NCJ Number
208835
Date Published
2005
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This chapter examines the role of police as collectors, custodians, analysts, and disseminators of knowledge and statistics that pertain to the safety risks relevant to various institutions and segments of the jurisdiction being served.
Abstract
The traditional police use of the knowledge and statistics it acquires has been for departmental use only as it assesses its own performance and conducts analyses of crime for the purpose of allocating its resources. The police as "risk communicators" introduces a new concept of the responsibility of police agencies to provide technical assistance to community institutions and neighborhoods to assist them in determining and responding to various risks to safety. This chapter initially describes the work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Informatics division, which has a specialized division of labor to manage its risk communication systems. The chapter then discusses the ways in which police agencies work with private organizations and businesses to aid them in risk assessment and management. Attention is given to cooperation with private policing systems. This is followed by a discussion of ways in which the police interact with the public to obtain information that can be helpful in reducing risks to the public, such as maintaining records on suspicious persons stopped by police, providing relevant information to police-sponsored block watch programs, and the maintenance and dissemination of missing-person information that may be helpful in preventing abductions. 59 references