Problem-Oriented Policing: Reflections on the First 20 Years 

Author 
Michael S. Scott 

October 2000 

This publication was supported through Grant #98CKWXK052 
from the Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, U.S. 
Department of Justice. The opinions expressed herein are the 
author's and do not necessarily represent the official position of 
the U.S. Department of Justice. 


Suggested Citation 

Scott, Michael S. Problem-Oriented Policing: Reflections on the First 20 Years. 
Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community 
Oriented Policing Services, 2000. 


Table of Contents 

Section 									Page 

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v 

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 

Summary of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 
    What Is the Purpose of the Report? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
    A Brief History of the Spread of Problem-Oriented Policing . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Chapter 1  Revisiting the Basic Elements of Problem-Oriented Policing . . . . . . . 45 

    What Is the Distinction Between Problem-Oriented Policing and Problem-Solving? . 45 
    What Does "Problem" Mean in Problem-Oriented Policing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 
    How Should Problems Be Defined and Described? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 
    What Should the Police Be Concerned About in Problem-Oriented Policing? . . . . .49 
       Focusing on Community Concerns vs. Internal Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 
       Finding the Best Response vs. Merely Improving Current Responses and Systems .51 
       Focusing on Community Problems for Which the Police 
       Should Assume Some Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 

    What Does a Search for Underlying Conditions, Contributing Factors and Causes 
    Really Mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 
       Root Causes vs. Underlying Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 
       Causation vs. Blameworthiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 
       What Standards of Proof Should Apply in Analyzing Problems? . . . . . . . . . 58 

    How Should the Police Analyze Problems, and How Well Are They Doing So Now? . . .59 
       The Value and Limits of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 
       Inadequate Analysis Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 
       Problem Analysis Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 
       The Action Research Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 
       Accessing and Analyzing Police Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 
       Searching for Relevant Research and Good Police Practices . . . . . . . . . . 65 
          Searching for Published Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 
	  Searching for Good Practices in Other Police Agencies . . . . . . . . . . .66 
	  Searching for Good Practices Within a Police Agency . . . . . . . . . . . .66 

    What Does It Mean To Develop an Understanding of the Multiple and 
    Competing Interests at Stake in Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 
    What Does It Mean To Take Inventory of and Critique the Current 
    Responses to Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 
    How Should the Police Develop and Implement New Responses to Problems? . . . . . 69 
       Expanding the Range of Response Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 


        Categorizing Response Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 
        What Does It Mean for the Police to Be Proactive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 
    Who Should Be Involved in Problem-Oriented Policing, and How? . . . . . . . . . .74 
    How Should the Effectiveness of Implemented Responses Be Evaluated? . . . . . . .77 
        Process vs. Outcome Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 
	What Standards of Proof Should Apply in Evaluating Effectiveness? . . . . . .78 
	What Are the Specific Objectives of Problem-Solving Efforts? . . . . . . . . 80 

Chapter 2 Putting Problem-Oriented Policing and Problem-Solving in the 
Context of the Whole Police Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 

    How Does Problem-Solving Fit in With Other Aspects of Police Work? . . . . . . . .83 
	What Are the Fundamental Objectives of Policing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 
	What Are the Various Operational Strategies of Police Work? . . . . . . . . . 85 
	   Preventive Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 
	   Routine Incident Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 
	   Emergency Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 
	   Criminal Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 
	   Problem-Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 
	   Support Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 
	At What Levels Is Police Work Done? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 

    How Should the Police Integrate the Need To Address Community Problems 
    With the Desire To Improve Administrative and Procedural Processes? . . . . . . . 93 

Chapter 3  Relating Problem-Oriented Policing to Other Movements in Police Reform and 
Crime Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 

    Team Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 
    Community Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98 
    Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 
    Situational Crime Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 
    Crime Analysis and Compstat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 
    Hot-Spot Policing and Crime Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104 
    Broken Windows and Zero Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 
    Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107 

Chapter 4  Major Challenges to Advancing Problem-Oriented Policing . . . . . . . . .109 

    Setting an Agenda for Advancing Problem-Oriented Policing . . . . . . . . . . . .109 
    Advancing Problem-Oriented Policing Through Training, Research and Practice . . .111 
	How Will the Principles and Methods of Problem-Oriented Policing Be Taught? .111 
	How Will the Police Accumulate and Transfer Knowledge About Substantive 
	Community Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114 
	   How Substantive Knowledge is Shared in the Police Profession . . . . . . .114 
	   Writing Down Problem-Oriented Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115 
	   Collecting, Synthesizing and Disseminating Research and Practice on Specific 
	   Community Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116 


	How Can Problem Analysis Be Improved, and a Systematic Body of Research 
	on Substantive Community Problems Be Developed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117 
	Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 

    Defining Roles for Others in Practicing Problem-Oriented Policing . . . . . . . .121 
	Are New Alliances Between the Police and the Community Healthy? . . . . . . .121 
	Are New Alliances Between the Police and Other Government Agencies Healthy? .122 
	What Should Be the Role of Prosecutors? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123 
	What Should Be the Role of Local Government Leaders? . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 
	Should the Police Be Held More Accountable for Reducing Crime, 
	Disorder and Fear? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 

Conclusion: How Will We Know if Problem-Oriented Policing Works? . . . . . . . . . . 131 

Appendix A: An Analysis of the Best Submissions for the Herman 
Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing, 1993-1999 . . . . . . . 135 

Appendix B: A Partial List of Problem-Focused Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 

Appendix C: A Summary of Interviews With Selected Problem-Oriented Policing 
Practitioners and Researchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171 

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 


Foreword


In the last three decades, several concepts have been advanced to structure efforts to 
improve policing. Among them have been team policing, neighborhood policing, community 
policing, problem-oriented policing, and, most recently, quality-of-life policing. With 
much overlap, each concept, as reflected in its name, emphasizes a different need, 
relegating other commonly advocated reforms to a secondary role, shaped to support that 
need. This volume traces the efforts to implement problem-oriented policing. 

The emphasis in problem-oriented policing is on directing attention to the broad range 
of problems the community expects the police to handlethe problems that constitute the 
business of the policeand on how police can be more effective in dealing with them. A 
layperson may think this focus elementary on first being introduced to it. Indeed, 
laypeople probably assume that police continually focus on the problems they are expected 
to handle. But within policing, this focus constitutes a radical shift in perspective. 

Problem-oriented policing recognizes, at the outset, that police are expected to deal 
with an incredibly broad range of diverse community problemsnot simply crime. It 
recognizes that the ultimate goal of the police is not simply to enforce the law, but 
to deal with problems effectivelyideally, by preventing them from occurring in the 
first place. It therefore plunges the police into an in-depth study of the specific 
problems they confront. It invites consideration of a wide range of alternatives, in 
addition to criminal law, for responding to each specific problem. Thus, problem-oriented 
policing draws the police away from the traditional preoccupation with creating an efficient 
organization; from the heavy investment in standard, generic operating procedures for 
responding to calls and preventing crime; and from heavy dependence on criminal 
law as the primary means for getting their job done. It looks to increased knowledge 
and thinking about the specific problems police confront as the driving force in 
fashioning police services. 

The introduction of a new concept to policing is not a neat process, especially in the 
United States, where approximately 17,000 police agencies operate with a high degree of 
independence and a record of strong resistance to change. One would be nave to expect 
dramatic results in a short time. Indeed, when related to the total field of policing, 
progress toward achieving the shift in emphasis called for in problem-oriented policing 
has, over the past two decades, been negligiblea project here, a cluster of problem-solving 
efforts there. While "problem-oriented policing" has become part of the policing vocabulary, 
pure examples of its implementation are hard to find; various permutations of the concept 
are more common. Nevertheless, there have been some indications of significant movementexamples 
of situations in which officers have identified a specific problem, subjected it to in-depth 
analysis, and implemented a fresh, novel response that is more effective in dealing with it. 
When this occurs, one sees the potential of the concept confirmed. And when one assembles 
these efforts, as occurs at the annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference or in a 
publication such as this one, the results appear to be substantial. 

Michael Scott has taken on the ambitious task, in this report, of describing what has 
happened in claimed efforts to implement problem-oriented policing over the past two 
decades, both in the United States and abroad. He is uniquely equipped to have done 
so, having been directly involved with me in developing the concept in his days as a 
student; having had a wide range of experiences in training, implementation and research 
relating to the concept; and having, throughout this period, been a valued colleague. 
This was an extraordinarily difficult project. Except for mail and telephone surveys, 
which have proved unsatisfactory in other contexts, and penetrating field inquiries, which 


are very costly, there is no way to quantify what has occurredto assess the influence, 
if any, that the advocacy of problem-oriented policing has had on the minds and operations 
of police scattered about this vast country and the world. We know that much literaturehas 
been distributed and numerous training sessions have been conducted, but we know little 
about the results of these efforts. 


Despite these limitations, Scott has, by making maximum use of an eclectic collection of 
sources and some limited field work, succeeded in producing an extraordinarily useful 
description of what has occurred under the label of problem-oriented policing, appropriately 
qualifying, at critical points, the sweep of his findings. Given my own effort to follow 
these same developments, his summation appears both comprehensive and objective. He 
distinguishes the strong efforts from the weak; identifies the several misunderstandings 
and distortions of the concept, providing helpful clarifications; reports on the 
permutations of the conceptboth those that have advanced and sharpened the original goals, 
and those that have detracted from them; and describes the conditions that have facilitated 
implementation, and the barriers that have been encountered. He has located and made the 
fullest use of published materials that relate to the topic. His collection of references 
is the most comprehensive bibliography that has been compiled on problem-oriented policing; 
his detailed footnotes enrich the manuscript. Throughout the report, he effectively uses 
specific case studies from the growing collection of problem-oriented policing projects to 
illustrate his points. 

In 1990, when I published Problem-Oriented Policing, I wrote, in the introduction, that 
the concept of problem-oriented policing is open-ended; that it invites criticism, 
alterations, additions, and subtractions; and that my intent was to stimulate others to 
contribute to further developing this overall approach to improving policing. Given the 
vast arena of policing in democratic societies, I had not contemplated how difficult it 
would be to sort through what has occurred, to "separate the wheat from the chaff." 
Looking at what has happened in the past 20 years, Scott extracts some of the most 
significant developments: the extent to which beat-level police officers, with an 
abundance of latent talent, have grasped the concept and produced remarkable results; 
the linkage problem-oriented policing has to the parallel development of situational 
crime prevention, and how the two can enrich each other; and the degree to which 
implementation efforts reflect the commitment of individuals rather than agencies. 
Struggling with the difficulty of integrating problem-oriented policing into an agency 
that is often preoccupied with responding to calls, handling emergencies and investigating 
crime, Scott himself contributes to advancing the concept by offering some solid suggestions, 
based on his experience and research, for achieving that integration. And, in the final 
section of the report, he explores, in some detail, the most pressing questions and issues that have 
arisen from the efforts to date, and sets forth ways these might best be addressed. 

For those who are interested in advancing problem-oriented policing and who have read my 1990 
work on the subject, this report should be read as a companion volume, updating developments 
over the past 10 years. It will be of some help to those who are looking for specific guidance 
in addressing a specific problem. Its greater value, however, will be in the contribution it 
makes to advancing the fundamental point that improvements in policingwhether in organization, 
staffing, operations, or even relationships with the communitycan best be achieved by focusing 
more directly on the business of the policeon the varied problems that the community expects 
the police to handleand, through study and experimentation, on developing a wider range of new, 
more specific and more effective ways to deal with them. 

Herman Goldstein 
Madison, Wisc. 
January 2000 


Acknowledgments 

I genuinely appreciate the insights I gained from my visits to the Edmonton, Alberta, 
Police Service; Savannah, Ga., Police Department; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., Police 
Department; Madison, Wisc., Police Department; San Diego Police Department; Reno, 
Nev., Police Department; Sacramento, Calif., Police Department; Merseyside, England, 
Police; and Lancashire, England, Constabulary. 

I also appreciate the insights I gained from speaking at length with the following people: 
Chris Braiden, Michael Bradshaw, P.J. Duggan, Norm Lipinski, and Apollo Kowalyk 
(Edmonton); Bob Heimberger (St. Louis); Caroline Nicholl (Washington, D.C.); John Eck 
and Lorraine Green Mazerolle (University of Cincinnati); Randy Gaber and Luis Yudice 
(Madison); David Kennedy and Malcolm Sparrow (Harvard University); Nancy McPherson 
(Seattle); Nancy La Vigne (National Institute of Justice); Ron Clarke (Rutgers University); 
Rana Sampson (San Diego); Ron Glensor (Reno); Steve Segura (Sacramento); Tim Hope (Keele 
University, England); Mike Chatterton (University of Manchester, England); Ken 
Pease (Huddersfield University, England); Michael Barton, Jim Masterman, and Paul 
Stephenson (Lancashire, England); Brian Gresty, Keith Taylor, Nikki Holland, and Andy 
Fisher (Liverpool, England); Gloria Laycock (Home Office, England); Dennis Nowicki and 
Darrel Stephens (Charlotte); Drew Diamond (Tulsa); and Dan Reynolds (Savannah). 

I am grateful to the following police officials, who permitted me to spend time with them 
in the course of their regular duties, or who provided me with valuable information: Blair 
Edl, Jeff Wilks, Steve Camp, Palle Nicollajsen, Tom Farquhar, Kim Moore, Sylvia Church, 
and Rick Gagnon (Edmonton); Simon Byrne (Liverpool); Jonathan Lewin (Chicago); John 
Davenport (Madison); Jerry Hoover, Ondra Berry, Kim Gibson, Jacson Mahler, Steve 
Bigham, Doug Evans, Ken Bunker, and Andy Kachurak (Reno); Guy Swanger and Duane 
Voss (San Diego); and Richard Zapal and Bill Harvey (Savannah). 

I appreciate the substantive insights and support for the project provided by Karin 
Schmerler, Ellen Scrivner and Gil Kerlikowske, and the assistance in the publication 
process by Megan Tate Murphy and Rita Varano, all of whom worked at the Office of 
Community-Oriented Policing Services during my fellowship. I further appreciate the 
helpful comments and suggestion from three anonymous peer reviewers. Finally, I am 
grateful for the good services and good humor of my editor, Suzanne Fregly, who edited 
every line of this workexcept this one. 


About the Author 


Michael Scott is an independent police research and management consultant. He researched 
and wrote this report as a Visiting Fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of 
Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office). 

Scott has helped implement problem-oriented policing from management positions in several 
police agencies. He served as the chief of police at the Lauderhill, Fla. Police Department 
where he founded that police agency in 1994 under the principles of problem-oriented policing. 
He was special assistant to the chief of police at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department 
where he was primarily responsible for overseeing the problem-oriented policing implementation 
in St. Louis. He was director of administration at the Fort Pierce, Fla., Police Department 
where he trained officers and guided a reorganization of the department in accordance with 
the principles of problem-oriented policing. He served as legal assistant to New York City 
Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward where he helped guide the development of a major community 
policing effort, the Community Patrol Officer Program. 

Scott has also worked as a senior researcher at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) 
where he developed and delivered problem-oriented policing training to police agencies 
around the country and helped organize the first national conference on problem-oriented 
policing. He has served since 1996 as a judge for the Police Executive Research Forum's 
Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing and has been a regular 
presenter at PERF's annual conference on problem-oriented policing. He was the 1996 recipient 
of PERF's Gary P. Hayes award for leadership in improving police service. He is the author 
of Managing for Success: A Police Chief's Survival Guide and co-author of Deadly Force: What 
We Know. A Practitioner's Desk Reference to Police-Involved Shootings in the United States 
and Challenge to Change: The 21st Century Policing Project, all published by PERF. He is 
also co-editor of Tackling Crime and Other Public-Safety Problems: Case Studies in 
Problem-Solving published by the COPS Office. 

Scott began his policing career as a police officer in the Madison, Wisc. Police Department. 
He was a research assistant to Herman Goldstein during the first test of problem-oriented 
policing in the early 1980's in which researchers helped the police explore the problems of 
drunk driving and repeat sex offenders in Madison. He was again Goldstein's research 
assistant on a project that culminated in the publication of Goldstein's book, Problem-Oriented 
Policing. 

Scott holds a J.D. from the Harvard Law School where he was also an observer of the early 
Executive Sessions on Community Policing held at the Kennedy School of Government. He also 
holds a B.A. in Behavioral Science & Law and Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison 
where he was a student of Herman Goldstein's and where he wrote his undergraduate thesis on 
the occupational perspectives of police patrol officers. 


Summary of the Report 

Introduction 

What is the Purpose of the Report? 

This summary report describes how Herman Goldstein's problem-
oriented policing framework has been developed and, at times, 
distorted in the many efforts to make it a standard way of policing. I 
prepared the report as a Visiting Fellow to the U.S. Department of 
Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS 
Office). I drew upon my personal experience, reviewed relevant 
literature and problem-oriented policing project reports, visited 
selected police departments, attended conferences, and talked 
extensively with Herman Goldstein and others well-versed in 
problem-oriented policing. 

A Brief History of the Spread of Problem-Oriented Policing 

The first formal experimentation with Goldstein's model of problem-
oriented policing occurred in Madison, Wisc., in 1981 when Goldstein 
and his associates worked with the Madison Police Department 
exploring the community's response to drinking drivers and repeat sex 
offenders. Around 1982 the police in London and in Surrey, England 
undertook their own experimentation with the concept. The Baltimore 
County Police Department formally introduced Goldstein's problem-
oriented policing model into its COPE unit's operations in 1983 and 
the Newport News, Va., Police Department followed suit in 1984. A 
number of other police agencies began to incorporate at least some of 
the problem-oriented policing methodology into broader community 
policing efforts during the 1980s. 

In 1994, the COPS Office began to link funding for new police 
officers to the broad concept of community policing of which 
problem-solving was a key element. The COPS Office was required by 
law to advance community policing generally, but outside of a few of 
its competitive funding programs, most of its large funding programs 
did not require that recipient police agencies engage more specifically 
in problem-oriented methods. While the link between problem-solving 
and community policing in this large federal funding program has 
yielded many benefits, the linkage has also blurred the distinction 
between problem-oriented policing and community policing. 

Many police agencies in the United States and Canada, and a growing 
number in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the 
Netherlands, South Africa, and Scandinavia, report that they are now 


engaged in problem-oriented policing in some fashion. While there is 
no easy way to quantify the number of police agencies engaged in 
problem-oriented policing, much less to gauge the precise nature and 
quality of those efforts, it is safe to say that far more agencies claim to 
be engaged in problem-oriented policing today than at any other time. 


Problem-oriented policing continues to advance across the police field, 
even while the adoption of problem-oriented policing into particular 
police agencies seldom happens in a linear fashion. Interest in the 
concept and commitment to its implementation rises and falls in 
response to many internal and external factors. Changes in leadership, 
competing priorities or simply inertia can alter the course of 
implementation. Accordingly, one might reach different conclusions 
about the vitality of problem-oriented policing depending on whether 
one was looking only at selected police agencies or at the police field 
as a whole. 

However slow, modest and uneven the movement in problem-oriented 
policing has been, it is now a central part of at least the language of 
modern police management. But along with the rise in popularity of 
problem-oriented policing has come a certain amount of distortion of 
its original meaning. The next chapter describes how the elements of 
Goldstein's ideal model of problem-oriented policing have developed 
in practice. 

CHAPTER 1: REVISITING THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING 

Revisiting the Basic Elements of Problem-Oriented Policing 

Herman Goldstein's problem-oriented policing concept is a 
comprehensive prescription for improving the way in which the police 
do business. It calls for the police to understand their work in a new 
light, to recognize that what they are called upon to do is to address a 
wide range of problems that threaten the safety and security of 
communities, including, but not limited to what is commonly viewed 
as serious crime. The concept calls for the police to improve their 
understanding of the underlying conditions that give rise to 
community problems and to respond to these problems through a 
much wider range of methods than they have conventionally used. 
Behind the seemingly common-sense simplicity of the basic elements 
of problem-oriented policing lie real challenges for the police, 
communities and the rest of government to fully understand and 
implement them. 


What is the Distinction Between Problem-Oriented Policing and Problem-
Solving? 

In its broadest sense, the term problem-oriented policing, as used by 
Goldstein, describes a comprehensive framework for improving the 
police's capacity to perform their mission. Problem-oriented policing 
impacts virtually everything the police do, operationally as well as 
managerially. The term problem-solving is a more limited notion; it 
describes the mental process that is at the core of problem-oriented 
policing. 

What Does "Problem" Mean in Problem-Oriented Policing? 

The current literature on policing finds the term problem popping 
up everywhere. While it refers to many different matters, Goldstein's 
use of the term in the context of problem-oriented policing is highly 
specific. He used the term to convey the notion that one can classify, 
package and understand police work in a new way, as an aggregation 
of incidents that share certain common features. The precise 
understanding of the term problem remains much in need of 
reinforcement. 

How Should Problems be Defined and Described? 

How one defines a problem greatly influences how one will address it. 
One can define or describe problems in a variety of ways. One can 
describe them in terms of what the offensive behavior is, who the 
people involved are, when the problem occurs, or where the problem 
occurs. These various descriptors obviously are not mutually exclusive. 
The descriptor is merely a shorthand way of describing the entire 
problem. 

