime problems such as burglary, robbery, and sexual
assault.
„„ Schools: Controls the design of school buildings and grounds,
policies on student attendance and off-campus privileges, after-
school activities, and in-school monitoring of student conduct,
all of which affect the safety of students and the security of the
surrounding neighborhood.
„„ Social services: Responsible for the welfare of abused and
neglected people, especially children, some elderly citizens, and
domestic violence victims.
„„ Traffic engineering: Designs the roads and establishes speed
limits, both of which have much to do with speed, traffic flow, and
crash risks.

Accordingly, responsibility and capacity to affect public safety reaches

well beyond your police department. Depending on the particular
public safety problem at issue, you should ensure that all the local
government agencies bearing some responsibility and capacity to
influence that issue work together toward its resolution. You should also
promote and facilitate, within legal constraints, data sharing among
various government departments so that the various departments
have the information necessary to work effectively with one another.

23
The Local Government Executive's Role in Policing and Crime Prevention
 You should ensure that those whom you appoint as department heads
understand how their departments’ work implicates public safety and
promote inter-department cooperation and collaboration.

Often, the police are the first agency to detect emerging or acute public
safety problems because they handle the critical incidents and are one
of few agencies open for business around the clock. As a consequence,
police may develop special insights into the problems, but that should
not mean that police retain sole responsibility for addressing all the
problems they identify.

Adopt a Problem-Oriented Approach to

Addressing Public Safety Concerns
The problem-oriented approach (explained more fully in the following
section) need not be restricted to policing. It has equal relevance to all
local government functions. In brief, it establishes a process through
which:

„„ Problems are identified and defined.

„„ Problems are analyzed to determine causes and contributing
factors.
„„ Current responses are reviewed to determine strengths and
limitations.
„„ New and alternative responses are considered.
„„ An improved response strategy is designed.
„„ Responses are implemented.
„„ Results are measured.

If deemed successful, the responses might be made permanent and

the problem is monitored. If deemed unsuccessful, the problem is
reanalyzed or different responses are tried. In most instances, the
process and findings are documented for others to learn from.

24
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
More specifically, you should do the following:

„„ Ensure there are multiple systems in place to identify public safety

problems demanding special attention, perhaps to include:
†† Monitoring specific reported crime and disorder trends
†† Surveying citizens to identify problems they might not have
reported through official channels
†† Consulting with police officers and other line-level government
employees
†† Consulting with elected officials who commonly hear citizen
complaints
†† Monitoring media reporting on emerging problems
†† Meeting with community groups to hear about chronic and
emerging problems.
„„ Ensure structures, systems, and project leadership are in place to
facilitate problem-solving, track progress, and hold employees and
departments accountable for follow-up.

Insist on Best (or Good) Professional Practices

„„ Expect that police and other departments seek out best-practice
information to inform their responses to specific public safety
problems.
„„ Ask probing questions about strategies and tactics being applied to
public safety problems, such as the following:
†† Is this strategy recognized as good or best practice (remaining
open to pioneering work)?
†† Is this strategy based on evidence of its effectiveness?
†† What alternatives have been considered?
†† What data and analysis support this approach?
†† Has the response strategy achieved measurable results in your
community or elsewhere?
†† What are the likely consequences (intended and unintended) of
adopting this strategy?

25
The Local Government Executive's Role in Policing and Crime Prevention
 „„ Engage local industry leaders—alcohol purveyors, planners,
architects, motel owners, landlords, etc.—and their representative
groups in developing, implementing, and enforcing industry-specific
best practice.

Insist on Good Data Analysis to Inform Public

Safety Policies and Practices
„„ When feasible, employ professionally trained crime analysts and
ensure they have good analysis hardware and software, data
management systems, and data-sharing agreements.
„„ Make sure analysts can focus on their core functions, are
knowledgeable about public safety problems, and can influence
operational strategies.
„„ Where available and useful, solicit research assistance from nearby
colleges and universities.

Recommended for further information:

Clarke, Ronald V. and John E. Eck. Crime Analysis for Problem-Solvers: In
60 Small Steps. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented
Policing Services, 2005.

Boba, Rachel. Problem Analysis in Policing. Police Foundation and U.S.

Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2003.

The COPS Office has available a number of publications and other resources
pertaining to information sharing and technology that are accessible online at
www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=111#IT.

Related POP Guides

Enhancing the Problem-Solving Capacity of Crime Analysis Units

Researching a Problem

Using Offender Interviews To Inform Police Problem-Solving

Assessing Responses to Problems: An Introductory Guide for Police

Problem-Solvers

26
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Emphasize Prevention
As important as it often is for the police to apprehend offenders so
that they can hold them legally accountable for their crimes, and as
important as it is for police to comfort and assist crime victims, it is
equally important that police and others work to prevent crime and
disorder in the first place. At least in the long term, reacting to crime is
nearly always more costly than preventing it.

Do not get bogged down in debates about the “root causes” of crime.
While local government shares in the responsibility to remediate some
of the social factors that contribute to crime and disorder, such as
poverty, joblessness, homelessness, racism, education deficiencies,
and class conflict, these factors do not necessarily directly cause crime
and disorder. Moreover, many of the causes of crime that are inherent
in some people’s character, such as greed, lust, laziness, anger, and
hatred, are rather difficult for local government to change.

Instead, focus more on the near or immediate causes of crime, typically

the situational and environmental conditions from which potential
offenders take their cues as to whether or not to commit an offense at a
particular time and place. It is these sorts of factors about which police
and local government can do much more to prevent crime and disorder.

Recommended for further information:

Felson, Marcus. Crime and Everyday Life, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks (California):
Sage Publications, 2002.

27
The Local Government Executive's Role in Policing and Crime Prevention
 Help Broker Responsibility for Addressing Public
Safety Problems
As the previous section illustrated, many public safety problems are
preventable, yet police and local government do not control many of the
conditions that cause or contribute to them. If, through careful analysis,
police and local government can establish how particular conditions are
causing or contributing to specific crime and disorder problems, you
can use your authority and influence to persuade or compel others—
businesses and corporations, property owners, citizens, etc.—to take
responsible action that might prevent problems. A variety of methods
and techniques exist—some merely advisory, some more persuasive,
and some compulsory—that police and local government can apply,
depending on the circumstances. Such methods might include public
awareness campaigns, public shaming, legislative requirements, civil
lawsuits, and so forth.

Related POP Guides:

Shifting and Sharing Responsibility for Public Safety Problems

28
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Develop Sensible Public Safety Indicators
Develop and routinely collect data for a set of public safety measures
that might include the following:

„„ Reported complaints about crime and disorder

„„ Unreported complaints about crime and disorder
„„ Fear and concern about crime and safety
„„ Citizen confidence in local government, including police, to address
public safety problems
„„ Visible evidence of blight, such as abandoned buildings and
vehicles, litter, broken and poorly maintained infrastructure, and
graffiti and vandalism
„„ Early warning indicators of neighborhood vitality and stability.

