4

Proactive Policing Practices

Proactive policing lies at the core of modern preventive policing in the Global North, especially in the English-speaking world. Foot patrol by lone officers to prevent crime through deterrence was the basic strategy of the “new police” of London that Sir Robert Peel persuaded the English Parliament to fund in 1829 (Miller, 1977). There were then no telephones with which to call the police, and no radios or automobiles for police to be assigned to respond reactively to calls for service; all of that had to wait for the Berkeley (California) Police Chief August Vollmer to invent and implement in 1928 (Oliver, 2017). Until then, almost all policing was proactive in determining where police would do their work—up to the point at which a citizen would summon a foot patrol officer to go elsewhere for an incident in progress.

This historical reality is relevant to thinking about the Global South, where many countries neither provide proactive patrols to deter crime nor send police reactively to manage disputes, suspicious activity, or the kinds of situations defined by police scholar Egon Bittner (1974, p. 30) as “something-that-ought-not-to-be-happening-about-which-somebody-had-better-do-something-now.” The benefit that reactive, dial-a-cop policing created in relation to the perception of protecting the public seems to have been substantial, especially in providing rapid response to emergency situations. Yet reactive responses conducted using automobiles are more expensive than police working primarily in police stations, as they often do in (for example) India, until they are summoned to either put down a riot, escort a VIP, or investigate a crime that someone has reported in person in a police station—sometimes after a citizen has made a two-day walk from

remote areas of the country. Dial-a-cop services are so popular in the United Kingdom that as of 2021, many police forces were promising to send police cars that would not arrive for several days due to demand outstripping supply (Rothwell, 2021).

Many, but far from all, police agencies in the Global South do supply reactive police car responses. What they do more consistently is to target high-priority suspects or criminal activities and deal with them proactively. Their proactive strategy can be carried out well or badly, as with any other kind of policing. The proactive raids on favelas in Rio de Janeiro led to massive killings of citizens by police (McCoy, 2021), whereas proactive patrols of hot spots in Bogota reduced property crime (Braga et al., 2019) with a minimum (if any) use of lethal force. Learning from these histories of proactive engagement with criminal activities may support the use of strategies with both greater precision and less-lethal force. A major opportunity for using an evidence-based strategy is to refine both the outputs and the outcomes of this approach.

Unlike the practice of proactive policing, the conceptual framework of proactive policing is relatively recent. Even the word “proactive” was only used in print for the first time in 1966 (Bordua and Reiss, 1966). Recent decades have seen increasing demand for policing against crimes not routinely reported to police: drunk driving, drug dealing, illicit gun sales, and human trafficking.¹ Rising discontent over such problems pointed to proactive policing as a solution. So has the identification of the small proportion of all places that suffer the majority of all violent crimes, now widely known as “hot spots” (Braga et al., 2019; Sherman et al., 1989).

Research reviews of studies that have examined the effects of evidence-based proactive policing strategies have shown they can have significant crime reduction benefits, especially in high-crime locations. However, there may be legitimacy costs in the overuse of proactive policing in low-crime areas (Gladwell, 2019) and attendant racial disparities in the level of police contact (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2018). While the intention may be to reduce large disparities in violent victimization rates by race (National Research Council [NRC], 1993), the overuse of traffic and pedestrian stops outside of hot spots, resulting in racial disparities in police contact, has threatened the legitimacy of evidence-based stops that would have the greatest benefits for minority groups. As with so many issues, better evidence can help improve precision, as well as create better regulation and restraint, on the very great intrusions proactive policing imposes on civic liberty.

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¹ In the past, involving the police in such illicit activities were seen as situations which might evoke further corruption and violence (Reiss, 1971).

