60 Steps

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Authors

Clarke PhotoRONALD V.

  • Read more about Glossary

Glossary

  • Read more about Foreword

Foreword

One of the primary concerns in policing in the United States today and for the foreseeable future is the severe constraint on spending. The lion's share of police budgets is consumed in personnel costs. As a result, many police agencies are already operating significantly below their authorized strength. Funds to hire new officers to meet growing needs are hard to obtain.

  • Read more about Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This is a revised and extended version of a manual, Become a Problem- Solving Crime Analyst, that we wrote for the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London, with financial support from the Home Office.We are most grateful to the Institute and to the Home Office for allowing us to produce this version for the United States.

  • Read more about Step 2: Be the local crime expert

Step 2: Be the local crime expert

How often have you been asked the following sorts of questions in your work?

  • Read more about Step 1: Rethink your job

Step 1: Rethink your job

Like most crime analysts, you probably think of your job in rather modest terms. You do not solve crimes single-handed. Nor do you take the lead in setting departmental crime-fighting priorities. Instead, you crunch data for those who do the "real" work of finding better ways to arrest criminals. You respond to requests for the latest statistics on burglary or car theft from beat officers and sergeants.

  • Read more about Step 3: Know what is effective (and not) in policing

Step 3: Know what is effective (and not) in policing

Evidence on what makes police effective points to the vital role of crime analysis in 21st century policing. Understanding this research can help you apply the lessons the police profession has learned over the last third of a century.

  • Read more about Step 4: Become a POP expert

Step 4: Become a POP expert

When a serious crime occurs, the police are expected to react immediately. They must provide help and reassurance to victims and move fast to arrest offenders. Yet we have seen that many times the police are not able to arrest the culprits and may not be able to secure a conviction when they do. We have also seen that random patrolling, which the public expects, is not an efficient way to apprehend criminals.

  • Read more about Step 5: Be true to POP

Step 5: Be true to POP

Some police managers attracted to problem-oriented policing also apply other strategies, such as community policing, "broken windows" policing, intelligence-led policing, and CompStat. Depending on how these other strategies are implemented, they may or may not be compatible with POP. Even when implemented in a compatible manner, they are not the same as POP. For these reasons it is critical to understand how POP differs from these other strategies.

  • Read more about Step 6: Be very crime specific

Step 6: Be very crime specific

Your department will sometimes mount a crackdown on a particular crime such as auto crime or burglary, and you might be asked to map these offenses or provide other data to support the operation. But these categories are too broad for problem-oriented policing. They include too many different kinds of crimes, all of which need to be separately analyzed. For example, "auto crime" could include:

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