Some of these data are already routinely collected from, for example,
police crime reports and calls for police service, but other data might
not be and must be gathered through other methods such as citizen
and environmental surveys.

29
The Local Government Executive's Role in Policing and Crime Prevention
How Local Governments Can Control and
Prevent Crime and Disorder
General Approaches
The modern policing age has spawned many new approaches to
policing operating under a variety of labels and terms, many of which
you will have at least heard in passing, but perhaps never completely
understood. And while you rely on your police chief executive to
understand these approaches and to craft a sensible local approach
from among them, having some familiarity with and understanding
of the most common approaches will enhance your ability to provide
knowledgeable support and oversight to your police agency.

Community policing is perhaps the most familiar term in modern

policing. Nearly all modern policing reforms, including most of those
described below, have been variously associated with community
policing, as variations on or subsets of it. The exact relationship
between and among these concepts remains a matter of some
academic debate. For our purposes here, community policing is based
on the idea that police should work closely with citizens to cultivate
public trust in the police and to better address citizens’ public safety
concerns. The COPS Office defines community policing as follows:

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational

strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships
and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the 6 
See the COPS Office web site
immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such at www.cops.usdoj.gov for further
as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.6 information.

Recommended for further information:

COPS Office web site at www.cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=36.

31
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Below is a synopsis of the other leading policing and public safety
approaches:

Problem-Oriented Policing
This guide is part of a larger body of work known as problem-oriented
policing, a comprehensive approach to policing and public safety that
takes into account the variety and complexity of public safety issues.

The original proponent of the problem-oriented approach, renowned

police scholar Herman Goldstein, of the University of Wisconsin Law
School, summarized the approach as follows:

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 places a
high value on new responses that are preventive in nature, that
are not dependent on the use of the criminal justice system,
and that engage other public agencies, the community, and
the private sector when their involvement has the potential
for significantly contributing to the reduction of the problem.
Problem-oriented policing carries a commitment to implementing
the new strategy, rigorously evaluating its effectiveness, and,
subsequently, reporting the results in ways that will benefit other
police agencies and that will ultimately contribute to building a
body of knowledge that supports the further professionalization
of the police.7
7
 For this and further descriptions
of problem-oriented policing, Problem-oriented policing is not a simplistic approach to crime,
see the Center for Problem-
Oriented Policing web site
disorder, and public safety. It does not promise a single solution to
at www.popcenter.org/ all problems. Consequently, it can lack the pizzazz and sound-bite
about/?p=whatiscpop. appeal of some other policing approaches. What it does offer is very

32
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
real potential for local government to have a positive and sustainable
impact on specific public safety problems. Considerable research
and measurable practice back up the approach. For a comprehensive
treatment of this body of research and practice, see the Center for
Problem-Oriented Policing web site, www.popcenter.org.

Recommended for further information:

Goldstein, Herman. Problem-Oriented Policing. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.

Goldstein, Herman. “Improving Policing: A Problem-Oriented Approach.” Crime

& Delinquency 25(2) (1979):236–58. www.popcenter.org/library/reading.

Situational Crime Prevention

Situational crime prevention originated not as a policing approach,
but more broadly as a scientific approach to crime prevention. The
approach focuses on reducing crime by designing safer environments
and more-secure consumer products. It shifts the crime prevention
focus away from merely trying to deter offenders through punishment
and rehabilitation, and toward convincing offenders that committing
a particular crime in a particular place at a particular time is not
worthwhile. In five main ways it does so by:

1. Increasing the effort to offend

2. Increasing the risk to offenders of getting caught
3. Reducing the rewards of offending
4. Reducing provocations to offend
5. Removing excuses for offending

Situational crime prevention has implications well beyond just the

police function. As a local government executive, you have significant
influence over the design of safe environments through zoning,
planning, and land-use regulations, and perhaps even some influence
over the design and sale of some consumer products that are likely
to be either stolen or used as tools in crime. The situational crime

33
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 prevention approach is widely considered to be compatible with
problem-oriented policing, and you can read more about its practice on
the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing web site.

Recommended for further information:

Felson, Marcus. Crime and Everyday Life, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks (California):
SAGE Publications, 2002.

Felson, Marcus and Ronald V. Clarke. Opportunity Makes the Thief: Practical
Theory for Crime Prevention. London: U.K. Home Office, 1998.
www.popcenter.org/library/reading/?p=2.

Clarke, Ronald V. (ed.). Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies,

2nd ed. Guilderland, New York: Harrow & Heston, 1997. Now available from
Criminal Justice Press, Monsey (New York).

Intelligence-Led Policing
Originating in British police forces, intelligence-led policing helps police
managers to better use crime and intelligence data to direct police
resources and investigations aimed at disrupting organized crime
networks and activities, and apprehending active and prolific offenders.
The concept has become a standard police management model among
British police forces under its official title, the National Intelligence
Model. The model heavily emphasizes data collection and analysis to
inform policing operations. This approach, too, is generally considered
compatible with community policing and problem-oriented policing,
although its practice in American police agencies is still evolving.

Recommended for further information:

Ratcliffe, Jerry. Intelligence-Led Policing. Cullompton (Devon, U.K.) and
Portland, Oregon: Willan Publishing, 2008.