The strategy of proactive policing, which focuses on practices aimed at preventing crime, can be much better positioned by evidence-based policing to support human rights and public protection, as articulated in Chapter 1, as well as support procedurally fair encounters between the police and the public. See Box 4-1 for a definition of proactive policing. The dilemma is whether proactive policing promotes the rule of law since it is sometimes performed outside or beyond the law, compared to reactive policing which may be limited to the direct application of existing laws to reported violations. It is the committee’s view that the benefits of a proactive strategy could be realized if undertaken in compliance with the rule of law and carried out through an evidence-based approach outlined in Chapter 1. Certain policing practices that have been characterized as proactive strategies (NASEM, 2018) and benefit from generating and applying knowledge in an evidence-based approach are described further in this chapter: problem-oriented policing, community-oriented policing, and the use of discretion.

PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING

Problem-oriented policing is a strategic approach to tackling crime, disorder, and even internal challenges in policing. This approach begins with a fundamental assumption: that no event, call for police service, or public safety incident is unique or unrelated. Instead, events are connected to each other by some underlying problem or causal mechanism. For example, one offender may be responsible for several crimes in a particular area because they live nearby and opportunities to offend occur on their way to school

or work. Robberies may be concentrated at a particular bar because patrons carry cash to the bar and leave the establishment intoxicated and vulnerable to attack. A local grocery store may suffer from numerous thefts or fights in the afternoon, because it is located near a school, and youth may socialize at that store after school. An intersection may frequently experience car accidents because motorists cannot see a stop sign that is blocked by a tree. Gang violence may be especially deadly in certain areas if gangs have easy access to firearms or are near competing gangs. Each of these recurring events reflects an underlying reason or problem causing the resulting incidents to be reported to the police. Problem-oriented policing thereby questions a reactive, case-by-case, incident-by-incident approach to dealing with crime patterns, and instead advocates that such events reflect underlying causes that can be identified, analyzed, and addressed to reduce the reoccurrence of those patterns in the future.

First envisioned by Goldstein (1979, 1990) as a department-wide strategy, problem-oriented policing was most popularly captured as an implementation plan by Eck and Spelman’s (1987) SARA model, whose acronym denotes four steps: Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment. Scanning refers to identifying problems by, for example, noticing repetitive calls for police services to the same location, or when community members continue to notify the police of an ongoing public safety problem in their neighborhood. Analysis involves a systematic, detailed, and deep-dive assessment of the problem, to determine not only the nature of the problem itself, but what might be the underlying causes of that problem. Once a problem is identified and deeply analyzed, a tailored response is developed. From an evidence-based perspective, responses should be selected based on their ability to actually deliver on the outcome sought (which is often determined through rigorous evaluation). However, if an evidence-based approach has not yet been developed and tested, problem-oriented policing relies on developing tailored and targeted responses to increase the likelihood that the response will be effective. An evidence-based approach is built into the problem-solving SARA model through the final step of assessment. Assessment requires that implementation of the response is tracked and documented and that there is some attempt to reliably determine if the response mitigated the problem. In total, the SARA model thereby implies that responses would be adjusted if they are inadequate, or scanning and analysis might be repeated if needed.

Research evidence has indicated that problem-oriented policing can be a promising strategy to reduce crime and disorder. A review by the National Academies of Sciences Consensus Committee on Proactive Policing (NASEM, 2018) and a Campbell Systematic Meta-Analysis (Hinkle et al., 2020) both find that a police department’s commitment to problem-solving strategies can reduce crime and disorder, when implemented well (although

more rigorous experimental evaluations are needed in this area). Problem solving may be particularly effective at reducing crime, at least in the short run, when police target conditions, offenders, victims, and situations at specific locations and “hot spots” where crime concentrates (Braga and Bond, 2008; Braga and Weisburd, 2012; Taylor et al., 2011). These are often places where the routine activities of offenders and victims intersect and which have environmental features and lack of guardianship² that can facilitate (or block) crime (see extensive discussion of these ideas by Brantingham and Brantingham, 1993; Clarke and Felson, 1993; Eck and Weisburd, 1995; Sherman et al., 1989).

Additional problem-solving strategies that are promising in reducing crime and disorder include situational crime prevention, nuisance abatement, code enforcement, clean-up activities, abatement of physical disorder, improvement of social services, and working with place-managers to increase guardianship (for examples, see Braga and Bond, 2008; Clarke, 1997; Eck and Wartell, 1998; Mazerolle et al., 2000; Weisburd et al., 2010). Braga and Weisburd (2006) note that many problem-solving projects are often “shallow” in their implementation, focusing more on enforcement efforts rather than in-depth problem solving.