However one describes a problem in shorthand, one must address the 
offensive behavior. This is important for several reasons. Without a 
clear focus on specific forms of offensive behavior, the police run the 
risk of adopting overbroad or ineffective responses. While it is 
sometimes convenient to describe problems in terms of a class of 
people or even one individual, it is dangerous morally, ethically and 
legally for the police to treat a person or people as the problem itself. 
Shorthand labels can also mask important distinctions between 
legitimate and illegitimate behavior. Describing problems as the "drug 
problem" or even the "narcotics problem" is so broad as to be nearly 
useless. Characterizing problems with broad labels like "drugs," 
"violence," "disorder," "neighborhood decline," or "juveniles," without 
specifying the behavior at issue, often results in a simplistic analysis of 
the problem and, consequently, to hopelessly inadequate responses. 
Overly broad definitions of problems also create the risk that the 


police will be drawn into trying to address aspects of a large problem 
that are well beyond their capacity or mandate. Any shorthand label 
for a problem should be followed by a more complete and exacting 
description of the specific offensive behavior. I have sometimes 
reminded myself and others of this rule of problem-oriented policing 
in grammatical terms, by saying, "If you don't have a verb, you don't 
have a problem." Forcing oneself to include a verb in the description 
of the problem helps maintain the appropriate focus on problematic 
behavior. For example, a problem described in shorthand as 
"transients in a public park" is made more explicit by labeling it 
"transients sleeping and panhandling in a public park." This simple 
change draws one's attention to the behavior and not merely to the 
status of the persons involved. 


When problem-solvers redefine or reclassify the problem on the basis 
of preliminary analysis, this leads to conceptually clearer and more 
manageable initiatives. Asking whether the problem looks any 
different upon closer analysis remains a vital step in the problem-
solving process, but it is too often overlooked. 

What Should the Police Be Concerned About in Problem-Oriented Policing? 

Focusing on Community Concerns vs. Internal Concerns 

Goldstein's starting point for articulating the problem-oriented 
approach was that police managers should focus on how their 
agencies address community problems and not merely on how their 
agencies are administered and organized. Getting police to refocus on 
community concerns is in itself a significant challenge. Police 
administrators and officers understandably focus on the 
organizational, administrative and procedural problems that directly 
affect their physical safety, career opportunities, financial status, and 
general occupational contentment. The police are no different in this 
regard from practitioners in other fields. Ask most medical 
practitioners today to list their problems, and one can expect to find 
managed care higher on the list than emphysema or heart disease. 
Teachers talk more about classroom discipline than how to teach 
algebra more effectively. Existing case studies in problem-oriented 
policing demonstrate that the police are capable of using problem-
solving methods on substantive community problems. But if the 
police continue to focus exclusively or primarily on internal 
organizational problems, even if they apply some problem-solving 
methods toward their resolution, then problem-oriented policing will 
have failed on its face. 


Finding the Best Response vs. Merely Improving Current Responses and Systems 

Problem-solving inquiries should seek the best response to the 
substantive problem at hand, and not merely seek to improve current 
responses and systems. This distinction is a subtle but important one. 
A fair number of problem-oriented policing projects are essentially 
efforts to improve a criminal justice or investigative process, devoid of 
a careful inquiry into whether that process is the most effective means 
of addressing the problem in the first place. For example, in recent 
years, a number of police agencies have recognized value in 
establishing more collaborative working relationships with probation 
and parole agencies. Accordingly, a number of problem-oriented 
policing projects have set about finding ways for the police and 
probation and parole agents to more effectively and efficiently 
supervise people under conditional release. The underlying logic, of 
course, is that more effective and efficient supervision will reduce the 
levels or seriousness of crimes committed by those people. In many 
instances, however, the assumption that supervision of previously 
convicted offenders is the best response to the problem goes 
unexplored and unchallenged. The value of police-probation and 
parole collaboration becomes stronger if it is first clearly established 
that improved supervision will result in substantial improvements to 
the specific community problem. 

Focusing on Community Problems for Which the Police Should Assume Some 
Responsibility 

Goldstein has advocated that the police recognize their role in society 
as being broader than enforcing the criminal law. At the same time, 
however, he has argued that the police mandate must not be 
unlimited. If the police become too involved in every government and 
quasigovernment function, they risk eroding balances of power in 
local and even national government. Police agencies run the risk of 
overextending their expertise and resourcestrying to achieve 
objectives about which they have little or no expertise. By expending 
resources on newly adopted mandates, they risk devoting too few 
resources to conventional mandates. 

The community problems the police should focus on are those that 
fall within their mandate as it is defined for each agency. In the era of 
community policing, that mandate has been expanded, partly by the 
police themselves. Police departments everywhere are initiating 
programs in which police officers adopt roles of counselors, teachers, 
coaches, and brokers of charitable works. The most common 
justification offered for adopting these new roles is that the police can 
inculcate good moral and civic habits in the community, and as a 


result, some unspecified measure of offending will be reduced. Too 
often though, the police adopt these roles for other purposesto 
improve their community image or deflect criticism of other, 
objectionable, police practices. 


Under a problem-oriented policing approach, the police would 
recognize how functions like moral education, youth recreation and 
charity are integral to public safety, but would not see their role as one 
of providing these services directly, at least not permanently. The key 
for the police is first, to establish some sense of ownership or 
responsibility for a community problem, and if the problem falls 
within the police mandate, either address it themselves, broker 
ownership to some other entity or, in some instances, merely refuse to 
accept ownership. The police may join with many divergent entities in 
studying a problem, but ultimately the responsibilities for various 
responses should be apportioned among those entities according to 
their resources and competencies. A good example was provided by 
the Glendale, Calif., Police Department when in 1997 it helped 
develop a new program for day laborers that directly responded to 
legitimate police interests in reducing crime and disorder. The police 
did not assume responsibility, however, for actually running the 
program. Similarly, the Fontana, Calif., Police Department in 1998 
helped develop a new assistance program for transients that achieved 
similar objectives without assuming the large responsibility of 
administering the program. 

What Does a Search for Underlying Conditions, Contributing Factors and 
Causes Really Mean? 

Root Causes vs. Underlying Conditions 

The search for contributing factors and underlying conditions is 
sometimes confused with efforts to address the broadest of social and 
psychological factors that contribute to crime and disorder, factors 
often referred to as the "root causes" of crime and disorder. 
Associating problem-oriented policing with a search for "root causes" 
is misguided. Problem-oriented policing looks for the deepest 
underlying conditions that are amenable to intervention, balancing 
what is knowable with what is possible. Many of what are commonly 
thought of as "root causes" are beyond the police's capacity to change. 

Causation vs. Blameworthiness 

Causation and blameworthiness are not the same thing. Problem-
oriented responses affix responsibility on those most capable of 
effecting lasting improvements to the conditions that give rise to the 
crime and disorder. Those most capable of addressing a problem may 


not be those most blameworthy for that problem. To many police 
officers, steeped in the legalistic traditions of assigning blame through 
the enforcement of the law, the process of spreading out 
responsibility for responding to problems does not come naturally. 
Effective problem-solving places a higher priority on improving the 
overall response to the problem than on assigning blame for the 
problem. This is why it is so critical that the police develop effective 
working relationships with those affected by a problem, relationships 
built in a spirit of mutual trust, to overcome the natural defensiveness 
that accompanies discussions of causation, blame and responsibility. 


What Standards of Proof Should Apply in Analyzing Problems? 

Some police scholars advocate setting high standards of social 
scientific proof in problem-oriented policing, standards that can best 
be met by rigorous application of experimental testing conditions. 
Other scholars have advocated a more flexible standard of proof that 
takes into account the severity of the problem, the costs of being 
wrong, the research skills of the problem-solvers, the practicality of 
various research methods, the body of existing knowledge about the 
particular type of problem, and so forth. As a practical matter, the 
standard of proof that ultimately will prevail varies from problem to 
problem and place to place. Within the broad limits of the law, what 
stands as an acceptable response to any particular problem depends 
on what is acceptable to the local community, at least to those 
members who are paying attention to the problem and who can 
exercise influence on the particular policymakers. 

How Should the Police Analyze Problems, and How Well Are They 
Doing So Now? 

Problem analysis remains the aspect of the concept most in need of 
improvement. This is partly due to inadequate resources and weak 
analysis methods, but it is also due to the different ways in which the 
police and researchers understand how analysis contributes to 
addressing problems. 

The Value and Limits of Analysis 

In order for the police to commit adequate resources to analyzing 
problems, they must first fully appreciate how analysis can improve 
their responses to problems. In order for researchers to help the 
police with analysis, they must appreciate the practical concerns of 
and demands upon the police with respect to community problems. 
(These issues are discussed more fully in chapter 4.) 


A thorough problem analysis, at a minimum, means fully describing 
the problem, describing the multiple and often conflicting interests at 
stake in the problem, calculating the nature and costs of the harm 
arising from the problem, and taking inventory of and critiquing the 
current responses to the problem. In the problem-oriented policing 
model, problem-solvers, whether they be police practitioners or 
researchers, should be open to doubt about things they thought they 
knew about the problem and insist upon proving or disproving 
matters with objective evidence. They must balance the desire to be 
certain and precise with the practical difficulties in being so. They 
must recognize what data can and cannot tell them. They should be 
interested in learning how similar problems have been analyzed and 
addressed elsewhere while at the same time recognizing how their 
local situation might be different. They must ask the right questions 
and not waste effort finding answers to questions of no practical 
significance. They must balance the need to reflect on problems with 
the need to act upon them. These are no small challenges and they 
require that both police practitioners and researchers adjust and adapt 
the conventional ways in which they analyze problems and decide how 
to respond to them. 

Inadequate Analysis Resources 

Problem analysis can fall short of ideal without adequate time to 
complete the analysis and the research expertise necessary to do so 
properly. Research expertise is valuable for setting up an appropriate 
methodology for conducting the inquiry, ensuring data are complete 
and reliable, and applying statistical data analyses from which valid 
conclusions can be drawn. Some problem-solving and analysis guides 
have gone a long way toward providing street officers with some basic 
understanding of problem-solving methodologies, but they do not 
provide the same level of expertise as can trained and experienced 
researchers. 

The Action Research Model 

Goldstein envisioned an action research model in which the researcher 
is an integral part of a team of people working toward some particular 
result. The researcher not only collects and analyzes data and draws 
conclusions, but also proposes interventions along with others trying 
to intervene in the problem. This research model seeks to balance an 
outside researcher's independence and objectivity with a pragmatic 
interest in achieving certain results. 

Accessing and Analyzing Police Data 

Computerized record-keeping has been a boon to problem-oriented 
policing. Data that just a few years ago would have been enormously 


difficult to retrieve are now available at the touch of a few buttons. 
Unfortunately, the ease of searching and analyzing large volumes of 
aggregate coded data too often leads problem-solvers to skip a more 
detailed analysis of the written narratives in individual police reports. 
Police report narratives contain many of the more useful insights 
about problems. 


Searching for Relevant Research and Good Police Practices 

An important aspect of problem analysis should be a review of the 
literature on that problem. That literature might be in published books 
and articles, or in unpublished reports from within and outside the 
police agency. In practice, however, literature reviews conducted as 
part of a problem-solving project are rare. Police practitioners often 
do not have the benefit of assistance from researchers or do not have 
access to research libraries. 

Unfortunately, even if police had more access to research libraries, or 
if trained researchers were conducting a literature review, their search 
would not be productive with respect to many types of problems. 
While there is more relevant research on some community problems 
than many police officers realize, it is far less than one might expect 
given how common many problems are and how many public 
resources are spent trying to address them. Again, compared to the 
body of literature in most other professions, the amount of published 
research about common community problems seems miniscule. There 
simply isn't enough quality research conducted to reliably inform the 
police about what does and does not work with respect to most crime 
and disorder problems. 

The police can also improve their responses to community problems 
by studying their own and other agency's past efforts to address 
similar problems. Reports about problem-solving initiatives are a 
valuable source of knowledge from which to draw, even if those 
initiatives did not apply rigorous research methods. Unfortunately, 
most police agencies do not routinely prepare detailed reports on 
most of their problem-solving initiatives. Some police managers are 
reluctant to impose what might be perceived as excessive reporting 
requirements on officers whom they do not want to discourage from 
engaging in problem-solving. While this is understandable as managers 
try to coax officers into policing in a different way, a lot of knowledge 
about how various problems have been handled has been lost. Some 
police agencies have created computer records, project reports, forms 
and newsletters to document problem-solving efforts. These have 
great potential to help officers search for solutions to common 
problems and to teach officers problem-solving skills through real 
examples. Somehow, more police-led problem-solving efforts must be 


documented in writing and police managers must then make these 
resources accessible and encourage that they be reviewed as a standard 
step in future problem analysis. 


Compared to the record-keeping systems and reporting requirements 
for calls for service, incident reports and criminal investigations, the 
state of record-keeping and reporting for problem-oriented activities 
is rather primitive. Ultimately, police agencies must assign the same 
degree of importance to the official records related to problem-
oriented initiatives as they do other official records. 

What Does It Mean to Develop an Understanding of the Multiple and 
Competing Interests at Stake in Problems? 

Many problem-oriented policing initiatives fail to take complete 
account of all the interests at stake with respect to the problem. This 
matter of accounting for the various interests is often simplified into a 
mere inventory of stakeholders. In fact, most stakeholders have 
multiple and competing interests in a problem. Exploring interests in 
a problem begins by asking what the social interests are in the problem, 
and then asking what the government interests are in the problem. Not 
all social interests should be government interests. Once one identifies 
the government interests, one can turn to asking what police interests 
are at stake. If the police conclude they have no interest at stake in the 
problem, there is little justification for their continued involvement 
regarding it. There are many social problems in which the police are 
well-advised not to become embroiled. In exploring the various 
nonpolice interests at stake in a problem, it is important to go beyond 
the most visible and obvious interests. There are often hidden 
commercial interests involved in many problems, as well as latent 
social prejudices and biases. These interests should at least be brought 
out in the open, where they can be considered. The careful probing of 
these interests is among the most enlightening parts of the problem-
solving process. 

What Does It Mean to Take Inventory of and Critique the Current 
Responses to Problems? 

Many problem-oriented project reports allude only briefly to the 
inadequacy of current responses, mainly by making the obvious 
assertion that a new response is needed. Current responses are often 
described briefly and generally, and casually discredited as being 
ineffective. One often reads in problem-solving project reports 
cursory assessments of current practices such as "the traditional 
response of handling calls, taking reports and making arrests was not 
working". But brief and general descriptions like these are not 
illuminating and, often, not entirely accurate. Individual police officers 


frequently develop their own innovative responses to problems, 
responses that are not fully and accurately encompassed in their 
agency's standard operating procedures. Other agencies and groups 
may be responding to problems in ways that the police are unaware. 
Some responses, however traditional, may prove more effective upon 
closer analysis than they might initially appear. It takes some effort to 
discern precisely how problems are being handled and to what extent 
current practice is effective. 


The flip side of dismissing the value of current conventional 
responses is, when faced with a problem that is not getting adequate 
attention, to simply increase the effort put into conventional 
responses, without carefully considering their strategic value. Many 
reports on problem-solving projects leap quickly to judgments that 
greater police presence, more arrests, more certain prosecution, or 
stiffer penalties are the best response to a problem. Such judgments 
are often made without examining the effectiveness of existing levels 
of these interventions. 

How Should the Police Develop and Implement New Responses to 
Problems? 

Expanding the Range of Response Alternatives 

Goldstein urges the police to greatly expand their range of alternative 
responses to problems, responses beyond the conventional increased 
police presence and criminal arrests. A wide range of responses is 
emerging from reports of problem-oriented policing projects. New 
responses to chronic problems should be well-considered, following 
logically from careful problem analysis, not merely a few clever ideas 
thought up as a hasty reaction. Clever ideas have some value, but 
without a clear line of reasoning that articulates the basis for the new 
response, they do not add much to the body of professional 
knowledge from which other police agencies and communities can 
draw. Police agencies often copy other agencies' clever or innovative 
ideas. But without first assessing how they might work in the local 
situation, these ideas might well prove ineffective. It is also 
unfortunate when the police launch problem-solving initiatives with a 
preferred response in mind. The subsequent problem analysis serves 
more to justify the preferred response than to inform the decision-
maker about the nature of the problem. 

What Does It Mean for the Police to Be Proactive? 

Problem-oriented policing prefers proactive responses to reactive 
responses. Proactivity means first, that responses to problems should 
prevent future harm, and not just address past harm, and second, that 


the police should speak out about community problems that are not 
being adequately addressed. Advocating that the police should be 
more proactive should not be understood as an endorsement of 
overaggressive police tactics. Goldstein has described a continuum of 
pressure the police might apply to get other entities to assume or 
share ownership for community problems. The degree of pressure the 
police apply should depend on the strength of the evidence they have 
regarding the nature of the problem and its causes. From least to 
greatest pressure, the police can do the following to get others to 
accept ownership or responsibility for problems: 


 develop educational programs regarding responsibility for the 
problem 
 make a straightforward informal request of some entity to assume 
responsibility for the problem 
 make a targeted confrontational request of some entity to assume 
responsibility for the problem 
 engage another existing organization that has the capacity to help 
address the problem 
 press for the creation of a new organization to assume ownership 
of the problem 
 shame the delinquent entity by calling public attention to its 
failure to assume responsibility for the problem 
 withdraw police services relating to certain aspects of the problem 
 charge fees for police services related to the problem 
 press for legislation mandating that entities take measures to 
prevent the problem 
 bring a civil action to compel entities to accept responsibility for 
the problem. 


Who Should Be Involved in Problem-Oriented Policing, and How? 

Goldstein has always encouraged line officers' involvement in 
problem-oriented policing, but he did not anticipate that they would 
emerge as the leaders in addressing problems. He imagined that 
command-level police officials and research collaborators would lead 
most problem-oriented initiatives. In practice, line officers have led 
many projects, even when the scope of the project has been quite 
large. In one respect, this provides some evidence of the talent line-
level police officers have, talent that police managers do not fully 
appreciate or exploit. But it may also be that supervisory and 
command-level officers are not sufficiently engaged in practicing 
problem-oriented policing. Getting command-level officers involved 
in, and holding them accountable for, addressing community problems 
is critical, but there are pitfalls if not done properly. When 
commanders are held accountable for problem-solving, problems tend 
to get defined in their terms, and less so in the terms of those most 
familiar with problemsthe community and line officers. 


The ideal level of police authority for providing leadership in 
problem-oriented policing projects depends on the scope of the 
problem being addressed. As a general proposition, supervisors should 
provide active leadership in localized beat problems; commanders in 
intermediate-level problems; and top commanders, perhaps including 
the chief executive, in communitywide problems. In every instance, 
line officers should be encouraged to be as involved as their time and 
abilities permit. 

That higher-ranking police officials seldom actively lead problem-
oriented policing initiatives suggests that the problem-solving method 
of operations has yet to achieve a high level of importance in most 
police organizations. It tends still to be viewed as something that only 
beat police officers do. Police chiefs need to pay at least as much 
personal attention to substantive community problems as they do to 
administrative and political concerns. Some command officers, to the 
extent they are supportive of problem-oriented policing, see their role 
as administrative manager, ensuring that systems are in place and 
resources available for line-level problem-solving. This is fine as far as 
it goes, but without more personal and direct command-level 
leadership, few large and complex community problems are likely to 
be taken on in a sophisticated, problem-oriented way. Line-level 
officers lack the requisite resources in most instances to conduct the 
sort of analysis and effect the sort of responses necessary to bring 
about substantial improvements in communitywide problems. Given 
the abundance of communitywide problems in every jurisdiction, 
supervisors and command-level officers need to become more 
personally engaged in problem-oriented policing. 

How Should the Effectiveness of Implemented Response Strategies Be 
Evaluated? 

Process vs. Outcome Measurement 

Perhaps the single greatest source of confusion relating to the 
evaluation of problem-oriented policing initiatives surrounds the 
distinction between the measurement of processes and the 
measurement of outcomes. The measurement of processes is the 
documentation of the actions taken in implementing responses, and 
an assessment of whether the responses were actually implemented as 
intended. The measurement of outcomes is the assessment of the 
ultimate impact the responses had on the problem, as defined (i.e., 
Did the problem improve, worsen or remain the same? Were the 
outcome objectives achieved?). These two different types of 
evaluation are often confused. Most commonly, evaluators limit their 
inquiry to determining how well and to what degree the police and 
others actually implemented their plan of action. While this 


information is vitally important, it cannot be substituted for some 
inquiry about what effect the plan of action, however well-
implemented, had on the problem. Ideally, a problem-oriented policing 
project will include measurement of both processes and outcomes. 


What Standards of Proof Should Apply in Evaluating Effectiveness? 

Goldstein acknowledges the many difficulties in establishing precise 
and certain conclusions in the complex world of human behavior 
where policing occurs, and accordingly, he is willing to settle for less 
than the most rigorous tests of effectiveness in most instances. 
Insisting on rigorous standards, however justified theoretically, would 
likely stifle much experimentation with the problem-oriented concept. 
How precise and certain one has to be in problem-oriented policing 
depends greatly on the consequences of being wrong. 

What Are the Specific Objectives of Problem-Solving Efforts? 

The Newport News study first delineated a set of generic legitimate 
objectives in problem-solving. It grouped those objectives into five 
categories: 

1. totally eliminate a problem; 
2. substantially reduce a problem; 
3. reduce the harm created by a problem; 
4. deal with a problem better (e.g., treat people more humanely, 
reduce costs or increase effectiveness); and 
5. remove the problem from police consideration. 


The fifth objective, removing problems from police consideration, 
differs from the first four in that it does not directly address the 
question of whether the problem, as experienced in the community, 
will be improved by removing it from police consideration. Taken to 
the extreme, the police could claim success in problem-oriented 
policing merely by working to absolve themselves of responsibility for 
problems. If shifting responsibility for addressing a problem to 
another entity results in more effective handling of the problem, then 
the objective is legitimate. If such a shift results merely in some 
efficiency gains for the police, then it may have some merit, but one 
cannot consider it an effective resolution. 

Often neglected in evaluations are indicators of the prevalence of the 
problem, the net harm caused by the problem, the possible 
displacement of the problem, the possible unintended benefits of the 
response, and an accounting of the total costs arising out of the 
problem and responses to it. 


CHAPTER 2: PUTTING PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING AND 
PROBLEM-SOLVING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE POLICE MISSION 

How Does Problem-Solving Fit in With Other Aspects of Police Work? 