34
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Broken Windows Policing
“Broken Windows” is a phrase coined by political scientist James Q.
Wilson and police scholar George Kelling. It asserts that unaddressed
signs of minor disorder can cause more serious crime in an area.
The idea has significantly influenced American policing over the
past several decades, leading police to address lower-level disorder
problems more than they previously have. This thesis has been the
subject of significant critique by some criminologists who do not believe
that low-level disorder causes serious crime, and that excessive police
enforcement of low-level offenses can overwhelm the criminal justice 8
 For critiques of the zero-tolerance
system without necessarily reducing serious crime. Other scholars policing concept see Taylor,
Ralph B., “Incivilities Reduction
and practitioners firmly believe that police attention to minor disorder
Policing, Zero Tolerance, and the
has substantially reduced more serious crime. Regardless of whether Retreat from Coproduction: Weak
disorder causes more serious crime, it is more firmly established that Foundations and Strong Pressures”
disorder can generate apprehension among citizens, a matter worthy of in Police Innovation: Contrasting
Perspectives, D. Weisburd and A.
police attention in its own right. Braga (eds.), Cambridge (U.K).:
Cambridge University Press,
2006; Dixon, David, “Beyond
Recommended for further information: Zero Tolerance” in Policing: Key
Kelling, George L. and Catherine M. Coles. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Readings, T. Newburn (ed.),
Cullompton (U.K) and Portland
Order & Reducing Crime in Our Communities. New York: The Free Press, 1996. (Oregon): Willan Publishing, 2005;
Cordner, Gary, “Problem-Oriented
Harcourt, Bernard E. Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing Vs. Zero Tolerance”
Policing. Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press, 2001. in Problem-Oriented Policing:
Crime-Specific Problems, Critical
Issues and Making POP Work, T.
O’Connor Shelley and A. Grant
Zero-Tolerance Policing (eds.), Washington, D.C.: Police
Executive Research Forum, 1998;
Zero-tolerance policing refers to the strict enforcement of laws Greene, Judith A., “Zero Tolerance:
A Case Study of Police Policies and
that police officers might otherwise not have enforced, exercising Practices in New York City,” Crime
their discretionary authority. The concept has been linked, rather & Delinquency 45(2) (1999):171–
inappropriately and unfortunately, with the Broken Windows approach. 187; Sanders, Jerry, “Refreshing
While the idea of strict police enforcement is often popular with Copspeak.” The New York Times,
April 16, 1999; and Pollard,
frustrated and frightened citizens, as well as with some police Charles, “Zero Tolerance: Short-
officers, widespread and indiscriminate police enforcement can have term Fix, Long-term Liability?” in
unintended negative consequences for both the local criminal justice Zero Tolerance: Policing a Free
Society, 2nd Ed., N. Dennis (ed.),
system’s operations and for police-community relations. Many police London: The IEA Health and Welfare
officials and scholars are harshly critical of the concept.8 Unit, 1998.

35
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 CompStat
CompStat (shorthand for “computerized statistics”) is a police
management tool that originated in the New York City Police
Department in the 1990s. It emphasizes statistics-based
identification of crime patterns, rapid deployment of police resources
to the locations where those patterns exist, and police-command
accountability for reducing reported crime figures. Many police
agencies have replicated this model, often with variations. To the
extent that the approach emphasizes using data to inform police
operations and focuses police commanders on crime control, it is
commendable and compatible with problem-oriented policing. On the
other hand, to the extent that it focuses exclusively on a few types
of reported crimes rather than on the broader range of public safety
problems of concern to the public, and to the extent that it emphasizes
only short-term reductions in reported crime through intensive police
presence and enforcement, it can yield only short-term and expensive
responses to selected crime problems, and thus be incompatible with
problem-oriented policing.

The Traditional Policing Model

As important as the distinctions between and among the above
innovative approaches to policing and public safety are, it is equally
important to recognize that all of these approaches represent in some
respects improvements on what is known in the policing profession
as the “traditional” or “professional” policing model. The traditional or
professional policing model emphasized crime control through high-
visibility policing, random police patrols, rapid response to all citizen
calls to the police, and follow-up criminal investigations by detectives.
All of these elements were intended to discourage crime by increasing
the likelihood that police would catch offenders, who would then be
punished through criminal prosecution. While it is not a completely
flawed model, the evidence is quite strong that it has not controlled
crime, increased the public’s sense of safety and security, or enhanced
public confidence in the police and local government as much as was

36
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
hoped. That is why most police scholars and many police officials have
long concluded that while the traditional policing model represented a
vast improvement over approaches that preceded it, more of the same
is not likely to improve policing or public safety.

Recommended for further information:

National Research Council of the National Academies. Fairness and
Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence. Washington, D.C.: The National
Academies Press, 2004.

Specific Responses to Some Common Public

Safety Problems
This section of the guide is intended to give you a sampling of what
local government and police can do to effectively prevent and control
specific crime and disorder problems. It is not a comprehensive set of
recommendations for addressing all public safety problems or even for
addressing any particular problem. It does, however, touch on many of
the sorts of concerns that commonly generate public fear and therefore
demand the attention of political leaders as well as police. Moreover,
effectively controlling some of these problems can help prevent even
more serious crimes.

You can find more-complete coverage of how to address specific types

of public safety problems, and the supporting research evidence and
examples of good practice, in the various Problem-Oriented Guides
for Police (www.popcenter.org). Titles of POP Guides related to each
topic below are listed at the end of each topic section. You can find
summaries of exemplary problem-oriented policing initiatives in this
guide’s Appendix.

37
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Control Alcohol Distribution and Consumption
Alcohol abuse contributes perhaps more than any other factor to crime
and disorder. It contributes strongly to noise complaints, disorderly
conduct, public urination, litter, property damage, assaults, sexual
assaults, domestic violence, drunken driving, and homicide. Strong
policies governing alcohol distribution and consumption can have wide
crime and disorder-control benefits. More specifically, you should do
the following:

„„ Ensure there is meaningful enforcement of alcohol regulations.

„„ Set a tone that promotes responsible alcohol distribution and
consumption in your community. Publicly acknowledge both the
legitimate interest that licensed establishments have in making a
profit, as well as their responsibility to serve alcohol in ways that do
not generate crime and disorder problems.
„„ Encourage and compel responsible licensed-establishment
management. Responsible management is the most important
factor in determining whether a licensed establishment is safe
or unsafe.
„„ Ensure that sufficient alcohol detoxification and treatment services
are available.

Related POP Guides:

Assaults in and Around Bars

Drunk Driving

Underage Drinking

38
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Close Drug Markets
If alcohol abuse is the primary contributor to crime and disorder, drug
abuse—of both illegal and legal drugs—is a close second. Drug
markets generate tremendous spin-off crime and disorder problems
such as assault, robbery, prostitution, gangs, noise, hazardous
waste, and loitering. Simply arresting drug dealers and users will not
effectively address local drug markets and the problems they create.
Work to disrupt and close known markets, especially those operating
out in the open. Think of drug markets as business enterprises, albeit
illegal ones. Do what you can to make it more difficult for those drug
businesses to operate profitably. More specifically, do the following:

„„ Hold business and residential property owners accountable for

managing their properties in ways that do not facilitate nearby drug
markets. Use licensing, zoning, code enforcement, civil abatement,
asset forfeiture, and other civil law tools to compel responsible
property management. Make sure that your local government
attorney’s office has the knowledge and skill to enforce property
management laws.
„„ Consider changing traffic or parking patterns to make it more
difficult for drug dealers and buyers to conduct business.
„„ Solicit and facilitate community opposition to drug markets. A vocal
and visible community stand against drug markets, when combined
with effective drug enforcement, can be effective.
„„ Support the development and operation of drug courts.
„„ Ensure there are sufficient community drug treatment services
available. Enforcement approaches to drug control are not as
effective without adequate drug treatment, and vice versa.

Related POP Guides:

Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs

Drug Dealing in Open-Air Markets

Drug Dealing in Privately Owned Apartment Complexes

39
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Expect Property Owners and Managers to Control Activity in
and around Their Properties
Residential rental properties, and motels and lodging houses requiring
the most police attention are usually those that are not managed
or maintained properly. Sometimes, you simply need to remind
property owners of their duties and nudge them toward compliance.
Occasionally, owners may not know how to manage challenging
properties and will benefit from property management training the
local government or landlord association provides. Other times, owners
refuse to accept their responsibilities, requiring more persuasive
measures to get them to take remedial action.

