Problems of Problem-Solving, Resistance, Interdependencies, and Conflicting Interests

• NCJ Number: 155074
• Journal: American Journal of Police Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: (1994) Pages: 1-36
• Author(s): M E Buerger
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 36 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0037; 91-IJ-CX-0029
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Survey

Annotation

Problem-oriented policing in the Minneapolis Police Department's Repeat Call Address Policing (RECAP) Experiment was analyzed by means of participant observations from May through December 1987 and a content analysis of the original RECAP case files.

Abstract

Those files contained the officers' own written notes and analyses of their work at their assigned addresses, as well as later analyses developed through an interactive process for a book edited by this article's author. In RECAP, a five-member team was asked to develop and implement strategies to resolve the underlying problems that produced repeat calls for police service at their addresses. The program sought to identify as many types of problems as possible and to generate as many innovative police responses to them as possible. RECAP involved a wide range of problems and tactics involving both residential and commercial addresses and crimes such as assault, disturbances, drunkenness, shoplifting, residential burglaries, and commercial predatory crime. Although the RECAP Unit failed to prevent as many calls as the officers would probably have answered if they had remained on active patrol service, it produced dramatically successful interventions at some locations, helped streamline some ineffective police responses, and helped develop several plans for solutions to citywide problems. Notes and 38 references