When implemented well, problem-solving approaches are also aligned with responsive, transparent, and accountable policing, which are all important requirements within effective ROL policing. Problem solving requires the accurate collection, collation, and analysis of public safety data and information, which means that police agencies must have reliable and accurate information systems that can record and collect information about crime. It also requires consistent and systematically collected citizen input not just about crime problems but also about police response to those problems to respond and assess responses accurately. This allows for an evaluation not just of the impact of a particular police action on crime, but also of the impact of such an action on community perceptions of safety overall and of the legitimacy of police at the officer and institutional level. In this way, problem-oriented policing often has community-oriented elements. Problem solving establishes the critical “feedback loop” that Sherman (1998) emphasized is a cornerstone of an evidence-based approach and that can strengthen police accountability to public safety mandates and citizen concerns.

Additionally, problem-oriented policing need not only address external problems of crime and disorder. Many internal challenges in policing also reflect a problem-solving, proactive approach. For example, early intervention systems that identify officers who are at high risk of a future adverse

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² Guardianship is an enlightened function where police serve to maintain the social order and protect citizens.

event, such as a complaint, excessive use of force, corruption, or self-harm, are grounded in a problem-oriented approach. Such systems are built on the assumption that officers’ individual adverse activities may be combined to predict their future risk of an adverse event and that such officers should therefore be identified for early intervention. Agencies may have systemic challenges, such as officer absenteeism, excessive use of sick leave, or officers abandoning their assigned posts while on duty. These behaviors may be indicative of problems in an agency’s accountability, supervisory, or disciplinary infrastructure, or may be the result of hidden incentives for officers to not carry out their duties. These underlying problems can also be identified through a problem-solving approach (e.g., SARA). In this way, a problem-solving approach to both external and internal challenges in policing can be a promising “next practice” to strengthening an agency’s ability to promote the rule of law and protect the population.

In an evidence-based policing approach, agencies need critical infrastructure elements to implement and institutionalize a problem-solving approach in a consistent and meaningful way. As Lum and Koper (2017) discuss, these elements include having information technologies, analysts, and strong two-way communication channels between the police and the community to regularly collect, scan, and identify challenges within the community. However, even low-resource police agencies can adopt a problem-solving approach in the absence of information technology and analytic infrastructure by prioritizing the use of basic problem-solving skills to address chronic problems.

To implement a problem-solving approach, patrol deployment models would have to prioritize proactive problem solving rather than just reactive response to calls for service, and doing so would require adjustments to how officers are deployed and how officers and first-line supervisors are trained. An accountability infrastructure to record, document, and help assess problem-solving efforts would also need to be developed and built into the police agency’s rewards, incentives, and disciplinary subsystems. As with evidence-based policing and other reforms, agency personnel across the ranks would need to subscribe to this policing approach and understand that the mandates of policing are not simply to respond and react, but to proactively problem solve to prevent. Problem-solving tactics and activities would also need to be monitored to ensure that they are not inadvertently harming the community, such as causing greater disparities or inequities in the justice system or leading to greater police violence or uses of force.

Perhaps the greatest challenge that evidence-based policing confronts is the first of the “Three T”s of targeting, testing, and tracking (Sherman, 2013). The scanning component of the SARA model, which roughly corresponds to the “targeting” element of evidence-based policing, has long been susceptible to subjectivity in selecting which patterns to prioritize. An

evidence-based perspective has recently helped to combat subjective targeting through the use of a crime harm index, an approach that has spread from Canada to the United Kingdom, Australia (House and Neyroud, 2018), Denmark (Andersen and Mueller-Johnson, 2018), Sweden (Kärrholm et al., 2020), New Zealand, and Uruguay (Weinborn et al., 2017). Any form of a consistent harm weighting for each offense type provides a far more objective and systematic basis for choosing which crime or harm patterns to prioritize, in terms of the greatest public benefit for the investment of police resources in prevention. Adding a measurement of total crime harm value to the design of a proactive problem-oriented plan to reduce that harm holds substantial potential for increasing the fairness, legitimacy, and impact of the approach.