Do not allow irresponsible owners to shift all responsibility for problems

at their properties to the police. It is well established that responsible
property management reduces crime and disorder problems at and
around properties. Police can help, but the owners and managers
should have primary responsibility.

Specific measures local government can take include the following:

„„ Establish a normal or acceptable level of problems at rental

properties, motels, and lodging houses, and put owners and
managers on official notice when problems exceed that level, after
which special government interventions will apply. You might also
direct them to resources to improve their management practices.
„„ Publicly praise responsibly run properties and publicly criticize
irresponsibly run ones.
„„ Bring together property owners and managers to discuss specific
problems and how they control them. Owners and managers
themselves can pressure and educate one another toward better
management.
„„ Use nuisance abatement procedures to recover the costs associated
with policing problem establishments.
„„ Enforce relevant building and health codes, and business license
requirements.

40
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
„„ If the properties are financed, engage the mortgage holders to
persuade property owners to address problems at the property.
„„ Ensure that zoning ordinances do not create incompatible land uses
likely to generate crime, disorder, and fear.

Related POP Guides:

Disorder at Budget Motels

Drug Dealing in Privately Owned Apartment Complexes

Design and Manage Parks

Safety problems in public parks range from underage drinking, public
urination, and gambling to prostitution, drug use, and sexual assault.
Apply crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)
principles to park design and maintenance. More specifically, do
the following:

„„ Control access to the parks through signs, gates, locks, use of

natural boundaries like waterways, etc.
„„ Ensure that park users can both see and be seen by means of
lighting, landscaping, roads and paths, site orientation, equipment
placement, etc.
„„ Clearly establish and promote legitimate park uses and prohibit
and discourage illegitimate park uses through signs, landscaping,
equipment, organized activities, enforcement, etc.
„„ Attract natural guardians to your parks, such as parents to
safeguard their children, coaches to safeguard their players, and
licensed park users to protect their park-use privilege.

Related POP Guides:

Dealing With Crime and Disorder in Urban Parks

Using Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in Problem Solving

41
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Promote Safe Schools
Local government shares with parents and school officials a
responsibility to ensure that students are safe in and on their way to
and from school. Some public safety problems that affect the wider
community have links to the schools, such as the following:

„„ Daytime residential burglary (that truant students might commit)

„„ Vengeance shootings (that might relate to bullying in school)
„„ Child abuse and neglect (that school officials might first detect)
„„ Bomb threats (that mischievous students might call in)
„„ Retail theft (that students might commit at nearby shops)
„„ Acquaintance rape (that students might commit)
„„ School break-ins and vandalism (that students might commit)
„„ Pedestrian safety (of students coming and going to school).

More specifically, local government can do the following:

„„ Help negotiate the respective responsibilities of local government,

schools, parents, students, and neighboring businesses and
residents for preventing and resolving school-related problems.
„„ Assign police officers in and around local schools to help maintain
order, protect students, enforce laws, provide safety and security
advice, and promote good behavior among students.
„„ Work with school officials to improve the design and maintenance of
school buildings and grounds to decrease crime and disorder risks.
„„ Work with school and transportation officials to reduce opportunities
for conflict and violence as students arrive at and leave school by,
for example, staggering class start and release times, monitoring
paths and buses to and from school, creating and monitoring
after-school activities, and regulating student conduct in the
neighborhood during and immediately after school hours.

Related POP Guides:

Acquaintance Rape of College Students

Bomb Threats in Schools

42
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Bullying in Schools

School Vandalism and Break-Ins

Traffic Congestion Around Schools

Underage Drinking

Reduce Vehicle Crime

Many crimes occur between people who are both somehow complicit
in the crime, such as between drug dealers and buyers, prostitutes
and clients, or mutual combatants. By contrast, thefts of and from,
and vandalism to, parked vehicles account for a substantial number
of crimes against innocent victims. These sorts of crimes therefore
contribute significantly to the public perception that a community is
not safe or secure. These crimes typically occur to vehicles when they
are parked either on the street or in parking lots or structures. Careful
crime analysis should show you where they are concentrated. Among
the specific measures to prevent such crimes are the following:

„„ Concentrate prevention measures on those lots, structures, streets,

blocks, and neighborhoods where the crimes are concentrated.
„„ Put people in the parking lots and structures. Attendants, whether
stationary or roving, are effective in preventing thefts. Unattended
lots and structures are especially risky.
„„ Design parking lots and structures properly: secure the lots’ and
structures’ perimeters with transparent barriers, improve lighting
and signs, use video surveillance, and/or require drivers to present
a time-stamped ticket received at entry in order to exit.
„„ Develop a security rating system for parking facilities based on an
audit of security features.

Related POP Guides:

Thefts of and From Cars in Parking Facilities

Thefts of and From Cars on Residential Streets and Driveways

43
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Prevent Repeat Burglaries
Most houses and businesses will never be burgled, but some are
repeatedly and merit special attention. More specifically, you should do
the following:

„„ Do not depend solely on alarms to prevent burglary. While alarms

can help, once burglars trigger an alarm, they typically have
sufficient time to steal and flee the scene before someone arrives to
check the building. Police do occasionally apprehend burglars in the
act, but the odds of doing so are low.
„„ Neighborhood watch programs, although popular, are not always
effective in preventing burglary. High-crime neighborhoods that
might benefit from watch programs often have difficulty organizing
and sustaining them, while watch programs in relatively safe
neighborhoods may increase residents’ fear of crime without
actually reducing crime.
„„ Modify building codes to encourage or require good burglary-
prevention design and construction.
„„ Monitor and regulate common outlets for stolen property, such as
pawn shops, secondhand shops, and scrap-metal dealerships.

Related POP Guides:

Burglary at Single-Family House Construction Sites

Burglary of Retail Establishments

Burglary of Single-Family Houses

Improving Street Lighting to Reduce Crime in Residential Areas

School Vandalism and Break-Ins

Stolen Goods Markets

44
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Prevent Shoplifting
Retail establishment managers—be they managers of liquor stores,
grocery stores, big-box appliance outlets, or mall jewelry stores—are
in the best position to prevent shoplifting through their security and
merchandising practices. Depending on stores’ reporting policies,
police can spend a lot of time processing shoplifting cases, many of
which retailers could have prevented. Some retailers even account
for unexplained losses by reporting them to police as thefts. Specific
measures that local government can take to help retailers prevent
shoplifting include the following:

„„ Clarify the circumstances under which police will respond to

retail thefts, and the respective responsibilities of the police and
merchants.
„„ Persuade retailers to improve store layout and merchandise displays
based on an analysis of what types of merchandise are being
stolen, and where.
„„ Work with the courts to establish a first-time offender program to
streamline the adjudication process and minimize the costs to local
government agencies.
„„ Promote the use of effective shoplifting prevention and detection
technology.
„„ Be sure that corporate loss-prevention managers and insurance
carriers are aware of chronic theft problems.

