NCJ Number
243271
Date Published
June 2013
Length
48 pages
Annotation
This report identifies and discusses effective police-led approaches to reducing crime.
Abstract
This report, part of a larger project entitled "Police Effectiveness in a Changing World," identifies and discusses effective police-led approaches to reducing crime. The findings from this paper will be used to address the challenges that are the focus of the project. The report examined studies that have considered which approaches to law enforcement are most effective at maximizing the use of limited police resources to reduce crime. The evaluation found that intelligence-led policing and problem-oriented policing are the two most effective approaches to reducing crime. The findings from the report suggest that limited police resources should be used to 1) target high-crime micro locations where the risks of harm are the greatest; 2) focus on connected problems rather than individual incidents and involve local communities in identifying where to use the resources; 3) more effectively engage local communities to use the resources from other agencies to implement crime reduction strategies; and 4) raise the awareness of the central importance of securing police legitimacy for using new and more effective crime-reduction strategies. The report also identifies and discusses the challenges facing local police in today's changing world. These challenges include working effectively across local, regional and national borders; staying ahead of increasingly fluid criminal networks; responding to new kinds of offenses and new ways of committing them; and engaging with increasingly transient and diverse communities and with citizens connected more through social media than through the places where they live. References