COMMUNITY-ORIENTED POLICING

Community-oriented policing is both a philosophy of policing and an organizational strategy (Greene, 2000; NRC, 2004) in which people within a jurisdiction, community, or neighborhood play a more active role in “co-producing” public safety and holding the police accountable to community concerns (see definitional discussions by Eck and Rosenbaum, 1994; Green and Mastrofski, 1988; Mastrofski et al., 2007). It can be a mindset, but it can also be a set of very specific tactics and strategies. Here the term community-oriented is emphasized, as opposed to the term “community policing,” because sometimes police can have the appearance of engaging the community but not be community oriented at all.

Skogan (2006) articulates three interrelated elements of community-oriented policing (COP): (1) citizen involvement in identifying and addressing public safety concerns, (2) the decentralization of decision making to develop responses to locally defined problems, and (3) problem solving. These activities go beyond programs that only inform communities about police activities or police programs that try and improve citizen satisfaction with the police (Trojanowicz et al., 1998). More recently, COP has encompassed notions of building collective efficacy and empowering community members (Sampson, 2011), as well as procedural justice and police legitimacy (Tyler, 1990). The goals of COP have included reducing fear, improving police-citizen relationships, increasing citizen involvement in public safety, reducing disorder, and increasing accountability and oversight of police by communities (Gill et al., 2014).

Many practices and programs have been associated with COP. These include officers and citizens collaborating to work on public safety problems in a neighborhood; community meetings in which police gain input from communities about both crime and policing problems; school-based programs in which officers try to connect with young people in various

ways; neighborhood patrol programs where officers and citizens might patrol crime hot spots together; civilian oversight groups that may make recommendations about officer discipline or agency activities; or the application of community resources to address crime problems, to name a few. The ideals behind these activities are that citizens in democracies should have a say in how they are being policed and that police agents are accountable to the public in their actions and activities. Thus, for example, police would not be operating in a community-oriented manner if they did not share what they were doing about crime with members of the community (nor cared what the community thought), but rather set their own priorities about what problems to focus on (if at all) and how to focus on them. Such agencies would not be transparent or accountable to the community regarding their policies, practices, and spending, and also hide their internal affairs from the public.

In practice, even well-designed COP programs have several implementation challenges (see Mastrofski et al., 2007; Skogan, 2019). Both police officers and citizens may not know how to co-produce safety together (or even separately). Sustaining officer and citizen involvement in community-oriented programs can be challenging. In some communities, COP might be used by one group to oppress another, and marginalized groups may be left out of discussions altogether or even be the target of COP (Cheng, 2020). Even if citizens help to identify problems, problem-solving activities may be implemented poorly or lack resources to be implemented well.

Several reviews of the evaluation research on COP programs have been mixed in terms of COP’s effectiveness. Two National Academies consensus committees have reviewed the research on COP (NASEM, 2018; NRC, 2004), arriving at similar conclusions as Gill and colleagues (2014) Campbell Systematic Review on COP. These reviews found that while community-oriented policing does not often have consistent crime-prevention or deterrence benefits, some programs can improve citizen satisfaction with police services (although the impacts on perceptions of police legitimacy may be weaker). However, we note that some COP activities, programs, and interventions have not been well defined or evaluated. For the evaluations that do exist, many are of modest methodological quality and do not measure long-term effects (NASEM, 2018).

One attempt to evaluate COP has been conducted by Evidence in Governance and Politics, a global research, evaluation, and learning network that fosters collaboration between academics and practitioners, with a focus on the Global South. The four year project was conducted in Brazil, Colombia, Liberia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Uganda using common methodologies and building upon existing approaches in each country to implement a community-oriented policing program, using a problem-oriented policing model and engaging with the local community to share

information.³ Findings point to the need for an extended timeline for projects of this nature to ensure adequate time for relationship building on the ground with key stakeholders and for conclusive implementation, monitoring, and evaluation to be conducted. A steady presence of researchers and staff on the ground in the countries participating in the intervention was also an early indicator of promise in each country. Data from all countries, however, did not show changes in crime victimization, perceived future insecurity, citizen perceptions of police, police perceptions of citizens, police abuse, crime reporting, crime tips, or the reporting of police abuse. The architects of this study believe that community-oriented policing must be supported by large-scale structural reforms in order to yield greater success.