Related POP Guide:

Shoplifting

45
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Control Speeding in Residential Neighborhoods
Regardless of your jurisdiction’s size, you are sure to hear complaints
about speeders. Whether on a freeway, a county highway, a major
arterial, or a residential street, excessive speed is dangerous and
anxiety-provoking, particularly in residential areas and around schools.

The most important principle in speed control is that motorists tend to

drive at the speed at which they feel safe and comfortable, given the
road conditions. Therefore, the key to reducing speed is to alter road
conditions such that motorists feel uncomfortable speeding.

Consider the following specific measures:

„„ Identify the most problematic areas based on complaints and

crashes, and focus enforcement resources accordingly. Enforcing
speed laws merely to generate revenue tends to alienate the driving
public and is not particularly effective anyway, at least not for
very long.
„„ Where permitted by law and warranted by complaint and crash
data, use photo radar enforcement, varying the camera locations
and operation hours. Bear in mind that photo radar enforcement
is unpopular in some communities because it is viewed as unfair
enforcement, too intrusive, or an unfair revenue generator.
„„ Install traffic-calming devices like roundabouts, traffic circles, and
speed humps or tables. Be cautious of speed bumps, however,
as they can be dangerous to drivers and are problematic for
emergency vehicles. Pay attention to design details; they can mean
all the difference in whether citizens support them.
„„ Have your traffic engineer evaluate parking patterns, traffic flow,
and street widths. Narrower streets—or streets that appear to be
narrow—slow drivers down.

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Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
„„ Encourage citizens to report speeding to police or conduct a
publicity campaign to persuade motorists to slow down. Chronic
neighborhood speeders—including the teenager with a new
license, the commuter rushing to work, or the parent dropping
children off at school—may respond to peer pressure from their
neighbors.

Related POP Guide:

Speeding in Residential Areas

Minimize Graffiti
Graffiti, or “tagging,” is generally categorized as either “artistic” or
“gang” and can be found everywhere from street signs and public
transportation to buildings and billboards. Many people consider graffiti
unsightly and intimidating. Specific responses include the following:

„„ Clean graffiti early and often. It denies graffiti writers the

satisfaction of seeing their graffiti on display, thereby undermining
its primary purpose.
„„ Enact an ordinance requiring property owners to remove graffiti
within a certain amount of time (typically 24 to 72 hours after the
graffiti is detected).
„„ Use some government funds to defray the costs to citizens of
graffiti removal.
„„ Set up a graffiti hotline to encourage citizen reporting.
„„ Establish a graffiti abatement team that includes staff from the
police, code enforcement, prosecutor’s office, and public works.
„„ Design building walls and other surfaces so that they are not
conducive to graffiti.

Related POP Guide:

Graffiti

47
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Control Disorderly Behavior on the Streets
Panhandlers begging aggressively, chronic inebriates staggering
around or passed out on the streets, mentally ill people acting
strangely or menacingly, disorderly youth intimidating passersby, and
other such disorder, particularly in busy commercial districts, can
undermine the general public’s perception of safety and the area’s
legitimate commerce. Police must handle such people and behavior
with care. They are obliged to respect constitutionally protected
speech and conduct, and protect even disorderly people from harm,
while maintaining reasonable order and minimizing undue fear and
intimidation. You should do the following:

„„ Recognize that most courts deem panhandling constitutionally

protected activity, but governments can prohibit aggressive
panhandling and panhandling at certain locations.
„„ Ensure that truly needy people have access to emergency food,
clothing, shelter, and medical care. If you can ensure that, then
discourage people from contributing to panhandlers because
doing so typically only enables self-destructive lifestyles that also
compromise community order.
„„ Ensure that police can quickly access mental health services to help
them deal with people in mental crisis.
„„ Restrict chronic inebriates’ access to alcohol. Prohibit the sale of
alcohol to intoxicated people and known chronic inebriates, and
enforce those prohibitions.
„„ Figure out why youth choose to hang out in places where they
are disruptive to others and work with the youth to find more
acceptable places to go. Condition any hanging-out privileges you
might grant on the youths’ appropriate behavior.

Related POP Guides:

Disorder at Day Laborer Sites
Disorderly Youth in Public Places
Panhandling
People With Mental Illness

48
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Control Street Prostitution
Street prostitution demands police attention for various reasons: it
offends uninvolved citizens, children may be involved in the prostitution
trade, prostitutes are at high risk of being assaulted, prostitutes
and their pimps sometimes rob clients, it undermines the area’s
legitimate commerce, it is often connected with organized crime,
and it contributes to the spread of disease. Arresting prostitutes and
their clients in undercover operations can be an important part of an
effective strategy, but will not suffice by itself. Other specific effective
measures include the following:

„„ Change the physical and commercial environment where

prostitution markets exist to make them less attractive to
prostitutes. Enhance lighting, redevelop abandoned or blighted
property, increase the legitimate use of space, and alter traffic
patterns and rules to discourage vehicle soliciting.
„„ Establish or support programs to educate, counsel, and deter
prostitutes and their clients from continuing their activity. These
programs are often more effective when reinforced by the threat of
criminal prosecution for failing to complete them.
„„ Be careful about publicly shaming prostitutes or their clients. Some
citizens and media outlets find this excessive or unnecessary, and
its efficacy is unknown.

Discourage businesses near prostitution markets such as motels,

rental housing, and taverns from allowing their properties to be used
to facilitate prostitution. Use a variety of civil and criminal enforcement
tools, as well as negative publicity.

