NCJ Number
211239
Date Published
August 2005
Length
58 pages
Annotation
This guide describes ways in which police can persuade or coerce others to address crime and disorder problems, so as to reduce overwhelming demands upon police agencies and improve public safety through collaborations with individual citizens and community groups.
Abstract
This guide focuses on public safety problems that fall within the policing mandate, rather than tasks laid upon the police that are beyond the proper scope of police power and authority. Police agencies can be most persuasive in eliciting the cooperation of others in addressing a public safety problem when they explain how compliance with the request will address the problem, the basis for police knowledge about the effectiveness of the proposed response, measures police have already taken to resolve the problem, the limitations of those measures, and the benefits to the community if new practices are voluntarily adopted. Specific methods police can use to shift and share responsibility for public safety problems are discussed under the following topics: educating victims and offenders, making a straightforward informal request, making a targeted confrontational request, engaging another existing service agency, pressing for the creation of a new organization, shaming delinquent parties, withdrawing police services, charging fees for police services, pressing for legislation, and bringing a civil action. Other issues addressed are making the case for shifting responsibility, measuring the effectiveness of new responses, and determining the appropriate degree of pressure to shift responsibility. 40 references