Whether COP can be implemented in sustainable ways that promote the rule of law and public safety remains to be seen. In places where public safety is needed most, community members may not have the time, resources, political power, or motivation to work with the police to co-produce public safety. Yet if they can work together on attaining protection of the public, a byproduct may be an increased legitimacy of policing, which in turn may support the rule of law—as the Northern Ireland case study suggests (see Box 4-2).

USE OF DISCRETION

A core aspect to the idea of public protection is the reduction of harm: how to minimize violence and subsequent harm in society, and how to minimize public harm when police use force to enforce the law. Many countries, and their policing traditions, place great value on public order and the prevention of ongoing conflicts, but they handle police discretion differently. In the United Kingdom, for example, the concept of discretion is at the heart of Common Law tradition since 1361. In response to the duty to keep the peace, police may use discretion not to exercise their state-granted authority to enforce the law, if that decision were likely to prevent harm. By the same token, a failure to enforce the law that then allows violence to erupt and cause harm would be a breach of peace-keeping duty.

The “pyramids of harm” model, with larger amounts of relatively harmless crimes at the base and smaller amounts of severe crimes at the peak, invites police leaders to concentrate officer time and activities where the smallest number of officers can prevent the greatest amount of victimization (Dudfield et al., 2017; Hiltz et al., 2020; Weinborn et al., 2017). This approach emphasizes the human rights principle of directing the greatest care to those in greatest need of protection. If 10 percent of victims are predicted to suffer 50 percent of the harm to be reported in the next 90

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³ See https://egap.org/our-work-0/the-metaketa-initiative/round4-community-policing.

days, police may legitimately be seen to have an option to invest 50 percent of resources in protecting those victims—despite its disruption of current activities that address far less harm. The discretion to allocate policing resources by predicted harm concentrations is the basis for using a “Crime Harm Index” to allocate police resources proactively for maximum crime prevention (Sherman et al., 2016). Note that this recommendation contrasts sharply with the idea of “broken windows” policing, where police resources devoted to minor offenses were hypothesized to lead to reductions in serious offenses.

The harm analysis needed to allocate resources in this way is widely available in the Global North, if not widely used. Yet, similar capacity to analyze risk and harm is present in Montevideo, Uruguay; Hyderabad, India; and Santiago, Chile (Sherman, 2021). The policy of triage in police resource allocation, applied both proactively and reactively, is one that may enhance public protection in many parts of the world already. With greater assistance in developing both data analysis and strategic planning, the strategy of prioritizing harm is one that could be tested around the globe.

CONCLUSION

Evidence-based proactive policing strategies, such as problem-oriented policing, community-oriented policing, and the use of discretion, which aim to reduce crime as well as the harm from severe crimes, seem particularly suited to promote the rule of law and public protection if carried out with an evidence-based approach. However, very few police agencies in any country have met the rigorous standards of an evidence-based approach outlined in Chapter 1.

Available research evidence has indicated that problem-oriented policing can be a promising strategy to reduce crime and disorder. Problem solving may be particularly effective at reducing crime when police target conditions, offenders, victims, and situations at specific locations and “hot spots” where crime concentrates. Recent reviews recognize that some community-oriented policing activities, programs, or interventions have not been well defined or evaluated. For the evaluations that do exist, many are of modest methodological quality and do not measure long-term effects. This research finds that while community-oriented policing does not often have consistent crime prevention or deterrence benefits, some programs can improve citizen satisfaction with police services. Whether any of the proactive policing strategies can demonstrate effects that promote the rule of law and public safety remains to be seen. See recommendations for a research agenda and infrastructure in the next chapter.

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