Related POP Guide:

Street Prostitution

49
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
 Don’t Waste Police Time
The most valuable police resource is officers’ time. They spend some
of their time responding to crimes and incidents that have already
occurred, and they should spend some of their time working to prevent
crimes and incidents. Unless patrol officers have sufficient time free
from handling calls for service and administrative duties, it will be
difficult for them to address chronic crime and disorder problems
proactively. While patrol officers cannot always control their time, given
the emergency nature of some police work, some common demands
on police time do not add much value to public safety. It might be worth
reexamining the police response to the following types of incidents to
minimize relatively unproductive police activity:

„„ 911 hang-ups. These are calls to the emergency line in which

the call-taker cannot ascertain whether a true emergency exists,
and therefore dispatches a patrol officer to investigate. Many such
calls are attributable to juvenile pranks, accidental misdialing
(often when a caller seeks to dial a phone number beginning
with “91”), inadvertent dialing by the jostling of a cell phone, and
deliberate attempts to distract the police. Police should work with
the emergency communications center to identify and remedy 911
hang-up patterns.
„„ False burglar alarms. While properly functioning alarm systems
help prevent burglary, typically over 90 percent of alarm activations
are false, yet consume valuable police time responding to them.
Consider various methods of reducing false alarms, including
shifting the responsibility for verifying that an alarm is valid to the
alarm company operating the system.
„„ Chronic and heavy users of police service. Some people and
businesses repeatedly summon police for relatively trivial matters,
or for persistent problems that they could prevent. Lonely people
who just desire some companionship sometimes call police to
report fictitious or trivial matters. Social service programs or access
to nonemergency alternative phone numbers such as 311 or
211 can better meet that need. Retailers with high-volume theft
problems often fail to implement basic preventive measures. You

50
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
 might pressure them to do so. Some taverns and nightclubs rely
too heavily on police to handle chronic trouble. You should pressure
them to reduce the need to call police. Consider charging heavy
and chronic consumers of police service extra fees if they refuse to
take steps to prevent problems.

Also, continuously look for ways to make routine police tasks more
efficient. Consider the following:

„„ Hire paraprofessionals such as civilian community service officers

or use trained citizen volunteers to handle some duties that do not
require a sworn officer’s expertise and authority.
„„ Establish a telephone (e.g., 211 and/or 311) and online reporting
system for nonemergency and nonpolice matters.
„„ Enable citizens to file minor incident reports themselves—via
mail-in, online, walk-in, or telephone reports.
„„ Speed up police report writing through field reporting systems or
linked systems that reduce the need for duplicative data entry.

Related POP Guides:

Bomb Threats in Schools

False Burglar Alarms

Misuse and Abuse of 911

51
How Local Governments Can Control and Prevent Crime and Disorder
Conclusion
While it is impractical to think that police and local government can
prevent all crime and disorder in a community, there is a growing body
of research and good practice available to you and your staff that can
greatly help you toward this goal. Realizing the maximum benefit of this
knowledge, however, may require that local governments, police, and
citizens alike challenge some long-held assumptions about how crime
can be controlled and who bears responsibility for doing so. Availing
yourself and your staff—police included—of this knowledge should
leave your local government and your community better prepared to
respond more effectively to problems as they arise, and to prevent at
least some of those problems from arising in the first place.

53
Conclusion
Appendix: Good Police-Community Problem Solving:
Stories From the Field

Summaries of the Winning Projects for the Herman Goldstein Award for
Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing, 1993–2008
The Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing recognizes outstanding police
officers and police agencies—both in the United States and abroad—that engage in innovative and effective
problem-solving efforts and achieve measurable success in reducing specific crime, disorder, and public
safety problems. This international competition is named after the founder of problem-oriented policing,
University of Wisconsin Emeritus Professor Herman Goldstein, and administered by the Center for Problem-
Oriented Policing.

You can find full details of the projects summarized below on the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing web
site, under the Goldstein Awards.

Santa Ana, California (1993)

Increases in Santa Ana’s homeless population and crime threatened businesses and tax revenues in a
commercial district. Police devised a plan to remove transients, criminals, and aggressive panhandlers from
the area, reduce crime and disorder through environmental design, and educate district employees and
patrons. Businesses reported increases in revenues and less crime and disorder.

Los Angeles, California (1993)

The LAPD Rampart Division’s northwest section was experiencing increases in narcotic offenses, gang-
related activity, robberies, assaults, citizen complaints, and calls for service. Information obtained from
citizens, police officers, and calls for service revealed that five area properties generated the increase in calls
for service. The police contacted the property owners and solicited their assistance in renovating, securing,
or eliminating the properties, and arrested several drug dealers. Calls for service decreased dramatically, as
the majority of the transients and narcotics dealers inhabiting the properties left the area.

55
Appendix
Kansas City, Missouri (1994)
Kansas City’s Creston Apartments had experienced a dramatic increase in violent crime. Residents’
complaints and calls for service increased, while government officials pressured the police to respond to the
growing problem. The area was draining police resources. The police examined police reports and computer
printouts, revealing that the majority of the calls were related to drug sales in and around the apartments.
The police cultivated information about the drug trade from the community’s residents. Assistance from other
government agencies enabled the police to provide 24-hour security at the apartments, which were to be
torn down because they were structurally unsound. The police arrested many of the drug dealers or evicted
them from the apartments. Calls for police service decreased dramatically.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada (1994)

Twenty-four bars bordered an inner-city residential community in Calgary. Over time, the area became a
single-use bar destination from which businesses were forced to move due to the noise, crime, and filth.
The area developed a reputation as “the place to go for a good time.” Residents complained about noise,
garbage, and property damage. A crime-trend analysis revealed that street robberies, auto thefts, theft and
damage to vehicles, and drunken disturbances were the primary crime problems. Regulatory, architectural,
and operational changes were made to solve the underlying problems and reduce crime. A task force formed
to encourage communication and cooperation among businesses and the police. A community partnership
also formed to help the police identify and rectify problems. Violent crimes, property crimes, weapons
complaints, complaints against police officers, and assaults on police officers decreased substantially.

Georgetown, Texas (1995)

Alcohol-related crimes and accidents, litter, and ecological problems plagued Georgetown’s Blue Hole Park.
A narrow road to the park created traffic problems and delayed emergency vehicles responding to calls. The
lack of a designated parking area led to ecological damage to the riverbank. The police enacted a zero-
tolerance policy for Blue Hole Park and strictly enforced city ordinances and state laws. The cliffs, from which
drunken visitors would jump and then climb back up, were located on private property, and “No Trespassing”
signs were posted. Boulders were used to designate roads and prevent vehicles from parking on the
riverbank. Ordinances were passed to alleviate parking and traffic problems. Blue Hole Park was transformed
into a safe family park, virtually free of crime and disorder.

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Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
North Slope Borough, Alaska (1995)
Alaska’s North Slope Borough was experiencing substantial problems with alcohol-related crime and
disorder. The costs of alcohol abuse were damaging the entire community. The alcohol-related incidents were
attributed to legal sales of alcohol in the community and were more prevalent at social functions. The public
safety director and the mayor initiated a campaign to ban alcohol from the borough. Barrow’s electorate
then voted to ban the importation, sale, and possession of alcoholic beverages. The ban immediately and
substantially decreased alcohol-related incidents.

