Corporate Strategies for Policing

• NCJ Number: 114215
• Author(s): M H Moore; R C Trojanowicz
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 15 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); Harvard University
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Perspectives on Policing, No. 6, November 1988

Annotation

For the last 50 years a corporate strategy has dominated policing that might best be characterized as professional crime-fighting.

Abstract

This strategy carried police from a world of amateurism, lawlessness, and political vulnerability to one of professionalism, integrity, and political independence. However, this strategy has some basic weaknesses including a reliance on reactive tactics, an inability to prevent crime, and isolation from the community. In response to these weaknesses newer conceptions of policing have developed. Strategic policing seeks improvements to professional crime fighting by emphasizing directed patrol, decoy operations, and sting operations. The police response is broader, more proactive, and more sophisticated. Problem-solving policing focuses on discovering offenses and prosecuting offenders by considering community conditions that might contribute to crime. Community policing emphasizes the creation of an effective working partnership between the community and police. Compared to the previous corporate strategy, these strategies demand more effective intelligence and investigative techniques, greater diagnostic skills and a broader repertoire of responses to problems, and a more varied set of interactions with individuals and groups within communities. 32 notes.