Where does problem-solving leave the conventional tasks and 
methods for responding to calls for service or investigating crimes? 
How should police administrators who endorse problem-oriented 
policing reconcile the demands on their agencies to continue 
performing conventional police tasks with the new demands to engage 
in substantive problem-solving? Answering these questions requires 
returning to some first principles of policing. Goldstein argued that to 
understand policing properly, one has to distinguish between the 
objectives the police are trying to achieve and the methods they use to 
achieve them. Accordingly, investigating crimes and enforcing laws, 
long thought of as basic policing objectives, are not objectives in and 
of themselves, but rather methods for achieving other, more broadly 
stated, objectives. Problem-oriented policing, then, is concerned with 
expanding on and improving the methods the police use to achieve 
their more fundamental objectives. 

What Are the Fundamental Objectives of Policing? 

The fundamental objectives of policing are the ultimate purposes for 
which police agencies have been created. Goldstein characterized the 
fundamental objectives of the police as follows: 

1. to prevent and control conduct threatening to life and property 
(including serious crime); 
2. to aid crime victims and protect people in danger of physical 
harm; 
3. to protect constitutional guarantees, such as the right to free 
speech and assembly; 
4. to facilitate the movement of people and vehicles; 
5. to assist those who cannot care for themselves, including the 
intoxicated, the addicted, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, 
the elderly, and the young; 
6. to resolve conflict between individuals, between groups, or 
between citizens and their government; 
7. to identify problems that have the potential for becoming more 
serious for individuals, the police or the government; and 
8. to create and maintain a feeling of security in the community. 


The ultimate aim of problem-oriented policing is to continually make 
the police better at accomplishing each of the above objectivesto 
better prevent crime, to better assist victims, to make communities feel 
safer, and so forth. Everything the police do, whether using 


conventional or innovative methods, should be in pursuit of one or 
more of these fundamental objectives. Problem-oriented policing 
makes sense to those who share these fundamental beliefs about the 
police's role and who see policing as a complex and sensitive function, 
but less so to those who don't. 


What Are the Various Operational Strategies of Police Work? 

It is also possible to understand policing in terms of the various 
methods or strategies used to achieve these objectives. The police 
employ innumerable specific tactics, but one can better understand 
these in terms of a few core operational strategies. There are five core 
operational strategiespreventive patrol, routine incident response, 
emergency response, criminal investigation, and problem-solvingand 
one ancillary operational strategy, support services. The first four 
operational strategies constitute the ways police have conventionally 
done their work, at least since the 1930s. Problem-solving is a new 
operational strategy, introduced in Goldstein's problem-oriented 
policing concept. 

Each operational strategy of police work has unique and distinct 
features. Each represents a particular process or method for 
approaching situations the police encounter. Each is taught to police 
officers (problem-solving, only recently), and officers are taught when 
each is appropriate. Each has a distinct general procedural framework 
that guides officers in doing their work within that operational 
strategy. Each has a distinct general goal or objective. Each entails a 
unique way of defining a unit of work, and distinct general 
performance standards and indicators. Each has its own accountability, 
reporting and record-keeping systems. 

Preventive patrol remains the predominant operational strategy of 
policing in terms of time spent, all research questioning its 
effectiveness notwithstanding. Most reactive police business is handled 
using routine incident responses which entail the methodical collection of 
information about a situation, and classification of the situation. 
Police use emergency responses far less frequently than routine incident 
responses, yet they are probably the most critical to the police agency's 
success, because human life is most directly at stake. Criminal 
investigations, while constituting a smaller proportion of police work 
than most people imagine, dominates the public's (and the police's 
own) perception of police work. Support services (like providing copies 
of police reports, taking fingerprints for noninvestigative purposes, 
distributing or teaching generic crime prevention information, and 
operating youth activity programs) serve primarily to promote and 
enhance police legitimacy in the eyes of the public by providing 
nonconfrontational, nonadversarial and noncontroversial services to 
the public. 


Problem-solving is the least well-developed operational strategy. Like the 
other operational strategies, problem-solving has a distinct framework 
for guiding action. Problem-solving methodology in policing is known 
familiarly by such acronyms as SARA or CAPRA. It entails problem 
identification, analysis, response, and evaluation. The general objective 
of problem-solving is to reduce harm caused by patterns of chronic 
offensive behavior. The unit of work in problem-solving is known as a 
"problem," a "problem-solving project" or a "POP project." 
Performance indicators are significant reductions in harm that are 
plausibly caused by some specific intended intervention, reductions 
that hold for some reasonable period of time. Standards of proof 
have not been sufficiently developed, but the current standards are 
adapted from the social sciences. Problem-solving also involves some 
specialized training, and systems for reporting and accounting for 
problem-solving are being developed. For most of the history of 
policing, problem-solving has not been recognized as a distinct 
operational strategy of police work. Even since the advent of 
problem-oriented policing, most police agencies still have not elevated 
problem-solving to the level of the other operational strategies, failing 
to develop the formal systems needed to sustain it. 

At What Levels is Police Work Done? 

One can also understand police work in terms of the various levels at 
which police operate. That is, policing in any given jurisdiction occurs 
on several scales, ranging from highly localized to intermediate levels 
to a communitywide level. Each operational strategy can be applied at 
each operating level. For example, criminal investigation occurs at the 
localized level during the investigation of a single crime with a single 
victim. It also occurs at the communitywide level, where the policies 
and practices for investigating an entire class of crimes, and potentially 
affecting the entire community, are determined. The same pattern 
holds for the problem-solving operational strategy, which ranges from 
highly localized problem-solving (e.g., one drug house, or even one 
person) to the intermediate level (e.g., a prostitution strip), to the 
communitywide level (e.g., juvenile homicides throughout a city). 

Nearly all police work can be understood within this general 
conceptual framework of objectives, operational strategies and 
operating levels. The framework helps explain what the police are 
trying to achieve, how they are trying to achieve it, and on what scale 
they are operating. The ultimate goal of police reform is to enable the 
police to better achieve the full range of their objectives, effectively, 
efficiently and in a manner consistent with basic principles of justice. 
To do so, the police must be able to perform well in each operational 
strategy of police work, and at each operating level. This requires that 
the police develop an organizational capacity to employ the 


appropriate operational strategy of police work with the appropriate 
level of resources. It means having a refined understanding of what 
particular objectives the police are trying to achieve. It means being 
able to make smooth transitions between and among the various 
operational strategies of police work, and up and down the operating 
levels. 


Making the links between and among the cells of this matrix is 
challenging and demands sophisticated police work and 
managementknowing, for example, when a pattern of routine 
incidents indicates a larger underlying problem that might lead to 
worse disruption of community life if not addressed, and then using 
the right level of resources and the right processes to address the 
situation. A good police department is one in which all operational 
and administrative systems are aligned and prepared to respond to the 
community's needs. Where policing often goes wrong is in failures to 
recognize and balance competing objectives, failures to recognize that 
a different operational strategy is required for a situation, and failures 
to use the right level of resources for a particular situation. Precisely 
because the dynamics of social conflict change so quickly, police 
organizations are seriously challenged to become highly sensitized to 
these changes and to respond appropriately. In its broadest sense, 
problem-oriented policing is a framework designed to help police meet 
this challenge. 

How Should the Police Integrate the Need to Address Community Problems 
With the Desire to Improve Administrative and Procedural Processes? 

Problem-solving methods can be applied to community problems as 
well as to internal administrative and procedural problems, but the 
mere application of a problem-solving process does not automatically 
render the undertaking a form of problem-oriented policing in 
Goldstein's terms. For example, a police department supply clerk 
could use a problem-solving process to work out difficulties ordering 
uniforms, but this would not make uniform acquisition part of 
problem-oriented policing. The "problems" to which Goldstein refers 
in problem-oriented policing are matters directly relating to the 
public's safety and security, not to the police agency's inner workings. 

The police can apply problem-solving to the process of investigating 
crimes or responding to emergencies, but if this results only in making 
these processes more efficient, without creating some overall 
improvements to the public's safety and security, it does not constitute 
problem-oriented policing. Problem-oriented policing entails making 
tangible improvements to the public's safety and security, and 
increasing police effectiveness, not merely making police processes less 
burdensome to the police and/or the public. While it is legitimate and 


proper to apply problem-solving methods to administrative issues or 
to promote procedural efficiency, no amount of efficiency-driven 
problem-solving can substitute for the more important and more 
challenging application of problem-solving to community crime, 
disorder and fear. 


Similarly, making the organizational and administrative changes 
necessary to support problem-oriented policing is not the same as 
practicing problem-oriented policing. Only systematic and well-
analyzed improvements in policies and practicesthose made to 
increase public safety and securityconstitute the essence of problem-
oriented policing. All else, however important, is ancillary. 

It is difficult to overstate the extent to which administrative and 
political matters can consume the time and attention of the decision-
makers most responsible for public safety, including police 
administrators, other government agency administrators and 
legislators. Even when there is a deliberate move to adopt a problem 
orientation to policing or local government, the business of managing 
organizational change often crowds out the business of addressing 
actual community problems, at least among top decision-makers. 

It may turn out that the practice of problem-oriented policing should 
precede the realignment of the police organization. Without a clear 
understanding of what the final product isthe successful conclusion 
of problem-oriented policing initiatives that demonstrably improve 
public safetythe process of realignment seems uncertain and 
threatening. Organizational change in police agencies should flow 
from the experiences of addressing community problems, in 
somewhat the same way that assembly-line processes in automobile 
manufacturing plants should flow from the design of the automobile. 
In short, form should follow function. 

CHAPTER 3: RELATING PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING TO OTHER 
MOVEMENTS IN POLICE REFORM AND CRIME PREVENTION 

Various schools of thought on modern police reform, as well as 
several parallel or complementary movements and theories, have 
significance for the problem-oriented policing movement. All these 
movements in the realm where policing, crime prevention and 
research intersect, have influenced, and been influenced by, problem-
oriented policing. Some of these movements complement problem-
oriented policing and are variations on its themes, emphasizing one or 
another element. Other movements compete with problem-oriented 
policing for acceptance as a general model for improving policing. 


Team Policing 

Team policing, a loose collection of ideas about how the police might 
more effectively serve the public, is, in hindsight, the precursor to 
contemporary community policing methods. Decentralization of 
authority, which was central to team policing's underlying theories, 
proved threatening to many police executives, and did not survive as 
well as geographic decentralization. Team policing might have been a 
bit ahead of its timetoo much, too soon, to be sustainedbut many 
of its premises were and remain sound, and it had sufficient appeal 
both to the community and to rank-and-file police officers. Indeed, 
several core features of team policing, like stability of geographic 
assignment, unity of command, interaction between police and 
community, geographic decentralization of police operations, 
despecialization of police services, greater responsiveness to 
community concerns, some decentralization of internal decision-
making, and at least some shared decision-making with the 
community, are in place in many of today's police agencies. 

Community Policing 

It is beyond the scope of this writing to explore all the distinctions 
between and similarities of community policing and problem-oriented 
policing, except to summarize a few distinctions Goldstein has made. 
Problem-oriented policing primarily emphasizes the substantive 
societal problems the police are held principally responsible for 
addressing; community policing primarily emphasizes having the 
police engage the community in the policing process. How the police 
and the community engage one another under a problem-oriented 
approach should depend on the specific problem they are trying to 
address, rather than being defined in a broad and abstract sense. 
Carefully analyzing problems before developing new response 
strategies is given greater weight and importance under problem-
oriented policing than under community policing. Community policing 
emphasizes that the police share more decision-making authority with 
the community; problem-oriented policing seeks to preserve more 
ultimate decision-making authority for the police, even while 
encouraging the police to solicit input from outside the department. 
Community policing expands the police's role to advance large and 
ambitious social objectives, like promoting peaceful coexistence, 
enhancing neighborhood quality of life, promoting racial and ethnic 
harmony, and strengthening democratic community governance; 
problem-oriented policing is more cautious, emphasizing that the 
police are more limited in their capacity to achieve these goals than 
many people imagine, and guards against unrealistic expectations of 
the police. 


From the perspective of those committed to problem-oriented 
policing as a framework for police reform, the community policing 
movement has been a mixed blessing. On the positive side, the general 
idea of community policing has been enormously popular with the 
general public and, consequently, with elected officials. More 
specifically, the promise to the public of more access to the police, 
more police presence in the community, and greater police 
responsiveness to community concerns largely accounts for 
community policing's popular appeal. This popularity has translated 
into substantial financial and authoritative support for a wide range of 
programs, policies, training, and research, some of which has also 
benefited the problem-oriented policing movement. Community 
policing's emphasis on improving the general relationship of the 
police to the community at large, to minority communities and to 
organized community groups has undoubtedly helped the police be 
more effective in their efforts to address particular community 
problems in a problem-oriented framework. This is no small 
achievement of the community policing movement. 

On the negative side, the most politically popular features of 
community policing have not been the behind-the-scenes analyses of 
community problems, but the more visible programs that put police 
officers in all kinds of unconventional settingson foot and bicycles, 
in classrooms, in community meetings, at youth recreation functions, 
etc.and that have police officers providing unconventional services to 
the public, like entertaining and educating youth. The attraction to 
these aspects of community policing has drawn some financial and 
authoritative support away from the analytical aspects of problem-
oriented policing. The popularity of community policing has helped 
problem-oriented policing gain a degree of attention it might 
otherwise not have so quickly, but has reduced it to the level of a 
simplified analytical process for guiding police activities. The challenge 
for problem-oriented policing advocates will be to maintain support 
for the further development of the concept's less visible, but more 
critical, elements. 

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design 

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), while 
existing as an independent method for analyzing and addressing crime 
problems closely tied to a geographic setting, has supported the 
movement toward problem-oriented policing. Conversely, problem-
oriented policing has reinforced the concept of CPTED. It has 
allowed police officers and others who make design decisions to view 
crime control from an entirely new perspective other than law 
enforcement. Once exposed to the CPTED principles and methods, 
many police officers find themselves more open to understanding 
problem-oriented policing's broader implications. 


Situational Crime Prevention 

Situational crime prevention, a relatively new branch of criminology, is 
perhaps the single most important intellectual development that 
reinforces and informs the problem-oriented policing movement. The 
two concepts developed somewhat independently, and then began to 
influence one another. Situational crime prevention shifts the focus 
away from deterrence and rehabilitation-based efforts to change 
offenders' underlying attitudes and behaviors, and toward more 
situation-specific methods of convincing offenders that committing a 
particular crime in a particular place at a particular time is not 
worthwhile. In one respect, problem-oriented policing is the broader 
concept, not limited to crime problems, but also concerned with the 
full range of social disorder problems the police must address. In 
another respect, situational crime prevention is the broader concept, 
not limited to police actions, but concerned with the actions of any 
entity capable of preventing crime. 

Problem-oriented policing has at times been criticized for lacking a 
criminological theory for its foundation. This criticism presumes that a 
theory for improving police service must first set forth a theory for 
preventing crime. This, however, is a far more ambitious, and perhaps 
unrealistic, goal to which problem-oriented policing never aspired. 
Problem-oriented policing is best understood as a framework for 
organizing the police and their activities so that the police are better 
positioned to learn how to prevent crime and disorder, and to apply 
that knowledge. It has no explicit preference for one criminological 
theory over others. It seeks to leave the police open to understanding 
various criminological theories, and experimenting with practical 
applications of those theories to determine what works best under 
what circumstances. If those theories were ultimately proven wrong, it 
is unlikely that problem-oriented policing advocates would similarly 
conclude that the problem-oriented approach was also wrong. It 
would merely add to the knowledge base from which police 
practitioners could draw to guide their strategic decisions. 

Crime Analysis and Compstat 

Crime analysis, as it has conventionally been practiced, is quite 
different from problem analysis. One of the most prominent and 
popularized crime analysis methods is patterned after the New York 
City Police Department's Compstat method. In essence, Compstat is a 
crime analysis method by which computerized crime statistics are 
analyzed and presented to operational commanders, who are then 
responsible for developing operational tactics to respond to emerging 
crime patterns. The degree to which this basic method is consistent 
with problem-oriented policing depends entirely on the details of how 
it is practiced. 


Problem-oriented policing calls for a broad inquiry into many types of 
community problems demanding police attention, not just reported 
Part I offenses. It also calls for analyzing multiple sources of 
information to develop a fuller understanding of each problem. 
Where a Compstat-style method results in commanders' selecting 
from among a limited and conventional set of responses to address 
problems, such as extra patrol or increased enforcement, it also 
departs radically from a problem-oriented methodology. Problem-
oriented policing calls for a broad and uninhibited search for 
responses to particular problems, placing special emphasis on 
responses that minimize the need for the police to use force and large-
scale arrest campaigns. A Compstat-style method can foster a hostile 
atmosphere, more like an inquisition than an inquiry; in this sense, it 
also differs from problem-oriented policing. Problem-oriented 
policing, while stressing accountability, also places a high priority on 
the free exchange of ideas, an exchange that is difficult to achieve in a 
tension-filled and rigidly hierarchical setting. Finally, problem-oriented 
policing puts a high premium on communication, consultation and 
collaboration with entities outside the police department at all stages 
of the planning process. 

Ideally, a Compstat-style method would be entirely consistent with 
problem-oriented policing. As one way to identify specific problems, a 
computer-generated pattern of crimes would be only the beginning of 
a more in-depth and broader analysis of the nature of the problems, 
their underlying conditions and the limits of current responses. For 
many police agencies, Compstat methods represent a significant 
advancement in the use of crime data to inform operational decisions. 
Problem-oriented policing, however, is a considerably more 
sophisticated and involved approach to handling police business. 

Crime Mapping and Hot-Spot Policing 

Crime mapping, now almost a specialized field in itself, can support 
problem-oriented policing. Crime mapping is enabling police 
practitioners and researchers to think about crime and disorder and 
their relationship to other geographic phenomena in ways that were 
previously unimagined or impractical. Problem-oriented policing 
specifically calls for, among other things, an analysis of police 
incidents in terms of location as a potentially useful way to aggregate 
incidents into clusters. A spatial incident pattern can help stimulate a 
better understanding of the underlying causes of certain community 
problems. Crime mapping alone seldom suffices as problem analysis, 
but it is a potentially useful analytical tool. 


Hot-spot policing, in essence, requires that the police concentrate their 
attention and resources on places where and times when there is a 
significantly high volume of demand for police services. At this basic 
level of understanding, the idea is compatible with problem-oriented 
policing. But crime mapping and hot-spot policing are not 
comprehensive approaches to policing, as is problem-oriented 
policing. Many problems the police must contend with do not lend 
themselves to spatial concentrations, and thus will not show up on any 
hot-spot maps and much of the information the police need to get a 
complete and accurate picture of community problems is not readily 
captured in data that are mapped. To the extent that those who use 
computerized maps to analyze problems become fascinated by the 
technology itself, there is a risk that the reliability of the data 
underlying the maps will be taken for granted. In fact, a lot of police 
data relating to the location of crimes and incidents are ripe for 
misinterpretation. 

Broken Windows and Zero Tolerance 

The "broken windows" theory of crime and disorder asserts that by 
having the police and community address the many minor community 
incivilities and signs of neglect, more serious crimes and disorder will 
be prevented. This idea has spawned as a consequence, intended or 
not, an idea popularly referred to as "zero tolerance." Zero tolerance 
prescribes that the police will restrict or eliminate the use of discretion 
in enforcement, that they will enforce laws as strictly as possible 
within their means. The way in which the broken windows theory and 
the zero tolerance strategy have developed in practice, they have little 
in common with problem-oriented policing. In so many respects, the 
very notion of zero tolerance is antithetical to problem-oriented 
policing. The police, of necessity and largely for good cause, exercise 
enormous discretion in choosing which laws to enforce, when, where, 
and how. Problem-oriented policing builds on that premise, drawing 
into enforcement decisions even greater input from the community, 
prosecutors and other government officials. Optimally, the refined use 
of the police's arrest powers and the exploration of the many 
alternatives to arrest will result in less reliance on criminal sanctions to 
address crime and disorder. Problem-oriented policing does allow that 
brief periods of concentrated law enforcement might be entirely 
appropriate to intervene in and disrupt a pattern of crime or disorder, 
but rejects the wholesale adoption of anything like "zero tolerance law 
enforcement" as a standing remedy for most community problems. 


CHAPTER 4: MAJOR CHALLENGES TO ADVANCING PROBLEM-ORIENTED 
POLICING 

The development of problem-oriented policing in the past 20 years is 
encouraging even though quite limited. Perhaps this is to be expected 
given that the police profession, certainly as compared to most other 
professions, is relatively young and still in an early developmental 
stage. It is still developing systems, standards and methods for 
accumulating and applying research knowledge to practice. Police 
leaders and the government officials they report to must better 
appreciate the value that research adds to their decision-making about 
how to address complex problems of crime, disorder and fear. They 
must overcome the pressures on them that demand immediate action 
to complex problems, and resist adopting simplistic responses to 
them. Problem-oriented policing's full potential will not be achieved in 
a climate of haste and impatience. 

Advancing Problem-Oriented Policing Through Training, Research and 
Practice 

How Will the Principles and Methods of Problem-Oriented Policing be Taught? 

Training in the principles and methods of problem-oriented policing 
for the many different audiences who might benefit from it remains 
sporadic and of varying quality. PERF continues to offer training in 
problem-oriented policing, some of which is now offered under the 
auspices of the Community Policing Consortium. Some of the 
regional community policing institutes that were provided start-up 
funding by the COPS Office provide some training in problem-
solving, but they had considerable latitude to design their own training 
curricula and courses. From a problem-oriented policing perspective, it 
is unfortunate that the institutes' training in problem-oriented policing 
was not mandated and standardized. Much of the balance of national 
training programs in problem-oriented policing is provided by small 
training and consulting firms and a few colleges. The number of 
training experts is remarkably small. Many police agencies and 
professional training organizations have not yet fully adopted 
problem-oriented policing into their organizational missions. Most inhouse 
training in problem-oriented policing, including that offered as 
part of preservice academies, is limited to one or two days of 
instruction. Such limited instruction, offered in discrete blocks of 
time, can familiarize participants with only the basic concepts; it can 
hardly be expected to make them proficient in practicing problem-
oriented policing. 