St. Petersburg, Florida (1996)

Over 6 months, there were 30 calls for police service from one location in St. Petersburg, 14 (46 percent)
of which were either “911 hang-ups” or “playing on 911.” The deliberate misuse of the 911 emergency
telephone system could prevent its legitimate use and unnecessarily commit police to responding to the
calls. The problem location was a bank of pay telephones installed at a convenience store. School-aged
children’s use of the area seemed to influence the problem. Dense shrubbery concealed the telephones from
the view of passing vehicles’ occupants and of pedestrians. Moreover, the phones were purposely installed
away from the store to discourage loitering. The shrubbery was trimmed, and the lighting was improved.
The calls for service at the bank of pay phones were monitored from November 20, 1995 (the date the
improvements were made) to July 1, 1996. There were no “playing on 911” calls, and “911 hang-ups”
accounted for only 13 percent of total calls for service.

Sacramento, California (1996)

Four years prior, two patrol officers were selected to work exclusively in what was then Sacramento’s most
violent area. It consisted of 800-plus units of low-income housing owned and operated by the Sacramento
Housing and Redevelopment Agency. A gang and narcotics problem created a neighborhood that effectively
was a war zone. Police involved the community, used heavy enforcement, reached at-risk children, and
formed partnerships to effect change. During the first 40 days, officers made 70 arrests for major narcotics
violations. By 1994, police made more than 500 arrests. The partnerships formed with housing management,
community associations, schools, local government, and other public and private agencies, improved the
quality of life in this inner-city neighborhood. By the end of 1995, robberies were down 73 percent, felony
assaults were down 74 percent, and narcotic calls were down 94 percent. A survey indicated that the
residents are much more satisfied with their neighborhood.

57
Appendix
Fresno, California (1996)
In just one year, El Dorado Park was responsible for 9 percent of the calls for service in Fresno’s northeast
area. The most serious problem was a juvenile gang. The gang intimidated the community’s impoverished
residents, who were hesitant to report crimes. The police cultivated relationships with neighborhood residents
and encouraged them to report gang members and crime. The police also established the El Dorado Housing
Authority, a coalition of city officials, property owners, managers, business owners, and volunteers, to discuss
problems and suggest solutions. During the project’s first year, calls for service increased by 9 percent, while
crime decreased by 26 percent. In the second year, calls for service decreased by 32 percent, with a 53
percent reduction in crime. The area became cleaner, safer, and more desirable to live in.

Peel, Ontario, Canada (1996)

Peel’s Turner-Felton Secondary School was experiencing problems with trespassers. While on school
property, the trespassers would gather, loiter, and frequently engage in crime. The school was developing a
reputation as being unsafe. Constable Tom McKay gathered information through interviews, crime statistics,
and an examination of the school’s floor and site plans. He discovered some design deficiencies that
contributed to the school’s disorder. Police used CPTED principles to improve the parking lot, pedestrian
traffic flow, and security relying on the school’s existing structure. In the three years following the changes,
police occurrences at the school dropped substantially.

Glendale, California (1997)

A Glendale community experienced problems related to the activities of casual laborers, who congregated
while waiting for work. Residents and business owners complained that the laborers blocked sidewalks and
harassed pedestrians. They also urinated on buildings and in parking lots and left trash on the sidewalks, on
streets, and in gutters. A managed site was developed where laborers could secure employment in a safe
and orderly environment. A “No Solicitation” ordinance was enacted requiring laborers and employers to use
the facility. The problems associated with the day laborers decreased.

Boston, Massachusetts (1998)

In Boston, youth homicide increased from 1987 to 1990 and remained high from 1991 to 1995. Police
geographically mapped youth homicides, analyzed gun markets, and collected the criminal histories of
youth homicide victims, revealing that most youth homicides occurred in three neighborhoods, 75 percent
of the homicide victims had been arraigned for at least one offense, and Boston gangs were responsible
for 60 percent of the homicides. Police targeted illicit gun trafficking, and they disrupted street drug activity
by focusing on low-level street crimes, serving outstanding warrants, and cultivating informants. Firearm
homicides decreased by 60 percent among victims under the age of 24.

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Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Green Bay, Wisconsin (1999)
A Green Bay business district experienced high crime rates. An investigation revealed that only 20 people
were responsible for most of the neighborhood complaints. The police led a community effort to actively
enforce public ordinances, increase liquor license regulation, mobilize citizens at city council meetings,
modify the environmental design, use the courts as a liaison for alcoholic treatment, and have alcohol
merchants refuse to sell alcohol to chronic offenders. The business district was revitalized, and calls for
service decreased substantially.

San Diego, California (2000)

Graffiti impinged on the quality of life in San Diego. Police examined the nature, extent, and location of
community graffiti. Most graffiti was located on multifamily housing units and businesses, and in the vicinity
of the perpetrators’ home or school. The suspects were young males. The police formed a partnership
with community and governmental agencies. Chronic offenders were identified, monitored by the police,
and participated in bimonthly paint-outs. Volunteers were assigned to keep blocks graffiti-free. Mentoring
programs were developed, and junior high school students painted murals on the most heavily tagged walls
and helped police by reporting graffiti. Graffiti decreased, and youth became more involved in the community.

California Highway Patrol (2001)

Inadequate shoulders, poor signs, short passing, merging lanes leading to an “unsafe turning movement,”
and center line-crossing contributed to accidents in a California highway corridor. Many Spanish-speaking
drivers were unfamiliar with traffic safety laws, and emergency services were difficult to access in the remote
corridor. Intensified police patrol, improved emergency services delivery, and public education were used to
improve safety. Both fatal and nonfatal collisions decreased.

California Highway Patrol (2002)

During the 3-year period of 1997 through 1999, in the California Highway Patrol’s Central Division, there
were an estimated 187 farm-labor vehicle collisions, resulting in 20 deaths and 121 injuries. The California
Legislature passed two bills to enhance farm-labor vehicles’ safety. The bill made seat-belt use mandatory
and strengthened safety requirements. Officers inspected over 3,000 farm-labor vehicles and took more than
500 unsafe vehicles out of service. In 2000, no deaths were associated with farm-labor vehicle collisions for
the first time since 1992. Farm vehicle collisions dropped 73 percent.

59
Appendix
Oakland, California (2003)
Recurring nuisance and crime at an Oakland motel gained a police officer’s attention. The motel’s problems
included an inordinately high volume of calls for police service, prostitution, illegal drug activity, abandoned
cars, an illegal auto repair business in the motel parking lot, and room rentals to minors. Data checks, site
visits, interviews, undercover surveillance, and comparisons of manage­ment practices with those of other
nearby motels led police to conclude that the motel’s poor manage­ment practices were allowing crime and
nuisances to flourish. After meetings, the motel’s management failed to resolve the motel’s problems, and
the police and city attorneys filed a drug nuisance-abatement lawsuit against the motel’s parent corporation.
After intense negotiations, the parent corporation agreed to improve its management practices and to post a
$250,000 performance bond and pay $35,000 to cover the costs of the police investigation. Improvements
were made to the motel’s physical environment and management practices. Two years after the agreement
was signed, there had been few calls for police service at the motel.

