mplementing POP—Leading, Structuring and Managing a Problem-Oriented Police Agency

by Michael S. Scott and Stuart Kirby

This manual is intended for police executives interested in promoting the practice of problem-oriented policing (POP) within their police agency. Whether you’re a chief executive already committed to the idea of POP, but looking for guidance on implementing it, or a senior-level executive tasked to plan your agency’s adoption of POP, this manual should help you decide what steps to take, and in what order, to make POP an integral part of how your police agency does business.

Annotated Bibliography of Studies of Implementing Problem-Oriented Policing   

Implementing and Sustaining Problem-Oriented Policing: A Guide

by Aiden Sidebottom, Stuart Kirby, Nick Tilley, Rachel Armitage, Matthew Ashby, Karen Bullock, and Gloria Laycock (2020). 

This guide is about embedding POP in your organisation. It is written primarily for senior officers and managers and is intended to complement a sister guide on problem-solving in practice.

How City Managers Can Reduce Crime: A Brief Guide

by John E. Eck (2025)

To assist city managers, this guide and checklists highlight key elements of problem solving. Use the guide and checklists to assess your city’s and police department’s capacities to reduce crime. The guide’s first six sections explain problem solving. The following four sections examine the foundations of problem solving. The concluding section offers an alternative if your police agency will not tackle crime problems.

Enhancing the Problem-Solving Capacity of Crime Analysis Units 

by Matthew B. White

Methods of capturing and analyzing data have rapidly developed at the same time that advances have been made in the theory of problem-oriented policing. Police managers who wish to benefit from these developments and implement a program of problem-oriented policing must ensure that their crime analysts are properly inducted into the police environment and that their analytical work is fully integrated into departmental operations. They will then be able to take their proper role as central members of the team in problem-solving projects. This Guide is intended to help police managers attain this goal. 

Implementing Responses to Problems

by Rick Brown and Michael S. Scott

This guide deals with the process of implementing responses to problems in problem-oriented policing initiatives. It addresses the reasons why the responses you plan to implement do or do not get properly implemented, and how you can better ensure that they do.  

Effective Policing and Crime Prevention: A Problem-Oriented Guide for Mayors, City Managers, and County Executives 

by Joel B. Plant and Michael S. Scott

This guide is intended to help local government executives better understand how local government in general, and local police in particular, can more effectively meet public safety challenges.   

A Police Organizational Model for Crime Reduction: Institutionalizing Problem Solving, Analysis, and Accountability

by Rachel Boba and Roberto Santos 

Call Management and Community Policing: A Guidebook for Law Enforcement

by Tom McEwen, Deborah Spence, Russell Wolff, Julie Wartell, and Barbara Webster of the Institute for Law & Justice

This guide helps with the management of calls for police service to better support community problem solving.

Problem-Based Field-Training Manuals

by U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services; Police Executive Research Forum; and Reno Police Department