Ideally, training in problem-oriented policing will move beyond simply 
covering the mechanics of problem-solving to a more advanced 
treatment of the state of knowledge about common community 
problems the police confront. Such training would not be limited to 
teaching enforcement procedures, investigative methods, or laws and 
policies, but would cover the nature and known causes of the 
problem, and proven methods of effective prevention, intervention 
and reduction. 

There is a need for national training programs to provide police 
officials, including chief executives, middle managers and analysts, 
with intensive guidance in applying problem-oriented policing 
methods to difficult substantive community problems. Moreover, little 
has been done to convey the concept to audiences other than police 
practitioners and researchers. Among the target audiences whose 
particular interests have not been adequately addressed are judges, 
prosecutors, elected officials, other government agency leaders, and 
community organization leaders. 

How Will the Police Accumulate and Transfer Knowledge About 
Substantive Community Problems? 

How Substantive Knowledge is Shared in the Police Profession 

Knowledge in policing is passed on more by listening and talking to 
other practitioners than by reading published literature. However 
much this oral tradition strengthens the police's social bonds, it 
inhibits the transfer of reliable, accurate knowledge. Whereas 
researchers are expected to be familiar with the relevant literature on a 
particular subject, there is no similar expectation in policing. Also, 
there remain far too few opportunities for police officials to spend an 
extended period of time outside their own organizations in learning 
environments, a practice deemed essential in many other professions. 
There are several notable exceptions in which a key police official's 
sabbatical resulted in problem-oriented policing being introduced 
upon their return. 

Writing Down Problem-Oriented Practice 

Problem-oriented policing has suffered from a lack of quality writing 
about project work. Without written evidence, the transfer of 
knowledge about problem-oriented police work is limited to the 
storytelling of the particular officers involved. Once they lose interest 
in telling their stories, the knowledge dissipates. The efforts to 
chronicle good problem-oriented practice at the national level have 
been beneficial, but modest. These few efforts represent a much 
smaller investment than Goldstein had in mind, and few of the case 


studies entail rigorous research methods. Practitioners must be 
encouraged to continue using problem-oriented approaches to 
community problems, and to maintain records of their actions. But 
self-reporting, without some independent verification, lacks reliability. 
Researchers, whether in-house or external, must be encouraged to do 
the more formal writing about problem-oriented projects, writing that 
serves two audiences: researchers and practitioners. If the profession 
desires and values good written reports of problem-oriented policing, 
then it must use people with substantial research and writing skills to 
produce them. 


Collecting, Synthesizing and Disseminating Research and Practice on Specific 
Community Problems 

Those publications that have attempted to capture the state of 
research and practice with regard to specific types of community 
problems have not been organized into a centralized reference system. 
Many of the recent conferences intended in part to bridge the gap 
between researchers and police practitioners, and to focus on research 
lessons that would be of interest to practitioners do not present much 
that directly relates to the police response to community crime and 
disorder problems. 

How Can Problem Analysis Be Improved, and a Systematic Body of 
Research on Substantive Community Problems Be Developed? 

There still is no coherent research agenda that would lead to a 
comprehensive and current body of knowledge about specific types of 
community problems and/or common types of responses to them. A 
standard literature search on any particular problem would lead the 
researcher to a host of different professional journals, books and 
technical reports, many of which would provide only a theoretical 
perspective, rather than a practical perspective from which one might 
adopt proven interventions or fashion new ones. The amount of 
potentially useful information is no doubt much greater than most 
police officials realize, but because it has not been systematically 
compiled and annotated for use by practitioners, it remains largely 
unavailable to the police. 

The police are not engaging in much policy-level problem analysis 
themselves. Police research and planning units should shift their focus 
to studying their agency's response to large-scale community 
problems. They should expand beyond conventional methods such as 
identifying spatial patterns of crime through mapping. Police agencies 
without such in-house expertise or resources should collaborate with 
outside researchers. Police researchers must have the skills necessary to 
conduct advanced problem analysis or, at a minimum, be able to make 


intelligent use of what literature exists on substantive problems. 
The sort of police practitioner-researcher collaboration envisioned for 
problem-oriented policing has not occurred more often as a result of 
difficulties on both sides. For their part, some police officials are 
impatient with extensive research, preferring to work on smaller-scale 
problems with rudimentary research than to wait for more 
sophisticated research to shed new light on larger problems. 
Researchers, for their part, sometimes find it difficult to make the 
transition from pure social science research methods to the action 
research called for in problem-oriented policing. Criminology and 
related criminal justice sciences have been slow or reluctant to 
substantively engage in problem-oriented policing. There are few 
academic researchers with practical experience in problem-oriented 
policing, so some police agencies would be hard-pressed to find the 
right kind of research assistance, even if they sought it. For their part, 
the police have viewed criminology as abstract and, accordingly, have 
not sought to incorporate the lessons of criminology into their 
practices. 


The experiences of the past two decades suggest that the best avenue 
for systematically advancing knowledge is one that requires 
contributions from both practitioners and researchers. Whether 
improvements in the research community will generate greater interest 
among the police in using research to address community problems, 
or whether a greater police demand for such research will spur 
researchers to action is not clear. One thing is clear: The quality and 
quantity of the underlying research and the writing about problem-
oriented projects need substantial improvement, even while the 
current, more modest efforts should be recognized and encouraged. 

Defining Roles for Others in Practicing Problem-Oriented Policing 

Are New Alliances Between the Police and the Community Healthy? 

Problem-oriented policing stresses police collaboration with the 
community to address problems. Under certain conditions, however, 
these new collaborations between police and community present 
significant challenges in a constitutional democracy. At times, the 
"majority rules" philosophy of the community and the conservative 
traits of the police combine to support police practices that the courts 
find threatening to the constitutional order. Goldstein imagined that 
the processes used in problem-oriented policing, in which the police 
carefully develop responses based on thorough research, and subject 
those responses to review and input from many perspectives, would 


reduce the possibility that the courts would challenge and strike down 
police actions. The mere application of a problem-solving process to 
community problems, however, does not guarantee that all the 
interests of a constitutional democracy will be protected. 


Are New Alliances Between the Police and Other Government Agencies Healthy? 

The police and other agencies can often accomplish more working 
together than they can working independently, but new alliances 
between the police and other government agencies hold potential for 
overreaching. Each agency, police included, must maintain some 
independence to protect against overzealousness and abuses of 
authority. Partnerships should not be abandoned because of the 
possibility of overreaching, or even because of occasional incidents of 
overreaching, but administrators and oversight bodies should remain 
aware of the risks. 

What Should Be the Role of Prosecutors? 

Historically, prosecutors have related to the police almost exclusively 
in terms of the criminal investigation function. Prosecutors exert a 
powerful influence on police practices, despite the reality that only a 
small percentage of police work culminates in criminal prosecution. 
Prosecutors jealously guard against any diversion of police resources 
away from criminal investigation. There have been some efforts to 
reconsider prosecutors' role in the larger enterprise of promoting 
public safety. A few local prosecutors' offices around the United 
States have experimented in what has come to be known as 
community prosecution. Typically, in community prosecution, 
prosecutors are assigned to geographic areas and are responsible for 
learning more about their area's public safety concerns, and 
prosecuting all or most of the crimes that arise out of that area. If 
community prosecution, however, is limited to prosecuting criminal 
cases along geographic lines, it is not a significant departure from 
conventional practice, and does not necessarily reinforce problem-
oriented policing. If prosecutors actually reconsider their function as 
one of solving community crime, disorder and fear problems, rather 
than just prosecuting individual cases, they reinforce problem-oriented 
policing. 

Without prosecutors, a valuable perspective on crime problems is 
missing from many police-led initiatives. Prosecutors are better-aware 
of how cases are processed through the court system and, accordingly, 
are more aware of the relative effectiveness of existing means for 
disposing of cases. Prosecutors also are more aware of the range of 
legal responses that might be used to address a particular problem, as 
well as some of the risks of alternative approaches. Prosecutors have 


access to court data and to judges, and research skills the police often 
lack. When prosecutors are open-minded and take a broad perspective 
on their role, they can greatly facilitate problem-oriented policing. The 
absence of prosecutors from the problem-solving process conveys a 
powerful signal to the police that problem-solving is not valued as 
highly as criminal investigation. This can discourage the police from 
investing more fully in problem-solving. 


The emerging movement toward community prosecution is a positive 
development toward advancing problem-oriented policing, but it is far 
from complete. This new orientation toward prosecution remains rare 
among prosecutors' offices, and it will require every bit as much effort 
to reorient prosecutors to their work as it is taking to reorient police 
officers to theirs. It will require some changes in how law schools 
train students, especially those aspiring to become government 
lawyers. Currently, conventional legal training offers little that would 
prepare a prosecutor for problem-oriented prosecution. 

What Should Be the Role of Local Government Leaders? 

If prosecutors have had limited involvement in problem-oriented 
policing, local government leaders have probably had even less so. It is 
not enough that local government leaders generally endorse 
community policing. They must invest time and energy in 
understanding problem-oriented policing's full implications. For the 
most part, local government leaders still attribute primary 
responsibility for public safety to the police, fire and ambulance 
services, despite growing evidence that crime, disorder and fear are 
greatly influenced by land-use planning, economic development, 
business regulation, code enforcement, architecture, public housing 
management, and traffic engineering. The responsibility for public 
safety should be more evenly distributed among local government 
agencies. Were this the case, local government leaders would play a 
primary role in coordinating and guiding problem-oriented initiatives 
to reduce crime, disorder and fear. They must invest in research and 
analysis, and information technologyinvestments that, while not 
guaranteed to pay off immediately, are highly likely to pay off in the 
long term. Without leadership to create new expectations that 
departments analyze and collaborate on public safety problems, it is 
not likely to happen. 

Should the Police Be Held More Accountable for Reducing Crime, Disorder, 
and Fear? 

After two decades of experimentation with problem-oriented policing, 
we are not really much closer to answering the question of whether 


the police should be held more accountable for reducing crime, 
disorder and fear, and if so, what approach would best achieve this. 
Goldstein has long argued that problem-oriented policing is an 
approach that recognizes the limits of police authority and the limits 
of police practices alone to bring about significant changes in public 
safety. When the police and the community accept that the police are 
not omnipotent, the police can solicit and receive the active support of 
the community and other government agencies to more effectively 
address the problems of crime, disorder and fear. 


Problem-oriented policing has demonstrated an internal logic, has 
been successfully applied at the project level, and remains a promising 
approach for the foreseeable future. There is growing reason to 
believe that collaborations of police, governments, businesses, and 
communities, committed to carefully analyzing community problems 
and developing tailored responses, can bring about significant changes 
to public safety levels. Beyond that, claims about the police's capacity 
to single-handedly reduce crime, disorder and fear at the community 
or higher level are simply not warranted. The greatest promise of 
problem-oriented policing may be that it is the approach most likely to 
maintain the delicate balance between freedom and order, and 
minimize the likelihood that police actions will undermine their 
legitimacy in society. This is so largely because the problem-oriented 
approach rejects the very excessive reliance on the enforcement of 
criminal law, and the use of force that accompanies it, that so often 
leads to abuse and consequent erosion of public trust in the police. 
Achieving that much, while incrementally and systematically improving 
our understanding about how police and communities can effectively 
reduce crime, disorder and fear, is a considerable improvement from 
past approaches to policing. 

Conclusion: How Will We Know if Problem-Oriented 
Policing Works? 

The ultimate test of problem-oriented policing is whether it proves 
successful in enhancing police service. Asking whether problem-
oriented policing works, and asking whether the problem-oriented 
policing movement has been successful, are separate matters. The first 
question is a search for proof that the problem-solving methodology 
reduces crime and disorder, makes communities safer, and does so 
better than any other approach to policing. The second question is a 
search for proof that problem-oriented policing has become the 
standard approach to policing. 

Whether problem-oriented policing works depends, of course, on 
what one believes to be the objectives of the police. Successful 


policing, in the broadest sense, is policing that achieves its multiple 
objectives. Because these objectives sometimes compete with one 
another, there can be no such thing as maximally effective policing, 
only optimally effective policing, whereby the police have balanced 
their objectives. To paraphrase Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's 
marketing slogan, one can only determine problem-oriented policing's 
success "one problem at a time", at least at the microlevel. That is, one 
should assess police effectiveness with respect to each discrete social 
problem the police are at least partially responsible for addressing. 


Because problems of crime, disorder and fear arise and abate through 
a complex interaction of social norms, laws and technology, there 
really can be no end point to policing. As one class of problems 
abates, new classes of problems arise. Indeed, police work is always 
described in the present participle"policing"and never in the past 
tense. A community is never considered to have been policed. Thus, 
while it is appropriate to judge problem-oriented policing by the 
degree to which it is effective in addressing society's current problems, 
one should also judge it by the degree to which it prepares the police 
to identify and respond to future problems. 

The problem-oriented policing movement can be said to have 
succeeded once police agencies have integrated the problem-solving 
operational strategy of police work into their operations at least as 
completely as they have the other operational strategies of preventive 
patrol, routine incident response, emergency response, and criminal 
investigation. It will have succeeded too once the imbalance between 
policing's "means" and "ends" has been altered to better reflect a 
direct concern on the part of police administrators and researchers 
with the substantive aspects of police business. 

As is probably true in all fields, the development of an important idea, 
or of several important ideas simultaneously, is not neat and clean. 
There is no central policymaking entity, at least not in American 
policing. Scholars and practitioners alike shift through time in their 
understanding and support of the various ideas. The ideas themselves 
are shaped by factors other than pure theory or tested practice: by 
political and popular interest, available funding and the desire to 
achieve distinction. While the uneven and sometimes contradictory 
way these various movements push and pull the police profession 
frustrates those who are committed to one idea or another, in the long 
run, this is for the best. It is best for society as a whole, and best for 
the problem-oriented policing movement. The diversity of ideas and 
the highly decentralized way they are implemented have ultimately led 
to refinement of the best of them. Were it even possible for the 
development of problem-oriented policing to be centralized and made 


more consistent, it would likely weaken the idea. A single wrong turn 
in centralized policymaking results in many wrong turns in police 
practice. There are risks to promoting homogeneity in the 
implementation of problem-oriented policing, whether through the 
requirements of federal funding programs or through other means. 
An idea such as problem-oriented policing, which has yet to be fully 
developed, needs diversity to grow. And so it is that problem-oriented 
policing competes in the messy marketplace of ideas about how to 
improve policing. 


Problem-oriented policing must pass the rigorous tests of academic 
scrutiny and criticism to prevail as a path for improving policing. To 
be tested properly, it must be implemented with at least basic fidelity 
to the fundamental principles laid out by Herman Goldstein. 
Goldstein never intended that problem-oriented policing, at least as he 
articulated it, be understood as a finished or definitive product. 
Indeed, as the police scholar Jean-Paul Brodeur wrote: "[I]t would 
seem as difficult as it is futile to measure with precision the extent to 
which the new strategy has been implemented. Such a measurement 
implies freezing a paradigm that is characterized by its openendedness." 


Problem-oriented policing has come a long way in 20 years, from the 
chalkboards and classrooms of the University of Wisconsin, to the 
squad rooms, community meeting halls and conference rooms where 
modern policing is played out. It has achieved a degree of professional 
interest, and some measure of public and political interest, that must 
be heartening to Herman Goldstein and those who believe in his idea. 
The development of problem-oriented policing, however, is far from 
complete. Ironically, the popularity of the idea puts it at risk of 
burning out, and that would be unfortunate. It is precisely because 
problem-oriented policing is so deeply rooted in what Goldstein calls 
the basic arrangements for policing in a free and open societythe 
most fundamental challenges for establishing domestic tranquility and 
orderthat police, community and government officials can ill afford 
to rest comfortably on the progress made to date. 


Introduction 

What is the Purpose of This Report? 

My aim in writing this report is to describe how Herman Goldstein's 
problem-oriented policing framework, as I understand it, has been 
developed and, at times, distorted in the many efforts to make it a 
standard way of policing. I will not attempt to argue the merits of 
Goldstein's problem-oriented policing concept in this writing other 
than to say that I believe in its merits.1 I try not to declare certain 
practices "right" or "wrong;" I don't have the wisdom for that. 
Moreover, it is nearly impossible to know all that is occurring in the 
name of problem-oriented policing. The field of policing is much too 
large, diverse and decentralized, so my frame of reference will 
necessarily be limited. I have sought to discuss those trends and 
practices that are generally accessible and therefore observable. 

My approach to research for this report was to combine personal 
experience, a review of relevant literature (see References and 
Appendix B) and problem-oriented policing project reports (see 
Appendix A), site visits to selected police departments, attendance at 
conferences, extensive discussions with Herman Goldstein, and 
interviews of others well-versed in problem-oriented policing (see 
Appendix C). 

Problem-oriented policing is still in its relative infancy. It has not 
withstood the long tests of time or sufficient critical evaluation. The 
concept itself could conceivably be proven misdirected or fail to be 
properly implemented. I intend to take stock of the problem-oriented 
policing movement, clarify its original principles, encourage promising 
developments, and, perhaps, correct some distortions. 

The specific objectives of this report are 

1. to clarify the core elements of Goldstein's ideal model of 
problem-oriented policing; 
2. to describe distortions to various core elements in the practice of 
problem-oriented policing; 
3. to place the concepts of "problem-oriented policing" and 
"problem-solving" within the context of total police service; 
4. to describe the strongest aspects and greatest deficiencies of the 
move toward problem-oriented policing; 
5. to assess the overall progress made by police agencies, 
governments and research institutions in advancing problem-
oriented policing; and 
6. to propose directions for the future development of problem-
oriented policing. 


1Goldstein has published extensively on the 
subject. Readers interested in his original 
materials are encouraged to read Goldstein 
(1977, 1979, 1987a, 1987b, 1990a, 1991, 1993c, 
1996a). I have drawn on his published works, 
unpublished speeches, notes, training materials, 
and personal comments to enhance my 
understanding of the problem-oriented policing 
concept. A comprehensive listing of Goldstein's 
writings on problem-oriented policing is 
provided in the references section. 

 

A Brief History of the Spread of Problem-Oriented Policing 

Tracing the development of problem-oriented policing, as with any 
ideological movement, is difficult. It is hard to say who thought of 
what, and when, and precisely when a particular idea was translated 
into action. One often hears in police training sessions on community 
or problem-oriented policing, "Oh, we've been doing community 
policing [or problem-oriented policing] for years; we just didn't call it 
that." Whatever grains of truth there are in such assertions,2 most 
police agencies can trace the formal introduction of a concept like 
problem-oriented policing to a particular time in their history. 

2There is little historical evidence that the 
police have done the kind of analysis of 
community problems and deliberate policy 
formulation envisioned in problem-oriented 
policing, despite some claims to the contrary. 
Wrote one reviewer of Goldstein's Problem-
Oriented Policing, "The use by police 
departments of systematic studies to analyze 
and respond to recurring crime problems is as 
old as the billy club and the paddy wagon" 
(Diulio 1990). 

The first formal experimentation with Goldstein's model of problem-
oriented policing occurred in Madison, Wisc., in 1981 when Goldstein 
and his associates worked with the Madison Police Department 
exploring the community's response to drinking drivers and repeat sex 
offenders (Goldstein 1980, 1990a; Goldstein and Susmilch 1981, 
1982a, 1982b, 1982c). That isn't to say that the Madison Police 
Department was the first to systematically study a community 
problem, but it was the first to formally apply Goldstein's model. 
Around 1982, with support from Gary Hayes, the then-executive 
director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), the London 
Metropolitan Police undertook their own experimentation with the 
concept (Hoare et al. 1984), as did the Surrey, England, Police Force 
(Leigh, Read and Tilley 1996). Again with Hayes' encouragement, the 
Baltimore County Police Department formally introduced Goldstein's 
problem-oriented policing model into its COPE unit's operations in 
1983 (Taft 1986). The Newport News, Va., Police Department 
followed suit in 1984 (Eck and Spelman 1987). The efforts in both 
Baltimore County and Newport News benefited from Goldsteins 
personal involvement and guidance. Both departments initiatives had 
some outside funding, and thus resulted in excellent, detailed written 
reports that more widely communicated the problem-oriented policing 
concept to police practitioners and researchers.3 The published report 
on the Newport News project provided perhaps the most 
comprehensive treatment of problem-oriented policing at that time, 
and remains an important and influential document. 

3The Baltimore County project received funding 
from the Florence V. Burden Foundation to 
prepare a descriptive report and prescriptive 
training materials. The U.S. Department of 
Justice's National Institute of Justice funded 
the Newport News project.

A number of other police agencies began to incorporate at least some 
of the problem-oriented policing methodology into broader 
community policing efforts during the 1980s. Among the more 
prominent efforts cited by Goldstein (1990a) were those in New York 
City (the Community Patrol Officer Program); Edmonton, Alberta 
(downtown foot beats); Flint, Mich.; Los Angeles (the Community 
Mobilization Project in the Wilshire district); Houston (referred to as 
neighborhood-oriented policing); Oxnard, Calif.; Savannah, Ga.; 
Evanston, Ill.; Tulsa, Okla.; Beloit, Wisc.; and Halton, Ontario. 


Through the 1980s, PERF helped a number of agencies to replicate 
various elements of the problem-oriented policing model developed in 
Baltimore County and Newport News. Among those agencies were 
the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater police departments in 
Florida. 