Portsmouth, Hampshire, England (2004)

The Portsmouth initiative was launched in 2003 following increases in vehicle crime, despite being a
priority and focus for the Crime and Disorder Strategic Partnership in the first year of the 2002–to–2005
strategy. The initiative was based on crime-pattern analysis and evidence-based practice to combine
“quick wins” with long-term sustainable actions. Key problem-solving areas explored through the initiative
included maximizing forensic potential and intelligence-gathering, developing an extensive three-tier
crime-reduction strategy, and initiating a high-profile media campaign. The Portsmouth City Council
also worked with the police to redesign parking lots, support a proactive media campaign, and support
specific initiatives in hot spot locations. Overall, Operation Cobra was responsible for a substantial
decrease in vehicle crime, and the target reduction for the strategy had already been reached during its
first 9 months of operation. The combination of enforcement and prevention work led to some dramatic
“quick wins,” but was truly underpinned by prevention work designed to produce sustainable results. The
initiative demonstrated the importance of effective partnerships’ working based on informed analysis and
evidenced-based practice.

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Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
Douglas, Isle of Man, British Isles (2005)
Project Centurion was a multiagency project established in January 2003 in response to public concern
regarding alcohol-related crimes occurring on Douglas Promenade. It aimed to reduce crime and disorder
there. Analyses revealed three primary contributory factors for the problem: 1. a concentration of assaults,
criminal damage, and disorder when customers left nightclubs on weekends, particularly after “pay day”;
2. a lack of late-night public transportation, which extended the waiting period for drunken customers on
the promenade; and 3. a lack of facilities and activities for young people, leading to public intimidation
by large gatherings of those with little to do. Responses included an increase in intelligence-led policing;
the improved cooperation between the police, licensees, and Youth Service; the installation of five new
taxi ranks and improved taxi-rank management; the issuance of 12 additional taxi licenses; the improved
operating conditions for taxi drivers through a “Taxiwatch” initiative; and a range of events, activities, and
facilities for young people. Since inception, a 33 percent reduction in the target crimes of assault, criminal
damage, and public-order offenses has occurred. The project also improved working relationships between
the project partners.

London, England (2006)

A Metropolitan Police Service analysis showed that illegal minicab drivers committed 212 sexual offenses
between October 2001 and September 2002; 54 of these offenses entailed rape. Research revealed that
unlicensed minicabs provided a cover for some of the most serious crime in London, including sexual attacks
on women. The problem stemmed from a lack of public awareness relating to unlicensed cabs and their
dangers, the unregulated and unenforced market of illegal cabs, and the lack of legitimate travel options at
night. A partnership was formed to reduce the number of sexual attacks on women in illegal minicabs using
both traditional police activity and crackdowns on illegal taxi touts; delivering improved late-night travel
services and information; and raising public awareness about the risks of using illegal minicabs. Sexual
assaults declined from an average of 18 women a month to 10 women a month being attacked in illegal
minicabs since 2002. In addition, the percentage of women using illegal minicabs declined from 18 percent
to 7 percent over this period.

Blackburn, Lancashire, England (2007)

In 2003, Blackburn’s Family Intervention Program was established to work with families at risk of losing
their tenancies through antisocial behavior. The Blackburn project was set up in partnership with Darwen
Borough Council, Twin Valley Homes (Registered Social Landlord), Lancashire Constabulary, and NCH
Children’s Charity, but works closely with other landlords and partner agencies within the statutory, voluntary,
and community sectors. Through these partnerships, families involved in the program were no longer a risk
for antisocial behavior in the community in 51 percent of cases, and the risk had declined in a further 41
percent of cases. The reduction in evictions also achieved considerable cost savings.

61
Appendix
Lancashire, England (2008)
An agricultural area ranked the third worst in the United Kingdom for collisions, with farm vehicles’ working
a patchwork of fields over 5,000 acres in different parishes being a major contributor. Analysis revealed
that collisions were attributable to mud on roads, farm vehicles’ emerging from fields with limited forward
visibility, and farmers’ not using warning signs. With collaboration, a three-point plan was developed to
increase awareness, to increase education, and to form partnerships. Warning signs were tested and
implemented, and a road-cleaning trailer was put to use. Environmental changes were made at collision hot
spots to improve visibility. A media campaign was launched that entailed multiagency “Safety Awareness
Days,” a celebrity endorsement, and the distribution of leaflets and fliers. In 2007, farm vehicle collisions
declined significantly for the first time in 3 years, with serious injuries reduced to zero, and slight injuries
down to one. The project resulted in a substantial cost savings of $680,000.

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Effective Policing and Crime Prevention
About the Authors
Joel B. Plant
Joel Plant is a Madison, Wisconsin mayoral aide responsible for public
safety and neighborhood issues. On the mayor’s behalf, he liaises with
the police, fire, city attorney, municipal court, building inspection, and
community development agencies on operations, policy, and budget
matters. Plant also manages the city’s Neighborhood Resource Teams
and liaises with the public schools. He was previously the city’s first
alcohol policy coordinator. Plant has worked as a research assistant for
the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing; a crime analyst in the Tempe
(Arizona) Police Department; and a teaching assistant and adjunct
professor. He also has some criminal prosecution experience, ranging
from serving subpoenas to trying felony cases. Plant holds a bachelor’s
degree from Marquette University, a master’s degree from Arizona State
University, and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Michael S. Scott
Michael Scott is the director of the Center for Problem-Oriented
Policing and clinical associate professor at the University of
Wisconsin Law School. He was formerly chief of police in Lauderhill,
Florida; served in various civilian administrative positions in the St.
Louis Metropolitan, Fort Pierce, Florida, and New York City police
departments; and was a police officer in the Madison (Wisconsin)
Police Department. Scott developed training programs in problem-
oriented policing at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), and
chairs the judging committee for the Herman Goldstein Award for
Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing. In 1996, he received PERF’s
Gary P. Hayes Award for innovation and leadership in policing. Scott
holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree
from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

63
About the Authors
Center for Problem-Oriented Policing
Got a Problem? We’ve got answers!
Log onto the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing web site at
www.popcenter.org for a wealth of information to help you deal
more effectively with crime and disorder in your community,
including:

• Recommended readings in problem-oriented policing

and situational crime prevention

• A complete listing of other POP Guides

• A listing of forthcoming POP Guides

Designed for police and those who work with them to address
community problems, www.popcenter.org is a great resource for
problem-oriented policing.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community

Oriented Policing Services (the COPS Office).
Effective Policing and Crime Prevention helps local government
executives better understand how local government in general, and
local police in particular, can more effectively meet public safety
challenges through a problem-oriented approach.

For More Information:

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Community
Oriented Policing Services
1100 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

To obtain details on COPS Office programs, call the

COPS Office Response Center at 800.421.6770

Visit COPS Online at www.cops.usdoj.gov

July 2009

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