NCJ Number
199812
Date Published
2003
Length
35 pages
Annotation
This paper focuses on the British police service’s capacity for problem specification and analysis in the context of a national crime reduction program, the British Crime Reduction Program (1999-2002), one stream of which was specifically intended to encourage and enable problem-oriented policing.
Abstract
The British Crime Reduction Program, a 3-year initiative, ran between 1999 and 2002 and spent approximately 400 million pounds over this time period on crime reduction projects and project evaluation, fostering problem-oriented policing. This paper provides an overview of relevant bids for funding prepared under the program and what was considered the best-evidenced bid, the Targeted Policing Initiative. However, the analyses included within the Targeted Policing Initiative of the Crime Reduction Program have been limited in scope, detail, and in some instances relevance to dealing with the problems that were targeted. The findings are in the context of British and American reviews of problem-oriented policing projects and of the implementation of problem-oriented policing generally. Findings indicate: (1) that despite difficulties revealed, it does not follow that problem-oriented policing is fundamentally flawed and should be abandoned; (2) problem-oriented policing may require substantial increases in agencies’ capacities for the required and essential forms of analysis; (3) the Crime Reduction Program may have provided inadequate and inappropriate support for problem-oriented policing, allowing for a flawed test of police analytic potential; and (4) different types of problems addressed by a problem-focused police agency could require different types of analytical skill. References