PERF's project to apply problem-oriented methods to drug problems 
in San Diego, Tampa, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Tulsa, funded by the 
Bureau of Justice Assistance from 1987 to 1990, proved significant in 
furthering the problem-oriented policing movement. While some of 
these sites achieved only modest substantive and organizational 
success, the San Diego Police Department used this research project 
as a catalyst to make a substantial investment in problem-oriented 
policing. The first few national conferences on problem-oriented 
policing were conceived and partially funded out of this project. The 
national conferences (the first of which drew about 200 participants in 
1990, and currently are drawing about 1,250 participants) have become 
a major means by which the concept of problem-oriented policing has 
spread, especially among police practitioners. 

The publication in 1990 of Goldstein's Problem-Oriented Policing spurred 
some interest among police agencies, but probably had a greater 
impact on the police research audience.4 Police agencies, which 
acquire knowledge and skills differently than research institutions, 
were offered some modest, but important, training opportunities in 
problem-oriented policing starting in 1989. While on staff at PERF, I 
designed a two-day training seminar in the basic principles and 
methods of problem-oriented policing, and offered it nationwide.5 
PERF continued and expanded the training after I left.6 A number of 
police agencies and police officials today can trace their engagement in 
problem-oriented policing to those training sessions conducted in the 
late 1980s through the early 1990s. Even today, some of the training 
materials developed for those early programs surface in modified form 
in police training. Through about 1994, PERF provided a significant 
amount of the limited problem-oriented policing training available, at 
least in the United States. Since then, much of the training in 
community policing and problem-solving has been offered under the 
auspices of the Community Policing Consortium7 and more recently, 
the Regional Community Policing Institutes.8 Many of the agencies 
that received PERF's training have not significantly incorporated 
problem-oriented policing into their operations, but a few have, and 
have made significant contributions to the concept's development, as a 
result. 

4A number of reviews of Problem-Oriented 
Policing have been published. Among them are 
Bayley (1991), Sherman (1991), Das (1992), 
Vaughn (1992), Mastrofski and Uchida (1993), 
and Diulio (1990). See, also, Brodeur (1998b). 

5Among the sites that received this early 
training were Alexandria, Va.; Aurora, Ill.; Boca 
Raton, Fla.; Gaston County, N.C.; Hillsborough 
County, Fla.; Hurst, Texas; Macon, Ga.; 
Milwaukee; Monroe County, Fla.; New York City 
Transit Police; Reno, Nev.; St. Paul, Minn.; 
Suffolk County, N.Y.; and Wilson, N.C. 

6PERF's training was subsequently coordinated 
in succession by Rana Sampson, Susie Mowry, 
Ron Glensor and John Lusardi. Lusardi and 
Sampson subsequently founded private firms 
that provide training in problem-oriented 
policing. 

7The Community Policing Consortium, 
created in 1993 with funding from the Office of 
Community Oriented Policing Services, is a joint 
enterprise of PERF, the International Association 
of Chiefs of Police, the Police Foundation, the 
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement 
Executives, and the National Sheriff's 
Association. 

8Approximately 30 Regional Community 
Policing Institutes were established in 1997 
through funding by the Office of Community 
Oriented Policing Services to provide training in 
community policing and problem-solving.

Police agencies often resist long-term change, but remarkably, respond 
to many short-term programmatic innovations. The short history of 
problem-oriented policing bears this out. At most of the agencies 
 


mentioned above, one strong person encouraged the idea of, and 
certainly advocated, experimenting with problem-oriented policing. 
Many of the problem-oriented initiatives generally associated with a 
particular agency prove, upon closer inspection, to be attributable to 
one or a few individuals. Usually these are high-ranking personnel, 
although sometimes the lone champion9 of problem-oriented policing 
is at the line or supervisory level. When the high-ranking champions leave the agencies, as they inevitably do, the push to engage in problem-oriented policing typically wanes, as well. Many of the police agencies listed in Table 1 experienced the departure of at least one principal champion of problem-oriented policing. These people are generally recognized as having been the driving force behind their agencies' efforts to adopt a problem-oriented policing approach, 
however long- or short-lived. 

9By champion, I refer to someone who makes  deliberate study of problem-oriented policing by reading the literature, attending conferences,  doing or supervising problem-oriented work, maintaining contacts with others outside the organization about the concept, importing new problem-oriented ideas into the organization, and keeping the concept alive in the organization's consciousness. 

Table 1
Police Agencies, and the Problem-Oriented Policing Champions Who Work or Have Worked There


-Police Agency 
-Problem-Oriented Policing Champion 

-Baltimore County Police Department 
-Chief Neal Behan (retired), Maj. Philip Huber (left) 

-Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., Police Department 
-Chief Dennis Nowicki (retired); Chief Darrel Stephens 

-Chicago Police Department 
-Deputy Chief Charles Ramsey (left), Director Barbara McDonald 

-Edmonton Police Service 
-Superintendent Chris Braiden (retired) 

-Fort Pierce, Fla., Police Department 
-Chief Gil Kerlikowske (left), Director of Administration Michael Scott (left) 

-Joliet, Ill., Police Department 
-Chief Dennis Nowicki (left), Capt. William Fitzgerald 

-Lauderhill, Fla., Police Department 
-Chief Michael Scott (left); Deputy Chief Michele Reilly (left) 

-London Metropolitan Police 
-Police Commissioner Sir Kenneth Newman (retired) 

-Madison Police Department 
-Chief David Couper (retired), Lt. Randall Gaber, Sgt. Joe Balles 

-Merseyside, England, Police Constabulary 
-Chief Inspector Brian Gresty (retired) 

-Newport News Police Department 
-Chief Darrel Stephens (left) 

-Peel, Canada, Regional Police 
-Chief Robert Lunney (retired) 

-Philadelphia Police Department 
-Inspector Ed McLaughlin (left) 

-Reno Police Department 
-Chief Robert Bradshaw (left), Deputy Chief Ron Glensor 

-San Diego Police Department 
-Chief Jerry Sanders (retired), Nancy McPherson (left) 

-Seattle Police Department 
-Chief Norm Stamper (retired), Nancy McPherson (left) 



-Police Agency 
-Problem-Oriented Policing Champion 

-St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department 
-Police Board President David Robbins (left), Chief Clarence Harmon (retired), 
Special Assistant to the Chief of Police Michael Scott (left), Sgt. Robert Heimberger 

-St. Petersburg Police Department 
-Chief Darrel Stephens (left to become city administrator, now chief in 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department) 

-Thames Valley, England, Police Constabulary 
-Chief Constable Charles Pollard, Chief Inspector Caroline Nicholl (left) 

-Tulsa Police Department 
-Chief Drew Diamond (left), Maj. Carolyn Kusler (left) 

In 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice created the Office of 
Community-Oriented Policing Services, known more informally as the 
COPS Office. The Justice Department created this agency primarily to 
oversee the federal funding of 100,000 new U.S. police officer 
positions. The COPS Office linked the position funding to the broad 
concept of community policing, of which problem-solving was a key 
element.10 Thus, Goldstein's problem-oriented policing model was 
linked to an enormous federal funding scheme. The COPS Office was 
required by law to advance community policing generally, but outside 
of a few of its competitive funding programs, most of its large 
funding programs did not require that recipient police agencies engage 
more specifically in problem-oriented methods. The largest COPS 
Office program to directly fund problem-solving projects, as opposed 
to just funding community police officer positions, is the Problem-
Solving Partnerships (PSP) Program. Four hundred seventy police 
agencies received funding to help them identify, analyze, address, and 
evaluate a specific substantive community crime or disorder problem.11 
Similarly, the School-Based Partnership Grant Program funds 
problem-solving methods in schools.12 While the link between problem-
solving and community policing in this large federal funding program 
has yielded many benefits, the linkage has also blurred the distinction 
between problem-oriented policing and community policing. 

10A national process evaluation of the COPS 
Office reported that while community policing 
takes many forms among the grant recipient 
agencies, some form of problem-solving is 
occurring in most agencies (Roth and Ryan 
2000). 

11The Police Executive Research Forum (2000) 
evaluated the PSP Program, and Michigan State 
University Professor Tim Bynum is evaluating 
problem analyses conducted by 16 selected 
grantees. Twice during my research, I reviewed 
reports PSP grantees submitted to the COPS 
Office. I found that most of the reports provided 
too little information for a person unfamiliar 
with the particular problem to form a good 
understanding of it. (I do not know to what 
degree the quality of the reports reflected the 
quality of the actual work done on the problem.) 
By my own estimate, one generally confirmed by 
the other COPS Office staff members reviewing 
the reports, only 15 to 20 percent of the PSP 
reports were of good quality. 

12The School-Based Partnership Program is also 
funded for a program evaluation to assess the 
impact problem-solving methods and responses 
had on identified problems. 

As of 2000, many police agencies in the United States and Canada,13 
and a growing number in the United Kingdom,14 Australia, New 
Zealand, the Netherlands,15 South Africa, and Scandinavia, report that 
they are engaged in problem-oriented policing in some fashion. A few 
agencies have expressly made problem-oriented policing the focal 
point of their long-range strategic plans.16 A review of police agency 
websites, increasingly becoming a standard method of communication, 
finds dozens of agencies specifically citing the adoption of problem-
oriented policing methods in their operations. There is no easy way to 
quantify the number of police agencies engaged in problem-oriented 



 

policing, much less to gauge the precise nature and quality of those 
efforts. However, it is safe to say that far more agencies claim to be 
engaged in problem-oriented policing today than at any other time. 


13See Leighton (1994) for a description of the 
development of community and problem-
oriented policing in Canada. See, also, Saville 
and Rossmo (1995) for a description of early 
problem-oriented policing efforts in British 
Columbia. 

14See Leigh, Read and Tilley (1996, 1998) and 
Read and Tilley (2000) for descriptions of the 
spread of problem-oriented policing in the 
United Kingdom. They conclude that "problemoriented 
policing is being widely considered in 
British police services. It appears to be an idea 
whose time has come" (1998:54). See, also, 
Bennett (1994), and Tilley (1999). Herman 
Goldstein has helped advance the problem-
oriented policing concept in the United Kingdom 
through various consultations and speeches 
(Goldstein 1995a, 1996a). 

15See Willemse (1994) for a description of the 
development of crime prevention principles in 
the Netherlands. 

16The Colorado Springs, Colo., Police 
Department described its commitment to 
problem-oriented policing in a document titled 
Total Problem-Oriented Policing. The Lauderhill, 
Fla., Police Department, where the author 
served as the first police chief, made problem-
oriented policing the organizing concept during 
the creation of the new agency. 

Problem-oriented policing continues to advance across the police field, 
even while the adoption of problem-oriented policing into particular 
police agencies seldom happens in a linear fashion. Interest in the 
concept and commitment to its implementation rises and falls in 
response to many internal and external factors. Changes in leadership, 
competing priorities or simply inertia can alter the course of 
implementation. Accordingly, one might reach different conclusions 
about the vitality of problem-oriented policing depending on whether 
one was looking only at selected police agencies or at the police field 
as a whole. 

At the risk of overlooking some exemplary efforts (and perhaps giving 
more credit than is due elsewhere), below is a list of the police 
agencies that, at one time or another, have been prominently 
associated with problem-oriented policing. Their prominence may 
have resulted from a particular person in the agency, involvement in a 
research effort, or publication of the agency's efforts in the 
professional literature. Inclusion on this list is not a testament to the 
depth or quality of the agency's commitment to problem-oriented 
policing. 

Table 2 
Police Agencies Prominently Associated With Problem-Oriented Policing17 

1. Edmonton Police Service18 		Alberta 
2. Phoenix Police Department 		Arizona 
3. Tempe Police Department 		Arizona 
4. Fresno Police Department19 		California 
5. Hayward Police Department 		California 
6. Huntington Beach Police Department 	California 
7. Los Angeles Police Department20 	California 
8. Oxnard Police Department 		California 
9. Sacramento Police Department 	California 
10. San Diego Police Department21 	California 
11. Santa Ana Police Department22 	California 
12. Santa Barbara Police Department23 	California 
13. Arvada Police Department 		Colorado 
14. Aurora Police Department24 		Colorado 
15. Colorado Springs Police Department25 Colorado 
16. Longmont Police Department 		Colorado 
17. Cleveland Police26 			England 
18. Lancashire Police27 		England 

17Sources for this list include the files and 
personal knowledge of the author and Herman 
Goldstein; Community Policing and Problem-
Solving: Strategies and Practices, by Kenneth J. 
Peak and Ronald W. Glensor (1996); and various 
other publications, some of which are footnoted. 

18See Hawkins (1998), Koller (1990), Hornick et al. (1990), and Weisel and Eck (1994). 

19See West (1995). 

20See Goldstein (1990a) and Greene (1998a). 

21See Police Executive Research Forum (1989), Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993a), and 
Capowich and Roehl (1994). 

22See Jesilow et al. (1998). 

23See Barrett (1996), and Weisel and Eck (1994). 

24See Williams and Sloan (1990). 

25See Kramer and McElderry (n.d.). 

26See Leigh, Read and Tilley (1998). 

27See Kirby (1997).


19. Leicestershire Police Force28 		England 
20. London Metropolitan Police29 		England 
21. Merseyside Police Force30 			England 
22. Surrey Police Force 			England 
23. Thames Valley Police Force 			England 
24. Clearwater Police Department 		Florida 
25. Delray Beach Police Department 		Florida 
26. Fort Pierce Police Department 		Florida 
27. Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office	Florida 
28. Lauderhill Police Department 		Florida 
29. St. Petersburg Police Department 		Florida 
30. Tampa Police Department31 			Florida 
31. Atlanta Police Department32 		Georgia 
32. Savannah Police Department33 		Georgia 
33. Aurora Police Department 			Illinois 
34. Chicago Police Department34 		Illinois 
35. Evanston Police Department 			Illinois 
36. Joliet Police Department 			Illinois 
37. Wichita Police Department 			Kansas 
38. Baltimore County Police Department35 	Maryland 
39. Ann Arbor Police Department 		Michigan 
40. Flint Police Department36 			Michigan 
41. Kansas City Police Department 		Missouri 
42. St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department 	Missouri 
43. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department 	North Carolina 
44. Lincoln Police Department 			Nebraska 
45. Reno Police Department 			Nevada 
46. New York City Police Department37 		New York 
47. Suffolk County Police Department 		New York 
48. Tulsa Police Department38 			Oklahoma 
49. Halton Regional Police 			Ontario 
50. Peel Regional Police 			Ontario 
51. Portland Police Department 			Oregon 
52. Abington Township Police Department 	Pennsylvania 
53. Philadelphia Police Department39 		Pennsylvania 
54. Stockholm Police 				Sweden 
55. Austin Police Department 			Texas 
56. Houston Police Department40 		Texas 
57. Newport News Police Department41 		Virginia 
58. Seattle Police Department 			Washington 
59. Spokane Police Department 			Washington 
60. Beloit Police Department 			Wisconsin 
61. La Crosse Police Department 		Wisconsin 
62. Madison Police Department42 		Wisconsin 

28See Leigh, Read and Tilley (1996, 1998). 

29See Hoare, Stewart and Purcell (1984), and Goldstein (1990a). 

30See Gresty et al. (1997), and Berry (1999). 

31See Police Executive Research Forum (1989) and Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993a). 

32See Police Executive Research Forum (1989) and Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993a). 

33See Young (1998), and Weisel and Eck (1994). 

34See Skogan (1998), Skogan, et al. (1999) and Hartnett and Skogan (1999). 

35See Taft (1986), Higdon and Huber (1987), and Goldstein (1990a). 

36See Goldstein (1990a). 

37See Goldstein (1990a), and McElroy, Cosgrove and Sadd (1993). 

38See Police Executive Research Forum (1989) and Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993a). 

39See Police Executive Research Forum (1989), Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993a), Weisel 
and Eck (1994) and Berry (1996). 

40See Goldstein (1990a). 

41See Eck and Spelman (1987), Weisel and Eck (1994), Babcock (1996) and Goldstein (1990a). 

42See Goldstein (1990a), Couper and Lobitz (1991) and Wycoff and Skogan (1993). 



A number of the agencies listed have, for all appearances, abandoned 
their efforts to implement problem-oriented policing and are no 
longer strongly associated with the concept. In a few cases, this 
abandonment reflected a conscious policy decision. More commonly, 
the momentum for problem-oriented policing subsided due to lost 
interest, competing priorities or inertia. A number of other agencies 
not listed here have only recently sought to implement problem-
oriented policing, and their efforts have not yet been widely 
recognized. As so many police officers, researchers and observers have 
noticed, when one goes to visit agencies renowned for their problem-
oriented policing efforts, these visits often prove disappointing. 
Frequently, what once was there is no longer, or what is there proves 
less substantial than what one expected from distant reports. 

However slow, modest and uneven the movement in problem-oriented 
policing has been, it is now a central part of at least the language of 
modern police management. If language can influence culture, as 
surely it can, problem-oriented policing is making inroads to the 
professional culture of police management and operations. The term 
problem-oriented policing itself now has an acronymPOP. The 
"International Conference on Problem-Oriented Policing" is more 
commonly referred to as the "POP Conference." Police personnel 
commonly refer to substantive problem-solving initiatives as "POP 
projects." And to capture those "POP projects," PERF has created a 
computerized compilation of them named "POPNet" and a private 
consulting firm is marketing a computer software program called 
"POP Track."43 The movement has its own T-shirts and coffee mugs. 
The concept has even appeared in police mystery fiction,44 as well as 
in British television police dramas.45 So, too, with the term problem-
solving. Rare in police management circles 20 years ago, it is now 
standard in the police lexicon. Some have called problem-oriented 
policing problem-solving policing (Moore 1998). 

43POP Track is a software program designed to 
allow police agencies to track problem-oriented 
policing projects and resources. It was 
developed and is marketed by Law Enforcement 
Assistance Network, a private police consulting 
firm headed by several police officials with 
experience in implementing problem-oriented 
policing and community policing. 

44See Par Four, by Elizabeth Gunn (1998). 

45An episode of the BBC program "Cops" 
apparently had a fictional police chief inspector 
invoking problem-oriented policing in an address 
to a community group. A critic, writing for the 
Manchester Guardian, apparently did not 
recognize problem-oriented policing, declaring it 
an imaginary term. 

Along with this rise in the popularity of terms associated with 
problem-oriented policing has come a certain amount of distortion of 
its original meaning. A lot of what is presented as a "POP project" 
incorporates no careful study of an underlying problem, but reflects 
merely a programmatic effort that may or may not affect a particular 
community crime or disorder problem. Problem-oriented policing is 
sometimes described as an operational strategy itself, as in "we applied 
problem-oriented policing tactics to the problem." In fact, there are 
no distinctly problem-oriented tactics.46 Problem-solving, specifically 
referring to an analytical process in the context of problem-oriented 
policing, is also used frequently to refer to methods for addressing 
administrative or personnel matters, or, more generally, to any mental 
process involving some degree of reflection before action. 
Accordingly, one should not assume that any use of the terms problems, 


problem-solving or problem-oriented in the policing context is directly 
connected to Goldstein's original conception of problem-oriented 
policing. 

46See, for example, Klein (1998), and O'Connor, 
Shelley and Grant (1998), who discuss problem-
oriented policing's impact on, respectively, 
gangs and domestic violence. 

Some elements of Goldstein's ideal model of problem-oriented 
policing have been grafted onto other conceptualizations of police 
work and police reform. First-generation programs, projects and 
experiments in community policing, dating back to the late 1960s, did 
not explicitly incorporate a structured analytical methodology into the 
new forms of police work. Only in around the mid-1980s did 
community policing advocates begin to incorporate some elements of 
problem-oriented policing into that framework. Problem-oriented 
policing and community policing were both explored during the 
Executive Sessions on Community Policing held at Harvard's Kennedy 
School of Government that began in 1985. During this time, and 
partly as a result of the discussions in these sessions, problem-
oriented policing began to be incorporated into the concept of 
community policing, an integration that has never been complete, or 
completely warranted.47 

Failing to acknowledge all aspects of the problem-oriented model 
beyond beat-level problem-solving, some community policing 
advocates repackaged problem-oriented policing as a tactic, tool or 
method one might use within a community policing philosophy. This 
repackaging failed to recognize some critical differences between 
community and problem-oriented policing, namely, that they have 
different primary goals and, consequently, some different methods. 
Moreover, it reduced Goldstein's involved, intensive and rigorous 
communitywide problem analysis to more informal street-, beat- or 
neighborhood-level problem-solving. Other advocates of police 
reform introduced yet additional labels, like "neighborhood policing," 
that are not theoretically distinguishable from community policing.48 

47Goldstein himself at one time linked problem-oriented policing to community policing 
by characterizing the various reform concepts as falling under the larger umbrella 
of community policing (1987a; see, also, Brodeur 1998b), a link he has since come 
to reconsider and regret (1995b). 

48For a more in-depth discussion of the various perspectives on community policing, 
see Police Executive Research Forum (1996:2-8). 

All these efforts toward concept clarification produced a variety of 
labels and a lot of confusion among police practitioners, much of 
which lingers today. To some degree, all the debate and efforts to 
synthesize and harmonize the different concepts reflected an 
intellectual battle for the high ground in police reform, with advocates' 
claiming each concept to be the overarching framework under which 
all others would be subsumed. Goldstein, at the University of 
Wisconsin, and PERF, in the 1980s, represented one school of 
thoughtthe problem-oriented policing school. Robert Trojanowicz 
and his colleagues at Michigan State University represented the 
community policing school of thought. Mark Moore and George 
Kelling, at Harvard University, sought to synthesize community 
policing and problem-oriented policing, drawing heavily on theories 
about organizational strategy. Kelling's own brand of police reform, 

 

now popularized as the "broken windows theory," would later come to 
be seen as another school of thought. Lee Brown, then-police chief in 
Houston, represented the neighborhood policing school of thought. 
David Couper, then-police chief in Madison, was a prominent 
proponent of yet another school of thoughtthe total quality 
management school. Lawrence Sherman (1998) proposed "evidencebased 
policing" as an alternate construct for improving police 
service.49 The distinctions between and among problem-oriented 
policing and other police reform movements, including community 
policing, are discussed at greater length in chapter 3. 

