NCJ Number
82181
Journal
Police Service Abstracts Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Dated: (July/August 1981) Pages: 1-5
Date Published
1981
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Principles underlying the planning and execution of a rational police crime control policy are discussed.
Abstract
Crime control occurs at three levels: (1) tactical, which involves the use and deployment of resources to achieve concrete and limited goals; (2) strategy, which involves setting goals and selecting ways and means to achieve them; and (3) policy, which provides the overarching rationale for all that is done strategically and tactically. This paper focuses on the policy level of crime control. Rationality in crime control policy involves the organizing of a series of activities so as to move toward a previously defined goal, with every element in the series of activities receiving a functional position and role. Three conditions must be met in order to bring rationality to the making of crime control policy. First, policymakers must have sufficient information and data to inform policymaking; Secondly, policymakers must be in a position to choose a particular activity from several possibilities; and thirdly, policymakers must have a conception of the aims to be achieved. The aim of criminal policy is to reduce the level of crime to acceptable limits, so that the incidence of crime does not exceed society's tolerance limits. The best choice among alternatives for achieving this is the one which is most likely to reach the aim, making use of all available information and given the alternatives. The information needs of policymaking might well be met through a police institute for applied criminology, whose primary tasks would be to scan the scientific literature, adapt the information to the needs of the police, and evaluate experiments in crime control.