49Sherman attempts to draw a distinction 
between evidence-based and problem-oriented 
policing based on the scientific measurement 
standards he asserts are central to evidence-
based policing and largely ignored by problem-
oriented policing. The distinction is more one of 
degree than of kind. See chapter 1, the sections 
titled "What Standards of Proof Should Apply in 
Analyzing Problems" and "How Should the 
Effectiveness of Implemented Responses Be 
Evaluated?" for further discussion of standards 
of proof in problem-oriented policing.

It would itself be a great oversimplification and distortion to suggest 
that these schools of thought and their respective adherents were in 
diametrical disagreement with one another. In fact, they agreed a lot, 
at least about the need for improvement in policing and for improved 
relations between the police and the public. One can more accurately 
understand these schools of thought as different ways of 
conceptualizing some common themes. The respective schools of 
thought had different themes as their organizing principle and gave 
differing priorities to the aspects of reform they held in common. All 
of their views, now considered mainstream, represented the radical or 
reform view of policing only 20 years ago. 


Chapter 1 

Revisiting the Basic Elements of Problem-Oriented Policing 

In this chapter, I will revisit the core elements of Goldstein's 
problem-oriented approach to policing. In doing so, I will present 
some of my own insights into each element's meaning, and 
comment on observable trends in each element's application in the 
current practice of problem-oriented policing. 

What Is the Distinction Between Problem-Oriented 
Policing and Problem Solving? 

The terms problem-oriented policing and problem-solving are often used 
interchangeably in the literature that has built up around Goldstein's 
concept. This masks an important distinction between the two. In its 
broadest sense, the term problem-oriented policing, as used by Goldstein, 
describes a comprehensive framework for improving the police's 
capacity to perform their mission. Problem-oriented policing impacts 
virtually everything the police do, operationally as well as managerially. 
The term problem-solving, which came into more prominent use by 
other scholars in the mid-1980s, more specifically describes the mental 
process that is at the core of problem-oriented policing. Problem-
solving models such as SARA50 were created to express this mental 
process. Thus, "problem-solving" is a more limited notion than 
"problem-oriented policing." Goldstein himself has been especially 
careful to avoid using the term problem-solving too freely, precisely 
because, as he argues, many, if not most, of the problems the police 
confront are too complex for anything approaching a final solution. 
Reducing harm, alleviating suffering and/or providing some measure 
of relief from problems are ambitious enough aims for the police. 

Other scholars, such as Ron Clarke, have also distinguished between 
problem-oriented policing and problem-solving, but have done so by 
drawing distinctions based on the scope of the initiative. In Clarke's 
view, the more routine activities of beat-level police officers to address 
recurring problems involving a single location or person constitute 
"problem-solving."51 Clarke contrasts this with more ambitious 
initiatives by police agencies to carefully study entire classes of 
problems and to make more systemic improvements in the response 
to those problems (1997). The precise distinction between problem-
oriented policing and problem-solving is less important than the fact 
that problem-oriented policing is considerably more ambitious and far-
reaching than routine and generic forms of problem-solving. 

50SARA is an acronym for scanning, analysis, 
response, and assessment, developed as a 
problem-solving model by Police Executive 
Research Forum researchers during the Newport 
News problem-oriented policing project. 
Variations include CAPRA - an acronym for 
clients, acquire/analyze information, 
partnerships, response, and assessment of 
action taken - developed by the Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police and PROCTOR - an acronym for 
problem, cause, tactic (or treatment), output, 
and result - described in a report on problem-
solving in the U.K. by Read and Tilley (2000). 

51Other scholars mistakenly view this informal, 
beat-level problem-solving as the sum and 
substance of problem-oriented policing. One 
textbook puts it this way: "In other words, 
problem-oriented policing is simply an attempt 
to formally articulate the principles and 
processes that veteran police officers have long 
recognized as the essence of high-quality 
policing" (Fyfe et al. 1997:393). 



Widespread use of the term problem-solving has created another kind of 
confusion. Many people not familiar with the problem-oriented 
policing literature understand the entire notion of police problem-
solving differently than do those familiar with problem-oriented 
policing. Two examples typify the confusion. In the first, I was a guest 
on a Canadian radio talk show, the subject of which was problem-
oriented policing. The host pressed me to explain to his audience why 
the police should seek to solve the personal problems of criminals 
rather than arrest criminals. In the second, during a recent meeting of 
community policing experts and domestic violence prevention experts, 
the domestic violence experts questioned why the police would seek 
to problem-solve domestic disputes rather than arrest batterers 
(Ohlhausen Research Inc. 1999). Both inquiries reveal how some 
people, recently exposed to the concept and terminology of problem-
oriented policing, understand problem-solving to be a form of 
mediation in which police give at least as much attention to offenders' 
personal interests as they do to victims'. It is little wonder that 
someone with this understanding of problem-solving would find it 
unappealing. 

What Does Problem Mean in Problem-Oriented Policing? 

The dictionary defines problem as any question or matter involving 
doubt, uncertainty or difficulty, or a question to be considered, 
solved or answered. Given this broad definition of the term, it is easy 
to see how its use in the context of problem-oriented policing can get 
distorted. The current literature on policing finds the term problem 
popping up everywhere. It describes difficult employees, administrative 
concerns, complicated crimes or incidentsin short, any matter 
involving difficulty. There are references to problem-solving courts52 
and problem-solving in correctional facilities. Teaching young children 
and students methods of resolving conflicts is often referred to as 
problem-solving.53 This is not to suggest that the phrase is always being 
used inappropriately, only that Goldstein's use of the term in the 
context of problem-oriented policing is highly specific. He used the 
term to convey the notion that one can classify, package and 
understand police work in a new way, as an aggregation of incidents 
that share certain common features. 

52Some of the labels associated with problem-
solving in courts are therapeutic jurisprudence, 
restorative justice and community justice 
(Rottman and Casey 1999). 

53Some references of this type make no claims 
to being related to problem-oriented policing 
(e.g., an Office of Juvenile Justice and 
Delinquency Prevention article, "Preventing 
Violence the Problem-Solving Way," refers to 
developing interpersonal cognitive problem-
solving skills in children). Others explicitly seek 
to connect this sort of problem-solving to the 
concept of problem-oriented policing [e.g., in 
"Reducing Fear in the Schools: Managing 
Conflict With Student Problem-Solving" (Kenney 
and Watson 1998), published in Problem-
Oriented Policing: Crime-Specific Problems, 
Critical Issues and Making POP Work (O'Connor, 
Shelley and Grant 1998), the authors described 
a program in which police officers taught 
problem-solving skills to high school students]. 

The policing language when Goldstein first proposed his problem-
oriented approach lacked any other term to capture what he was trying 
to describe. Police work was understood primarily in terms of crimes, 
incidents, events, and calls for service, and occasionally, as a series of 
various classes of these things. Because, as Goldstein observed, police 
agencies were designed primarily to respond to isolated events, they 


lacked the terminology to communicate about aggregated events. 
Goldstein might have chosen other nouns to convey his notion of a 
problem, such as "cluster," "aggregate" or "class," or adjectives like 
"chronic," "recurrent" or "habitual." Such terms might have better 
captured the essence of his idea, that much of what the police do is 
connected, not isolatedconnected to past events, to similar events, to 
seemingly unrelated social phenomenaand that these events will 
continue to occur without more profound interventions. 


Goldstein wrestled with the question of giving his concept a label at 
all, for a variety of reasons, one of which was the risk of 
oversimplification and distortion of the basic meaning of the concept. 
Some of his concerns have proven well-founded. Many uses of the 
term problem in policing today seem to be artificial attempts to 
graft the concern onto the framework of problem-oriented policing, 
or merely to capitalize on the growing popularity of the terminology.54 
One gets the sense that nearly everything published in recent years 
remotely related to policing invokes the terminology of problem-
solving, no matter how loosely connected it is to Goldstein's concept 
of problem-oriented policing. Some people have proposed the use of 
the term solution-oriented policing instead of problem-oriented policing, 
presumably to put a more positive spin on the concept. Whatever 
purpose this might serve in terms of marketing the concept, it draws 
attention away from the most central feature of Goldstein's concept, 
the idea of aggregated incidents that constitute part of police 
business. The term problem-oriented policing has survived in the literature 
for over 20 years now, long enough for a reasonably common 
understanding of it to have emerged, and so there is little to be gained 
at this stage by altering the terminology. The precise understanding of 
the term problem, however, remains much in need of 
reinforcement. 

54A recent compilation of articles drawn from 
the various periodicals published by the 
Community Policing Consortium was titled 
Problem-Solving. The collection does include a 
section on specific police projects addressing 
community problems, but it also contains 
articles on such matters as jail management, 
grant writing and court security. 

In some training courses in problem-oriented policing, and in the 
corresponding materials developed over the past decade, a precise 
definition of the term problem has been put forth. With slight 
variations, this definition has been something like the following: A 
problem is two or more incidents, similar in nature, that [are] of concern to the 
police and to the public.55 In a general sense, this definition is consistent 
with Goldstein's model. It is misleading, however, in that it suggests a 
mathematical precision to defining problems, never intended by 
Goldstein. There is nothing magical about the number two.56 Even a 
single incident might prompt a broader investigation into an 
underlying problem if the incident is of sufficient consequence to the 
community and there is a high likelihood of future similar incidents.57 
Nor does the mere occurrence of multiple similar incidents 
automatically constitute a problem. The number of incidents must be 




both substantial and significant to warrant defining the pattern as a 
problem; that is, the number of incidents should exceed some norm 
or expected occurrence rate. The common feature among the 
incidents, moreover, must bear some significance. Exploring the 
pattern of burglaries committed by males, for example, is not likely to 
be productive, given that there is nothing remarkable about burglars 
being male. 

55The training curriculum in community 
problem-solving distributed by the Community 
Policing Consortium uses this definition. 

56The notion of "two or more incidents" in the 
definition of a problem may derive from a 
misreading of the definition of a problem 
proposed by Eck and Spelman in Problem-
Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport 
News. There, a problem is defined as "a group 
of incidents occurring in a community, that are 
similar in one or more ways [emphasis added], 
and that are of concern to the police and the 
public" (p. 42). 

57In some police agencies where managers 
pressure officers to solve lots of problems, 
officers sometimes classify merely interesting or 
complex incidents as problems. To be sure, the 
quality of the police service delivered matters 
more than how it is classified or labeled, but 
defining every clever, creative or preventive 
response to an incident drains from the intended 
meaning of "problem." 

There has been a tendency to 
simplify and reduce the 
problem-solving concept, and to 
focus on particular innovations 
rather than the systems and 
managerial behaviors that 
produced them. This tendency is 
by no means unique to the 
police. 

 Malcolm Sparrow 

How Should Problems Be Defined and Described? 

How one defines a problem greatly influences how one will address it. 
One can define or describe problems in a variety of ways. One can 
describe them in terms of what the offensive behavior is (e.g., playing 
loud music), who the people involved are (e.g., vehicle owners playing 
loud music from high-powered car stereos), when the problem occurs 
(e.g., late at night), or where the problem occurs (e.g., in a park in a 
residential area). These various descriptors obviously are not mutually 
exclusive. The descriptor is merely a shorthand way of describing the 
entire problem. 

However one describes a problem in shorthand, one must address the 
offensive behavior. This is important for several reasons. Without a 
clear focus on specific forms of offensive behavior, the police run the 
risk of adopting broad, ineffective responses. While it is sometimes 
convenient to describe problems in terms of a class of people or even 
one individual, it is dangerous morally, ethically and legally for the 
police to treat a person or people as the problem itself. A common 
example is the police response to a variety of problems surrounding 
transients (also referred to as "street people" or "the homeless"). The 
police often speak in shorthand about the "transient problem," 
because the underlying behavioral problems are common, yet too 
numerous to articulate briefly. If this shorthand, however, leads the 
police to view the mere presence of transients as the problem and, 
consequently, to address the problem by removing the transients, they 
risk committing serious violations to the transients' rights and to their 
own professional obligations. The shorthand description, "transients 
in a public park," is made more explicit by labeling it "transients 
sleeping and panhandling in a public park." This simple change draws 
one's attention to the behavior and not merely the status of the 
persons involved. 

Shorthand labels can also mask important distinctions between 
legitimate and illegitimate behavior. Describing problems as the "drug 
problem" or even the "narcotics problem" is so broad as to be nearly 
useless. Any shorthand label for a problem should be followed by a 
more complete and exacting description of the specific offensive 
behavior. I have sometimes reminded myself and others of this rule 


of problem-oriented policing in grammatical terms, by saying, "If you 
don't have a verb, you don't have a problem." Forcing oneself to 
include a verb in the description of the problem helps maintain the 
appropriate focus on problematic behavior. 


Many problem-oriented policing initiatives are defined too broadly 
(Clarke 1998). Characterizing problems with broad labels like "drugs," 
"violence," "disorder," "neighborhood decline," or "juveniles," without 
specifying the behavior at issue, often results in a simplistic analysis of 
the problem and, consequently, to hopelessly inadequate responses. 
Overly broad definitions of problems also create the risk that the 
police will be drawn into trying to address aspects of a large problem 
that are well beyond their capacity or mandate. For example, the police 
are unlikely to have the organizational expertise or capacity to 
stimulate economic redevelopment of a neighborhood in decline, 
though they can make substantial contributions in a larger partnership 
effort. There is evidence that when social issues are defined too 
broadly, the psychological capacity of those attempting to address the 
issues is diminished (Weick 1984). When problem-solvers consciously 
seek to redefine or reclassify the problem on the basis of preliminary 
analysis, this process often leads to conceptually clearer and more 
manageable initiatives. Asking whether the problem looks any 
different upon closer analysis remains a vital step in the problem-
solving process, but it is too often overlooked. 

What Should the Police Be Concerned About in Problem-
Oriented Policing? 

The principle of problem-oriented policing that asserts that its focus 
should be on community problems has led to some confusion in 
practice. This principle actually incorporates several distinct ideas. The 
first is that the police should primarily be focused on community 
problems, as distinct from organizational, administrative and 
managerial problems of police and other agencies. The second is that 
the problem-solving inquiry should seek the best response to the 
substantive problem at hand, and not merely seek to perfect existing 
systems and processes for addressing that problem. The third is that 
the community problems the police should focus on are those that fall 
within their mandate. I will discuss each idea in turn. 

Problem-oriented policing is a 
larger concept than mere 
problem-solving. It has 
tremendous ramifications for 
the structure of police 
organizations. 

 Rana Sampson 

Focusing on Community Concerns vs. Internal Concerns 

Goldstein's starting point for articulating the problem-oriented 
approach was that police managers should focus on how their 
agencies address community problems and not merely on how their 
agencies are administered and organized. 





Getting police to refocus on community concerns is in itself a 
significant challenge. When one asks police practitioners to list 
problems confronting their agencies, without specifying whether those 
problems should be substantive community problems or internal 
problems, they prioritize the internal problems. Those problems are 
the most immediately apparent to the practitioners, and affect them in 
a most personal way. They affect their physical safety, career 
opportunities, financial status, and general occupational contentment. 
The police are no different in this regard from practitioners in other 
fields. Ask most medical practitioners today to list their problems, and 
one can expect to find managed care higher on the list than 
emphysema or heart disease. Teachers talk more about classroom 
discipline than how to teach algebra more effectively.57 Typically, 
however, a simple reminder to police practitioners to focus on 
substantive community problems will readily get them engaged in 
discussions of the problems of crime and disorder. Getting this to 
occur routinely is far more difficult. 

57Other fields such as medicine and education 
have a substantially larger body of research 
regarding the substance of the work than do the 
police, so even if one could get the police to talk 
more about substantive community problems, 
there would be less research to inform those 
discussions than is the case in other fields. 

Existing case studies in problem-oriented policing demonstrate that 
the police are capable of using problem-solving methods on 
substantive community problems. But, if the police continue to focus 
exclusively or primarily on internal organizational problems, even if 
they apply some problem-solving methods toward their resolution, 
then problem-oriented policing will have failed on its face. 

Ironically, the development of the concept of problem-oriented 
policing has suffered somewhat from the means-over-ends syndrome 
Goldstein described regarding the management of police agencies. 
One can more readily find literature on how to implement problem-
oriented policing within a police agency than find literature on how 
police have applied problem-oriented methods to specific community 
problems. For years, the planners of the annual Problem-Oriented 
Policing Conference held in San Diego debated how much to 
emphasize workshops and presentations on the implementation of 
problem-oriented policing vs. workshops and presentations on police 
responses to substantive community problems. In the early years of 
the conference, the implementation workshops drew greater interest 
from conference attendees, and conference planners tried to balance 
those expressed interests with a desire to get attendees interested in 
substantive problems. Despite efforts over the years to balance 
substance and process, the issue continues to arise, and 
implementation always seems to be favored over substance. In some 
sense, this serves as partial confirmation of Goldstein's original 
premise that the police are highly susceptible to the means-over-ends 
syndrome. 


Finding the Best Response vs. Merely Improving Current Responses 
and Systems 

Problem-solving inquiries should seek the best response to the 
substantive problem at hand, and not merely seek to improve current 
responses and systems. This distinction is a subtle but important one. 
A fair number of problem-oriented policing projects, including those 
submitted for the Herman Goldstein Excellence in Problem-Oriented 
Policing Award, are essentially efforts to improve a criminal justice or 
investigative process, devoid of a careful inquiry into whether that 
process is the most effective means of addressing the problem in the 
first place. For example, in recent years, a number of police agencies 
have recognized value in establishing more collaborative working 
relationships with probation and parole agencies. Accordingly, a 
number of problem-oriented policing projects have set about finding 
ways for the police and probation and parole agents to more 
effectively and efficiently supervise people under conditional release. 
The underlying logic, of course, is that more effective and efficient 
supervision will reduce the levels or seriousness of crimes committed 
by those people. In many instances, however, the assumption that 
supervision of previously convicted offenders is the best response to 
the problem goes unexplored and unchallenged. As a matter of 
general practice, improved collaboration between the police and 
probation and parole agents is good strategy and should be 
encouraged. The value of that collaboration, however, becomes 
stronger if it is first clearly established that improved supervision will 
result in substantial improvements to the specific community problem. 
Some police practitioners find this explanation frustrating. Having 
satisfied the threshold requirement to focus on a substantive 
community problem rather than an internal organizational problem, 
they don't readily see how they can become fixated on a particular 
process that they intuitively believe will adequately address the crime 
or disorder problem. Again, the efforts to improve investigative, 
prosecutorial, adjudicative, or correctional processes using a problem-
oriented approach is commendable, but falls short of the ideal if it is 
not first demonstrated that these processes are best able to reduce the 
harm the problem causes. The best problem-oriented policing efforts 
are those that remain focused on the end objectivesome form of 
harm reductionand develop or improve processes only as a means 
toward that end. 

Focusing on Community Problems for Which the Police Should Assume 
Some Responsibility 

The community problems the police should focus on are those that 
fall within their mandate as it is defined for each agency. Here, too, is a 



great source of confusion. What is, precisely, the police mandate is a 
hard question, to be sure. In the era of community policing, that 
mandate has been expanded considerably, partly by the police 
themselves. Police departments everywhere are initiating programs in 
which police officers adopt roles of counselors, teachers, coaches, and 
brokers of charitable works. The police adopt these unconventional 
roles for various purposes. The best practice is when police officers 
adopt these roles for a limited time, and in the specific context of 
addressing a specific community problem (e.g., a police officer 
organizes a youth activity to provide youth an alternative to 
delinquency, and then turns the program over to someone else). Too 
often, the police adopt these roles for other purposesmerely to 
improve their community image or deflect criticism of other, 
objectionable, police practices. The most common justification offered 
for adopting these new roles is that the police can inculcate good 
moral and civic habits in the community, and as a result, some 
unspecified measure of offending will be reduced. 

The most apparent example of this expanding police mandate is the 
D.A.R.E. program, in which police officers become part-time teachers 
in the moral education of grade school students. D.A.R.E. has become 
an industry within an industry, and in spite of evaluations that 
conclude the program does not achieve its original objectives to 
reduce illicit drug use by young people (Rosenbaum et al. 1994, 
Sherman et al. 1997), it remains enormously popular with 
schoolchildren, parents, some educators, elected officials, and D.A.R.E. 
officers. However commendable these efforts may be in moral terms, 
they are all subject to stricter scrutiny in a problem-oriented policing 
context. 

Goldstein has advocated that the police recognize their role in society 
as being broader than enforcing the criminal law. At the same time, 
however, he has argued that the police mandate must not be 
unlimited. If the police become too involved in every government and 
quasigovernment function, they risk eroding balances of power in 
local and even national government.58 The police's moral authority, 
derived from their powers to arrest and to use force, can easily be 
misused to advance particular moral or political viewpoints. As with 
the military, there is a sound political rationale for keeping the police 
out of certain realms of social decision-making. Police agencies run 
the risk of overextending their expertise and resourcestrying to 
achieve objectives about which they have little or no expertise. By 
expending resources on newly adopted mandates, they risk devoting 
too few resources to conventional mandates. 

58David Bayley, while commending the 
problem-oriented approach, expressed concern 
that "problem-oriented policing could transform 
the Anglo-Saxon notion of a restricted and 
specialized police role into the Continental one 
of an omnicompetent police" (1991). See, also, 
Vaughn (1992), who argues that the American 
public desires a restricted and reactive police 
and that a "truly proactive police structure may 
be impossible to implement in our current 
democratic system of government" (p. 352). 


Ideally, each police agency should develop a clear and firm 
understanding of its mandate. This will and should vary from agency 


to agency, and should be shaped by community desires. Few police 
agencies or communities have expressly advocated that the police 
assume responsibility for morally educating children, entertaining 
children through recreation or brokering charity. Those responsibilities 
are assigned elsewhere. Under a problem-oriented policing scheme, the 
police would recognize how functions like moral education, youth 
recreation and charity are integral to public safety, but would not see 
their role as one of providing these services directly, at least not 
permanently. The key for the police is first, to establish some sense of 
ownership or responsibility for a community problem, and if the 
problem falls within the police mandate, either address it themselves, 
broker ownership to some other entity or, in some instances, merely 
refuse to accept ownership. If the police assume ownership, they then 
must establish some clear nexus between the problem, its causes and 
the proposed response. In so doing, the police may well conclude that 
a youth recreation program, for example, is precisely what is needed to 
address a particular problem. But that may not be enough to justify 
having the police provide that service. Once the police establish the 
nexus between the problem, its causes and the proposed response, 
they must then decide whether they should take responsibility for 
implementing the response. Returning to the previous example, the 
police might determine that a youth recreation program would be a 
viable response to a problem of after-school residential burglaries, but 
that would not necessarily mean that they should organize or run that 
program. I will explore this question of ownership of problems 
further later in this chapter in the section titled "How Should the 
Police Develop and Implement New Responses to Problems?" 


The best problem-oriented policing initiatives that call for responses 
outside the conventional police mandate are those that clearly identify 
the legitimate police interests in a particular community problem; 
establish a causal nexus between the crime, disorder or safety problem 
and the gap in services; and limit the police role in delivering the new 
services to that of catalysts, advisors or referring agency. A good 
example was provided by the Glendale, Calif., Police Department 
when in 1997 it helped develop a new program for day laborers that 
directly responded to legitimate police interests in reducing crime and 
disorder. The police did not assume responsibility, however, for 
actually running the program. Similarly, the Fontana, Calif., Police 
Department in 1998 helped develop a new assistance program for 
transients that achieved similar objectives without assuming the large 
responsibility of administering the program. In problem-oriented 
policing, it isn't the nature of the response that determines its quality; 
it is the link that is drawn between the response and legitimate police 
interests. The police may join with many divergent entities in studying 
a problem, but ultimately the responsibilities for various responses 
should be apportioned among those entities according to their 
resources and competencies. 


It is important that the police distinguish between taking an interest in 
seeing a particular problem handled more effectively and taking 
responsibility for implementing new responses. In some instances, the 
one may lead naturally to the otherwhen, for instance, the police take 
an interest in improving the response to commercial robberies, and 
then take responsibility for implementing new responses to the 
problem. In other instances, the police will properly take an interest in 
a problem that comes to their attention, but refuse to assume 
responsibility for responding to that problem. For instance, the police 
are properly interested in the health and welfare of homeless people, 
and may want to see improvements in the services provided to them, 
but might not accept responsibility for distributing food and clothing 
to those in need. The demands of providing social services can easily 
overwhelm police officers and their agencies. 

The failure to establish limits to the police mandate and to apportion 
responsibilities for addressing problems appropriately has led to some 
backlash among the police. Some police agencies that have become 
heavily immersed in problem-oriented policing now feel the need to 
remind themselves and others that their core responsibilities are to 
address crime, and not to do social work. While this sort of backlash 
runs the risk of taking the police back into an artificially narrow 
understanding of their role, it is understandable given some officers' 
and agencies' tendencies to try to expand their mandates into popular 
programs and tasks that have little demonstrable impact on crime, 
disorder and safety. The backlash may actually reflect continuing 
frustration on the part of some police that, having identified a 
community problem that does not fall squarely within their mandate, 
they get stuck with the responsibility to respond to the problem 
merely because other entities refuse to do so. 

What Does a Search For Underlying Conditions, 
Contributing Factors and Causes Really Mean? 

Implicit in any effort to solve a problem is the effort to understand 
why the problem exists. Goldstein explicitly calls for "an in-depth 
probe of all of the characteristics of a problem and the factors that 
contribute to it" (1990a:36). The search for underlying conditions, 
contributing factors and causes has raised a number of practical issues 
for the police in their efforts to employ problem-oriented policing. For 
each problem they explore, they must consider how deeply they 
should look to understand why it exists, how certain they should be in 
their understanding, what might be done to effectively address the 
problem, and who should assume responsibility for taking action. In 
doing so, they (and those who must authorize and support their 
decisions) must make critical judgments about how best to study the 


problem. The direction and depth of the inquiry will shape how police 
and the community respond to the problems. For example, in 
exploring problems associated with youth gangs, one could probe 
deeply into the underlying sociological and psychological motivations 
of gang membership which might lead to interventions designed to 
change the underlying social conditions in which youth gangs exist. In 
the alternative, one could limit the probe to understanding the ways 
youth gangs operate which might lead to more practical interventions 
designed to reduce the harm to the community caused by youth gangs. 
Problem-oriented policing calls for judgments in these matters that are 
neither too ambitious and leading to inquiries into the unknown or 
unknowable, nor too simplistic and leading to inquiries that only 
scratch the surface of complex problems. 


Root Causes vs. Underlying Conditions 

The search for contributing factors, underlying conditions and causes 
is sometimes confused with efforts to address the broadest of social 
and psychological factors that contribute to crime and disorder, factors 
often referred to as the "root causes" of crime and disorder. 

Criminologists have long debated the root causes of crime and 
disorder, some looking to individuals' psychological motivations such 
as greed, jealousy, anger, or mental defects; others to sociological 
conditions such as economic deprivation and racism. A new school of 
thought has expanded the notion of causation of crime and disorder 
to include opportunity as a causative factor. Scholars like Ronald Clarke 
and Marcus Felson (1993) argue that the ease or difficulty of 
committing crimes and evading detection impacts crime and disorder 
in a real sense. They assert that opportunity is more amenable to 
intervention than either individuals' psychological predispositions to 
commit crimes or broad sociological factors that influence crime. In 
this regard, the search for root causes is not necessarily or exclusively a 
search into the soul of the human condition, but includes a search 
into the more mundane ways humans arrange their physical world. 

Associating problem-oriented policing with a search for "root causes" 
is misguided in two important respects. First, it suggests that effective 
responses can be found only by addressing the most fundamental 
factors or human conditions that give rise to problems. Second, it 
implies a degree of certainty about causation that is seldom 
achievable. However helpful a deep probe into people's social or 
psychological conditions might be in understanding crime and 
disorder, it seldom proves practical in achieving more immediate 
police objectives. Goldstein's problem-oriented approach is compatible 
with Clarke and Felson's theories of crime opportunity because it 
seeks both to understand and to effectively intervene. It looks for the 



deepest underlying conditions that are amenable to intervention, 
balancing what is knowable with what is possible. If one thought of 
the contributing causes of crime and disorder as falling on a 
continuum ranging from root causes to underlying conditions to 
marginal contributing factors, and the capacity of the police or others 
to intervene and modify these factors as falling on another continuum 
ranging from greatest capacity to intervene to least capacity to 
intervene, then one could conceive of appropriate problem-oriented 
interventions as ones that optimized the capacity for intervention in 
significant contributing factors. 

Generally speaking, it is easier to intervene in factors that contribute 
least to crime and disorder, and most difficult to intervene in factors 
that contribute most to crime and disorder. For example, hate is a root 
cause of some types of assault, yet the police and others have little 
capacity to intervene to modify the hatred that fuels the violence. 
Weapon availability is a less strong contributing factor to the assault 
than is the underlying hatred, but the police and others have a greater 
capacity to intervene to modify weapon availability.60 A number of 
other factors, like threat of punishment, likelihood of detection, 
presence of people to interrupt an assault, intoxication, agitating 
events, etc., contribute in varying degrees to the assault. Each factor 
also varies in the degree to which the police and others can intervene 
to modify it. Problem-oriented policing calls for finding that 
combination of capacity for intervention and strength of causation 
that offers the most promise for reducing the likelihood, frequency or 
severity of the assault in the present. Thus, the search for causation in 
problem-oriented policing is practical rather than theoretical. The 
primary goal is to reduce future harm, and not so much to establish 
blame or redress past harm.61 

60Research and practice in the United Kingdom 
have demonstrated that reducing the use of 
certain types of breakable glassware in pubs 
can significantly reduce the severity of injuries 
to victims of barroom assaults (Sherman 1990). 

61An editorial in the Savannah Morning News 
(1999) on gun control legislation highlights the 
debate on the causes of violence. The editorial 
read in part: "The real question isn't how kids 
kill. It's why kids kill. Until Congress is willing to 
look at what's inside a kid's mind, as opposed to 
the pistol or shotgun in his hands, the problem 
is far from resolved." Whatever truth this holds 
from a philosophical perspective, from a 
practical police perspective, probing the minds 
of violent youth is less likely to reduce violence 
than controlling the instruments they use to 
commit it. 

Causation vs. Blameworthiness 

Causation and blameworthiness are complex questions in any context. 
When the police respond to isolated incidents of crime and disorder, 
they may or may not be concerned with establishing the causes of 
these incidents. In many instances, the police are either not at all 
concerned with causality, limiting their objectives to restoring peace 
and order, or their interest in causality is limited. If the police define 
the incident as a crime, then of course they will set about establishing 
causality and blameworthiness in a legal sense (X assaulted Y and 
should be punished); but they may not be interested in establishing 
causality in the broader sense, in which they seek to understand the 
conditions and dynamics that gave rise to the incident (X assaulted Y 
partly as a consequence of crowded conditions in the bar). Problem-
oriented policing implies a concern with causation in the broader 
sense. 


Causation and blameworthiness are not synonymous, however. To say 
that X caused Y does not automatically mean that X is blameworthy.61 
In problem-oriented policing, the search for causation is also broad 
because the primary interest is in preventing recurrences of the harm 
and equitably distributing the responsibility for preventing the harm. 
This broad notion of causation in a problem-oriented policing 
approach can make the approach controversial. The entity most 
capable of bringing about an improvement to the problem may not be 
the entity generally deemed most blameworthy for that problem. 
Applying the notion of blameworthiness inherent in criminal law 
typically implicates those people who actually commit crimes or are 
nuisances. Problem-oriented responses affix responsibility on those 
entities most capable of effecting lasting improvements to the 
conditions that give rise to the crime and disorder. The notions of 
assuming responsibility for prevention and assuming blame for the 
problem can become confused. To many police officers, steeped in the 
legalistic traditions of assigning blame through the enforcement of the 
law, the process of spreading out responsibility for responding to 
problems does not come naturally. Their training has taught them to 
look for the people or entities most responsible for causing the harm, 
and compelling them to account for that harm. 

62The search for causation in the context of 
problem-oriented policing carries with it similar 
dilemmas as does the search for causation in 
the context of criminal law. It raises questions 
about the distinction between causes in fact 
and proximate causes. Establishing a cause in 
fact requires a showing that the harm would not 
have been suffered but for the act in question. If 
the harm would have occurred anyway due to 
other acts or factors, then the act in question is 
not considered the cause in fact. Establishing 
proximate causes requires a judgment that the 
act in question is sufficiently closely connected 
to the harm to be deemed blameworthy. 
Criminal law is more demanding than civil law 
on the question of causation; that is, it is 
concerned primarily with establishing blame and 
consequently administering punishment to those 
people most responsible for causing harm. Civil 
law is more concerned with restoring the 
victims of harm to wholeness, and thus allows 
for somewhat more expansive notions of 
causation and responsibility. Criminal law 
resolves these questions through case law and 
statutes that slowly evolve around socially 
acceptable notions of culpability. In the 
problem-oriented policing context, these 
questions are resolved on an ad hoc basis, 
depending heavily on the judgment of those 
leading the problem-solving initiative, and the 
judgment of the affected parties as expressed 
through a variety of political and administrative 
processes. 

An example that stands out from my own experiences in problem-
oriented policing training is the now well-known Gainesville, Fla., 
convenience store robbery problem (Clifton 1987). This case study is 
often used in problem-oriented policing training to demonstrate how a 
problem-oriented approach can prove more effective at preventing 
serious crime than can a strictly criminal-law approach. The essence of 
the Gainesville response was to assign some increased responsibility to 
convenience store owners to add staff as a robbery prevention 
measure. This increased the owners' short-term costs. The 
presentation of this response in police training sessions around the 
United States evoked strong but mixed responses. Some officers 
endorsed the response as reasonable and effective. Others objected to 
the very idea that convenience store owners, who clearly were not the 
ones actually robbing their own stores, should bear any additional 
responsibility for others' criminal conduct, regardless of how effective 
the measure might prove. 

Effective problem-solving requires that the police, and all parties with 
a stake in the problem, place a higher priority on improving the overall 
response to the problem than on assigning blame for the problem. 
This is much easier said than done, of course. The two ideas of 
causation and blameworthiness get intertwined easily, and people then 
equate accepting responsibility for changing their practices with 
accepting the blame for causing the problem. This is why it is so 
critical that the police develop effective working relationships with 





those affected by a problem, relationships built in a spirit of mutual 
trust, to overcome the natural defensiveness that accompanies 
discussions of causation, blame and responsibility. 

What Standards of Proof Should Apply in Analyzing Problems? 

The search for causation also raises issues regarding the standard of 
proof to be applied.63 Policing is both a social and a legal enterprise, 
but neither the strict standards of social science research nor the 
standards of the law are entirely suited for settling questions of 
causation and responsibility in the context of problem-oriented 
policing. 

63The rules of evidence govern the search for 
causation in criminal and civil law, and the 
standards of proof are well-established (proof 
"beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal law, 
and a "preponderance of the evidence" in civil 
law). 

Some police scholars, like Lawrence Sherman (1998), advocate setting 
high standards of social scientific proof in problem-oriented policing, 
standards that can best be met by rigorous application of experimental 
testing conditions. Other scholars, like Ron Clarke, have advocated a 
more flexible standard of proof, a standard Clarke has occasionally 
referred to as "good-enough proof." By "good-enough proof," Clarke 
means that the standard of proof sufficient to support a particular 
new response to a problem should take into account the severity of 
the problem, the costs of being wrong, the research skills of the 
problem-solvers, the practicality of various research methods, the 
body of existing knowledge about the particular type of problem, and 
so forth. Goldstein and Susmilch (1981) also advocated more flexible 
and adaptive standards of proof, standards that ideally will be raised as 
the problem-oriented methodology becomes more advanced and the 
body of research on what causes various problems, and what works in 
controlling those problems, grows.64 Professor Nick Tilley (a police 
scholar at Nottingham Trent University in England who is emerging as 
Herman Goldstein's counterpart in British policing), and Pawson have 
argued that quasiexperimental methods are poorly suited for 
establishing causality in such a complex enterprise as policing. They, 
too, favor a form of evaluation they call "scientific realist," an 
approach that takes into careful account the specific context in which 
the policing is occurring and the precise mechanisms the police use to 
effect change, and that builds knowledge on the basis of a series of 
effective and ineffective responses (Pawson and Tilley 1994; see, also, 
Tilley 1993). 

64Goldstein and Susmilch offered an important 
caution regarding these flexible research 
standards when they wrote: "These adjustments 
will frequently require relaxing social science 
standards of proof Relaxing such standards of 
proof is both complex and hazardous. There is a 
very thin line between the eclectic research we 
propose here and shabby or bad research" 
(1981:95). 

As a practical matter, the standard of proof that ultimately will prevail 
varies from problem to problem and place to place. Unlike criminal 
and civil law, problem-oriented policing is not primarily governed by 
tribunals that apply uniform rules and laws. (Occasionally, however, 
the courts do serve as arbiters of problem-oriented decisions, as 
occurred in the Gainesville situation, in which a federal court ruled in 
favor of the proposed problem-oriented response.) Within the broad 


limits of the law, what stands as an acceptable response to any 
particular problem depends on what is acceptable to the local 
community, at least those members who are paying attention to the 
problem and can exercise influence on the particular policymakers. 


How Should the Police Analyze Problems, and How Well 
Are They Doing So Now? 

By most accounts from those who observe problem-oriented policing 
carefully, problem analysis remains the aspect of the concept most in 
need of improvement.65 Goldstein's ideal model of problem-oriented 
policing calls for analysis that is systematic, thorough, insightful, 
discriminating, and honest; that is, the analysis should provide the 
most comprehensive understanding of the problem possible. This 
ideal is rarely achieved in the practice of problem-oriented policing for 
several reasons. Practitioners and even some researchers do not always 
fully appreciate the value of analysis in responding to problems or 
understand precisely what information should be analyzed; the 
resources available for analysis, including appropriate research 
expertise, are often inadequate; and good analytic systems are often 
lacking. 

65See Capowich and Roehl (1994) and Police 
Executive Research Forum (2000). Michigan 
State University Professor Tim Bynum is 
preparing a written problem-analysis guide for 
police. He has noted from his review of many 
problem-solving projects that this stage of the 
process is typically weak. The forthcoming 
analysis guide was funded by the COPS Office 
and is due to be published and disseminated 
sometime in 2001. 

The Value and Limits of Analysis 

In order for the police to commit adequate resources to analyzing 
problems, they must first fully appreciate how analysis can improve 
their responses to problems. In order for researchers to help the 
police with analysis, they must appreciate the practical concerns of 
and demands upon the police with respect to community problems. 
(These issues are discussed more fully in chapter 4.) 

A thorough problem analysis, at a minimum, means fully describing 
the problem, describing the multiple and often conflicting interests at 
stake in the problem, calculating the nature and costs of the harm 
arising from the problem, and taking inventory of and critiquing the 
current responses to the problem. In the problem-oriented policing 
model, problem-solvers, whether they be police practitioners or 
researchers, should be open to doubt about things they thought they 
knew about the problem and insist upon proving or disproving 
matters with objective evidence. They must balance the desire to be 
certain and precise with the practical difficulties in being so. They 
must recognize what data can and cannot tell them. They should be 
interested in learning how similar problems have been analyzed and 
addressed elsewhere while at the same time recognizing how their 
local situation might be different. They must ask the right questions 
and not waste effort finding answers to questions of no practical 





significance. They must balance the need to reflect on problems with 
the need to act upon them. These are no small challenges and they 
require that both police practitioners and researchers adjust and adapt 
the conventional ways in which they analyze problems and decide how 
to respond to them. 

Inadequate Analysis Resources 

Problem analysis can fall short of ideal without adequate time to 
complete the analysis and the research expertise necessary to do so 
properly. In Goldstein's original conceptualization of problem-
oriented policing, a typical inquiry into a problem would either be 
headed up by or have substantial involvement of trained researchers. 
While he recognized the value of more modest problem-solving 
initiatives undertaken by street police officers, his ideal has always 
been for more substantial inquiries of larger-scale problems. In 
practice, far more street-level problem-solving of localized problems 
has occurred than have higher-level inquiries into communitywide 
problems. In most such instances, street police officers have had little 
in the way of research support for their analysis beyond being 
provided with requested tallies of data from crime analysts or 
information managers. Missing is expert guidance on setting up an 
appropriate methodology for conducting the inquiry, assistance in 
ensuring the data are complete and reliable, and assistance in applying 
statistical data analyses from which valid conclusions can be drawn.66 
Spending more time and resources on problem analysis would 
improve most problem-oriented policing initiatives. Good police-
researcher collaborations are important in this regard. 

66For a good discussion of common deficiencies 
in problem analysis and how police agencies 
can improve their analytical capabilities, see 
Clarke (1998). 

Problem Analysis Guides 

In place of the sort of expert guidance in research that would be ideal 
are some rudimentary guides for problem-solving and analysis. Many 
departments engaged in problem-oriented policing have developed 
local customized guides and forms intended to facilitate and promote 
problem analysis. Most police agencies engaged in problem-oriented 
policing teach and offer written guides in problem-solving processes, 
most commonly the SARA model and variations thereof. Some 
problem-solving and analysis guides have gone a long way toward 
providing street officers with some basic understanding of problem-
solving methodologies, but they are not substitutes for the expertise 
trained and experienced researchers provide. 

A few police agencies have developed, or are developing, more 
advanced computerized programs that allow officers to search for 
relevant information and make sense of it. The Leicestershire Police 
Force in England has developed a visually attractive and easy-to-use 


computer program that identifies incident patterns for officers that 
they might address in a problem-oriented way. The Chicago Police 
Department, supported by funding from the COPS Office, modified 
and enhanced a problem identification and analysis system, known as 
Information Collection for Automated Mapping (ICAM).67 Also 
funded by the COPS Office, a consortium of Massachusetts police 
agencies is working with University of Cincinnati Professor Lorraine 
Green Mazerolle and a computer company to develop and implement 
a computer program called the "Problem-Solver" that will similarly 
facilitate the search for useful data to analyze problems (Green 
Mazerolle and Haas n.d.).68 The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police 
Department is undertaking a large project to develop a comprehensive 
and integrated computer system that will support and facilitate 
problem-solving, as well. Similarly, University of Cincinnati Professor 
John Eck is developing a generic problem-solving manual that 
incorporates routine activity theory and situational crime prevention. 
Eck's manual, as yet unpublished, is unique in that he is designing it to 
permit users to either work forward from problem analysis to 
responses or backward from desired responses to problem analysis. In 
either direction, it leads users into a detailed problem analysis. 


Eck's manual uses the conceptual framework of what is now 
commonly referred to as the "crime triangle" or "problem analysis 
triangle." The crime triangle is derived from routine activity theory and 
posits that all crimes (and, by extension, all problems) require victims, 
offenders and locations (Felson and Clarke 1998). 

Figure 1 
Crime Triangle 
Image of Triangle with Sides Labeled: Offender, Victim, Location 

67The ICAM2 system was designed with 
considerable input from line police officers, so 
that it would reflect both their information 
needs and their technical expertise. The system 
allows officers to search and query the 
department's records system and other 
community data systems in a variety of ways, 
and provides the data in graphics, statistics or 
maps. Details about the ICAM programs can be 
found in Buslik and Maltz (1998) and in a variety 
of internally produced Chicago Police 
Department documents. 

68The Police Foundation is conducting an 
experiment to measure the impact a 
computerized mapping feature of this 
information system has on problem-solving 
activities. 



Eck then adds to his model the notions of "handlers" to describe 
people capable of controlling victims, offenders and locations; and 
"tools" to describe various instruments used to commit, prevent or 
facilitate problem behavior. Finally, he incorporates the notions of 
"streets" and "routes" to encourage analysis of the movement patterns 
that correlate with problem behavior. 

In some training in which the crime triangle is introduced, trainees are 
taught that to effectively impact a problem, at least two sides of the 
triangle must be addressed.69 As with the "two or more incidents" 
definition of a problem, there is no theoretical foundation for this 
rule. It is merely a means of getting new problem-solvers to think 
beyond simplistic responses. 

69The community problem-solving curriculum 
distributed by the Community Policing 
Consortium makes this assertion. 

As is true with all guides, they can serve to either expand thinking or 
limit it. For a user short on conceptual skills or lacking in innovation, a 
guide can greatly expand the scope of his or her analysis. For both the 
newcomer and a more expert user, a guide might actually inhibit the 
scope of analysis by suggesting artificial limits. 

Both processes of identifying problems and analyzing them require 
some analytical methods and, accordingly, are often confused in 
practice. Many of the computer programs designed to help the police 
spot patterns of incidents that might constitute problems, like 
mapping and database programs, are more limited in the extent to 
which they can help the police fully understand the nature and causes 
of problems. They are most useful for alerting the police to the 
existence of potential problems, but they do not suffice for a 
complete analysis. For example, a computer mapping program might 
help the police detect an emerging pattern of commercial burglaries. It 
might even go so far as to pinpoint the more specific problem of 
burglaries of self-storage facilities. But knowing the spatial and 
temporal patterns of this problem alone is insufficient to guide the 
police in developing a new response to the problem. That will require 
another level of inquiry, one that will require looking at the facilities' 
physical layout, understanding the various management practices of 
the companies that operate the facilities, interviewing known 
offenders, finding out what kinds of property are stolen, etc. The data 
systems and research methods useful for identifying problems and for 
analyzing them in greater depth may overlap, but they are often quite 
different. 

The Action Research Model 

The sort of research model that Goldstein envisioned, and that he 
adopted in the early application of problem-oriented policing in 
Madison, is known as action research. In action research, the 


researcher is an integral part of a team of people working toward 
some particular result. The researcher not only collects and analyzes 
data and draws conclusions, but also proposes interventions along 
with others trying to intervene in the problem. This research model 
seeks to balance an outside researcher's independence and objectivity 
with a pragmatic interest in achieving certain results. In the beat-level 
practice of problem-oriented policing, the principal researcher is 
usually the police officer trying to intervene in the problem; that is, 
police officers become their own researchers. There have been only a 
few more ambitious collaborative initiatives of the sort Goldstein 
piloted, but they have been notable.70 Perhaps the best recent example 
is the collaborative work of the Boston Youth Gang Task Force and 
Harvard University researchers. Their work, recognized as the best 
submission for the 1998 Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in 
Problem-Oriented Policing, blended sophisticated research capabilities 
with intimate knowledge of the particular crime problem. The effort 
resulted in significant reductions in homicides of young people in 
Boston. More recently, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department 
has invited Herman Goldstein and Ron Clarke to serve as external 
advisors on several large-scale problem-oriented policing initiatives the 
agency is undertaking. In addition to advising on the particular 
problems, Goldstein and Clarke are helping the department enhance 
its internal research and analysis capabilities to better support 
problem-oriented policing. 


A couple of federally funded initiatives are seeking to advance this 
type of action research on substantive community problems. The 
COPS Office's Problem-Solving Partnership Program provided 
funding to over 400 jurisdictions to apply problem-oriented action 
research techniques to selected crime and disorder problems. Each 
grantee was required to spend some funding on external research 
assistance, both to aid in problem analysis and to evaluate intervention 
outcomes. The results are mixed, with some good research 
collaborations and some nominal ones.71 The quality of the final 
reports will reveal more about the potential for action research in U.S. 
police agencies. 

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has recently funded a program 
called Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiatives (SACSI) 
in five cities.72 In those cities, the local U.S. attorney is to convene a 
group of relevant experts to identify a pressing public safety problem 
and, along with a researcher, develop a new response strategy. These 
initiatives are intended to be of a scope and sophistication comparable 
to the Boston effort described above and are also intended to train 
researchers in problem-oriented policing research methods. It remains 
to be seen to what degree these efforts are consistent with a problem-
oriented policing approach, but at least, as designed, they incorporate 
the basic principles of the approach. 

70The collaboration between the University of 
Missouri-St. Louis and the St. Louis 
Metropolitan Police Department to reduce levels 
of youth firearm violence (Rosenfeld and Decker 
1998) is an outstanding example of an ambitious 
and sophisticated problem-oriented initiative. 
Although the project was not completely 
evaluated due to failures in police 
implementation, the published findings reflect a 
solid demonstration of many principles of 
problem-oriented policing. See, also, Homel 
(1998) for police-research collaborations on 
alcohol-related problems in Australia. 

71PERF's (2000) evaluation of the Problem-
Solving Partnership program concluded 
optimistically that the problem-solving model is 
viable, but noted many deficiencies in the 
grantee agencies' ability to follow the model 
and manage the problem-solving and grant 
process. It specifically noted common 
deficiencies in problem-solving training, data 
access and project staffing. 

72The program has been funded in Memphis, 
Tenn.; New Haven, Conn.; Indianapolis; 
Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Portland, Ore. 


NIJ and the COPS Office have also funded a program called Locally 
Initiated Research Partnerships in Policing (McEwen 1999) to promote 
police agency and outside research collaborations. There is no 
requirement that the research focus be substantive, however, and a 
review of summaries of the 41 projects funded (McEwen and Pandey 
1998) reveals that only about 15 of the projects study the police 
response to specific community problems (e.g., domestic violence, 
homicide, carjackings, gun violence, drug dealing, and workplace 
violence). The other projects are focused on such concerns as the 
implementation of community policing, public attitudes about the 
police, and crime mapping technology. It is to be hoped that the 15 
projects that do focus on the police response to substantive 
community problems will reinforce the value of this type of 
research.73 

73The 15 projects that are most promising from 
a problem-oriented research perspective are (1) 
Berkeley, Calif., Police Department/East Bay 
Public Safety Corridor Partnership, National 
Council on Crime and Delinquency (domestic 
violence); (2) Lexington, Ky., Division of 
Police/Eastern Kentucky University 
(displacement of drug dealing); (3) Boston Police 
Department/Harvard University, Northeastern 
University (unspecified problems); (4) multiple 
small Western police departments/LINC 
(violence against women and girls); (5) Bay City, 
Mich., Police Department/Saginaw Valley State 
University (nonviolent juvenile crime); (6) 
Hagerstown, Md., Police 
Department/Shippensburg University 
(neighborhood-based crime and fear of crime); 
(7) Framingham, Mass., Police 
Department/Social Science Research and 
Evaluation Inc. (domestic violence); (8) Buffalo, 
N.Y., Police Department/State University of New 
York at Buffalo (unspecified problems); (9) 
Oakland, Calif., Police Department/University of 
California at Berkeley (gun violence and 
problems at a local festival); (10) Forest Park, 
Ohio, Police Division/University of Cincinnati 
(unspecified problems); (11) Prince George's 
County, Md., Police Department/University of 
Maryland (homicides, carjackings, gun-related 
calls); (12) multiple small police departments in 
Alabama/University of South Alabama 
(unspecified problems); (13) Charlottesville, Va., 
Police Department, County of Albermarle Police 
Department, University of Virginia Police 
Department/University of Virginia (workplace 
violence); (14) Seattle Police 
Department/University of Washington (domestic 
violence); and (15) Arlington County, Va., Police 
Department/Urban Institute (unspecified 
problems). 


For years, before the advent of problem-oriented policing, the British 
Home Office has engaged in action research projects with British 
police forces, producing a body of reports on various problems. These 
reports, published under various series titles, are top quality and 
usually are the product of just the sort of research collaboration 
Goldstein has advocated. To date, the Home Office initiatives and 
reports are superior to any similar undertakings in North America. 

The Compstat method developed by the New York City Police 
Department, and now being emulated in many other agencies, extracts 
crime data from computers and subjects the data to scrutiny by panels 
of top-level police commanders and analysts, who then work with 
local commanders to interpret the data and develop appropriate 
responses. These inquiries vary in tone and style, but their primary 
purpose is to motivate police commanders to address crime problems, 
and to hold them accountable for doing so. They are not principally 
designed for careful problem analysis, though they promote some 
analysis. (I discuss the Compstat method and its relationship to 
problem-oriented policing more fully in chapter 3.) A different analysis 
method, the Problem Analysis Advisory Committee, has been 
pioneered by the Newport News Police Department and emulated 
elsewhere. It is primarily an analytical resource for those undertaking 
problem-solving projects. The problem-solvers query participating 
experts to encourage greater depth in the probing of a problem, and 
to guide their own analysis. The San Diego Police Department has 
used this method extensively. 

Accessing and Analyzing Police Data 

The widespread application of computers to police record-keeping 
has, for the most part, been a boon to the practice of problem-
oriented policing. Data that just a few years ago would have been 


enormously difficult to retrieve are now available at the touch of a few 
buttons. From a research standpoint, the samples that can readily be 
amassed and analyzed are much larger than was practical in a paper 
record system. Unfortunately, the ease of searching and analyzing 
large volumes of aggregate coded data too often leads problem-
solvers to skip a more detailed analysis of the written narratives in 
individual police reports. Goldstein has long claimed that the 
narratives contain many of the more useful insights about problems. 


Searching for Relevant Research and Good Police Practices 

Goldstein envisioned that an important aspect of problem analysis 
would be a review of the literature on that problem. That literature 
might be in published books and articles, or in unpublished reports 
from within and outside the police agency. In practice, however, 
literature reviews conducted as part of problem-solving projects are 
rare. Police practitioners often do not have the benefit of assistance 
from researchers or do not have access to research libraries.74 Recent 
research by Northwestern University Professor Alexander Weiss 
confirms that police agencies acquire and exchange information about 
practices more through personal contacts than by reading the literature 
(1997, 1998). How police agencies and officers communicate and 
share professional knowledge is a complex cultural matter. 

74Where libraries exist at all in police agencies, 
they have typically been developed and 
designed primarily for occasional use by police 
recruits writing papers, attorneys doing legal 
research, or officers preparing for promotional 
exams. Tellingly, in some departments the 
library is located closer to the police academy 
than to the research and planning section. 

In chapter 5, I discuss further the police-research communication gap 
and propose some ways to close it. 

Searching for Published Research 

Unfortunately, even if police had more access to research libraries, or 
if trained researchers were conducting a literature review, it is not at all 
clear that their search would be that productive with respect to many 
types of problems. While there is more relevant research on some 
community problems than many police officers realize, it is far less 
than one might expect given how common many problems are and 
how many public resources are spent trying to address them. There 
simply isn't enough quality research conducted to reliably inform the 
police about what does and does not work with respect to most crime 
and disorder problems. Outside of a few specialized areas that have 
received substantial research interest, the body of applied research on 
crime and disorder problems is not large. Again, compared to the 
body of literature in most other professions, the amount of published 
research about common community problems seems miniscule. 

The recent series of publications titled Crime Prevention Studies, and two 
volumes titled Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies that 
developed out of the situational crime prevention model, come the 




closest to building a body of literature that is relevant to and useful 
for practicing problem-oriented policing. At present, there are twelve 
volumes in the Crime Prevention Studies series, each composed of 15 or 
so articles (Clarke 1993, 1994a, 1994b, 1996; Eck and Weisburd 1995; 
Homel 1996, 1997; Weisburd and McEwen 1998; Green Mazerolle 
and Roehl 1998; Painter and Tilley 1999; Natarajan and Hough 2000; 
Farrell and Pease 2001), and two editions of the Situational Crime 
Prevention volume (Clarke 1992, 1997b). 

Searching for Good Practices in Other Police Agencies 

Other sources of relevant information, like written reports of 
problem-solving initiatives, are less accessible. Some of the annual 
submissions for the Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in 
Problem-Oriented Policing are in a computer database called POPNet, 
operated by the Police Executive Research Forum and accessible 
through the Internet. These are summaries only, however, and do not 
convey the complete understanding of the projects that might come 
from reading a full narrative report. Moreover, the entries are not 
subjected to much quality control, so their value is further limited.75 
Jane's Information Group, the British company best known for 
publishing information about military hardware, is developing a 
counterpart to POPNet. Known as COPcase, this web-based system 
(copcase.janes.com) provides detailed reports on effective police 
problem-solving initiatives. While this system is still in its infancy, it 
shows considerable promise. The Police Executive Research Forum 
published reports on the award-winning projects from 1998 (Sol 
Brito and Allan 1999) and, with support from NIJ and the COPS 
Office, have published reports on the award-winning projects from 
1999 (National Institute of Justice 2000).

75Since POPNet's inception in November 1996, 
through February 2000, 84 police agencies have 
submitted a total of 107 cases in 41 problem-
type categories. The most frequent problem 
types are drugs (12), juveniles (nine), gangs 
(eight), and community decline (seven). Frequent 
contributors have been the San Diego Police 
Department (13) and the Edmonton Police 
Service (eight). Many of the entries are 
summaries from the Herman Goldstein Award 
for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing 
program. The brief narratives make it difficult to 
get a good understanding of the projects. Some 
of the problem-type categories are not 
substantivee.g., "lack of communication" and 
"community dissatisfaction." A few are 
redundant"burglary" and "breaking and 
entering," and "traffic" and "traffic safety." A 
few have no entries, including "theft" and 
"graffiti," both common problems. Some are 
overly broad (e.g., "calls for service," "juveniles," 
"disturbance," and "public safety").  

Searching for Good Practices Within a Police Agency 

The police can also improve their responses to community problems 
by studying their own and other agency's past efforts to address 
similar problems. Reports about problem-solving initiatives are a 
valuable source of knowledge from which to draw, even if those 
initiatives did not apply rigorous research methods. Unfortunately, 
most police agencies do not routinely prepare detailed reports on 
most of their problem-solving initiatives. Some police managers are 
reluctant to impose what might be perceived as excessive reporting 
requirements on officers whom they do not want to discourage from 
engaging in problem-solving. While this is understandable as managers 
try to coax officers into policing in a different way, a lot of knowledge 
about how various problems have been handled has been lost. 

Some police agencies have created internal computerized databases to 
store information about problem-solving projects.76 Some agencies 


also maintain paper files for each project and have an official 
numbering system to keep track of those files. To ensure at least 
minimal documentation, some agencies require officers to complete 
problem-solving project forms. Most forms capture basic data about 
the problem's nature, the analysis and responses, and some impact 
measures. A few agencies have chronicled problem-solving projects 
through in-house newsletters.77 These computer records, project 
reports, forms and newsletters have great potential to help officers 
search for solutions to common problems and to teach officers 
problem-solving skills through real examples. The best of these efforts 
are commendable, but still quite modest and limited. Somehow, more 
police-led problem-solving efforts must be documented in writing and 
police managers must then make these resources accessible and 
encourage that they be reviewed as a standard step in future problem 
analysis.78 

76Most often, however, these databases are not 
linked to the department's main computer 
network, and typically, one person maintains 
both the databases and the project reports, so 
they are not widely accessible. The Edmonton 
Police Service and the Savannah Police 
Department maintained their POP project files in 
database programs that proved difficult to use, 
and thus became neglected. I found 74 POP 
projects in the centralized database of the 
Edmonton, Alberta, Police Service; 180 in one 
division of the Lancashire, England, 
Constabulary; 135 in the Savannah, Ga., Police 
Department; 158 in the Reno Police Department; 
and 74 for 1999 in one patrol sector of the 
Sacramento, Calif., Police Department. Different 
agencies have different policies about 
documenting POP projects, and place varying 
levels of priority on entering information into 
centralized databases. Thus, computerized POP 
project files are a crude way of gauging the 
amount of problem-solving occurring in an 
agency. 

Certainly, compared with the enormous investment and commitment 
to documenting and storing data on police calls for service, incident 
reports and criminal investigations, the state of record-keeping for 
problem-oriented activities is primitive. (In the main, police records 
are used to either establish the elements of crimes for possible 
prosecution or account for police officers' time and actions; they are 
not typically designed or used as a source of information for 
addressing problems.) In my visits to some agencies, it was not 
uncommon to find that if a record system for problem-oriented 
policing projects existed, few people had the knowledge or capacity to 
access it. Some departments' files had fallen into disuse after a few 
years, and consequently contained little current data. In no agencies 
did I find that the department's central records unit, responsible for 
maintaining most other official records, had any responsibility for 
maintaining problem-oriented policing project files. Ultimately, police 
agencies must assign the same degree of importance to the official 
records related to problem-oriented initiatives as they do other official 
records. 

What Does It Mean To Develop an Understanding of the 
Multiple and Competing Interests at Stake in Problems? 

Many problem-oriented policing initiatives fail to take complete 
account of all the interests at stake with respect to the problem. This 
matter of accounting for the various interests is often simplified into a 
mere inventory of stakeholders. By interests in a problem, Goldstein 
meant the various reasons why the police or the community either is, 
or is not, concerned about a particular problem. Thus, any one 
stakeholder is not limited to having a single interest in the problem. 
Indeed, most stakeholders have multiple and competing interests in a 
problem.79 

77The St. Louis Metropolitan Police 
Department; St. Petersburg, Fla., Police 
Department; Fresno, Calif., Police Department; 
Reno Police Department; and Stockholm, 
Sweden, Police Department at one time or 
another have produced regular newsletters 
exclusively dedicated to chronicling in-house 
problem-solving efforts. 

78Herman Goldstein recounted an experience 
while working with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 
N.C., Police Department that illustrates the 
difficulty in sharing knowledge within the police 
field. No fewer than five different Charlotte-
Mecklenburg police officers were addressing 
problems related to motels at the same time. 
They learned of one another's efforts only 
through Goldstein. Moreover, they were 
unaware that the department's Crime Prevention 
Unit maintained a file on the prevention of 
similar problems, and unaware that the 
Portland, Ore., Police Bureau had produced a 
comprehensive manual on police responses to 
motel problems, a manual that had been 
published for national distribution. One 
enterprising officer eventually researched the 
topic via computer access to the National 
Criminal Justice Reference Service. 

79There is a distinction between the collective 
interests that all members of society 
presumably share, and the more narrow 
interests of particular individuals or groups in 
advancing a particular agenda. For example, 
society and government have broad collective 
moral, health, commercial, and public safety 
interests in controlling prostitution. Within the 
context of a specific prostitution problem, the 
interests might be narrowera motel has an 
interest in the revenue prostitution generates, 
but a competing concern about becoming a 
haven for crime, while a neighboring church has 
an interest in keeping prostitutes away. 



The way Goldstein envisions the question of interests' being explored 
derives from other legal writings about government interests.80 One 
begins by asking what the social interests are in the problem (both the 
interests in curtailing the behavior and the interests in permitting the 
behavior), and then asking what the government interests are in the 
problem. Not all social interests should be government interests. Once 
one identifies the government interests, one can turn to asking what 
police interests are at stake. Referring to the police's fundamental 
objectives is a useful way to approach this question (see chapter 2 for 
further discussion of fundamental police objectives). If the police 
conclude they have no interest at stake in the problem, there is little 
justification for their continued involvement regarding it. There are 
many social problems in which the police are well-advised not to 
become embroiled. 

80See Remington (1952, 1954). 

In exploring the various nonpolice interests at stake in a problem, it is 
important to go beyond the most visible and obvious interests. There 
are often hidden commercial interests involved in many problems, as 
well as latent social prejudices and biases. These interests should at 
least be brought out in the open, where they can be considered. The 
careful probing of these interests is among the most enlightening 
parts of the problem-solving process. Police officers who engage in 
this probing of interests begin to appreciate just how many different 
perspectives there may be regarding the same problem. The multiple 
and competing interests of the police themselves are often not well-
considered. For example, some conventional responses to chronic 
problems, however ineffective, promote some police interests. In some 
jurisdictions, police officers rely heavily on either overtime or outside 
security employment for their incomes. Sometimes an alternative 
response to a problem has the potential to eliminate the need for the 
overtime or off-duty assignments, obviously presenting ethical 
challenges to the police. 

What Does It Mean To Take Inventory of and Critique the 
Current Responses to Problems? 

Another aspect of analysis commonly omitted that Goldstein 
considers crucial is an inventory and assessment of the current 
responses to the problem being studied. Many project reports allude 
only briefly to the inadequacy of current responses, mainly by making 
the obvious assertion that a new response is needed. Current 
responses are often described briefly and generally, and casually 
discredited as being ineffective. One often reads in problem-solving 
project reports cursory assessments of current practices such as "the 
traditional response of handling calls, taking reports and making 
arrests was not working". But brief and general descriptions like these 


are not illuminating and, often, not entirely accurate. Individual police 
officers frequently develop their own innovative responses to 
problems, responses that are not fully and accurately encompassed in 
their agency's standard operating procedures. Other agencies and 
groups may be responding to problems in ways that the police are 
unaware. Some responses, however traditional, may prove more 
effective upon closer analysis than they might initially appear. For 
example, many problem-solving initiatives indicate that conventional 
strategies of arresting offenders have failed. Yet few such initiatives 
support such assertions by addressing how criminal arrests are actually 
processed, and what ultimately happens to offenders. These sorts of 
court-tracking studies that follow criminal arrests through the criminal 
justice process to assess the outcomes can be illuminating.81 As a 
routine matter, police agencies typically receive little or no information 
from the courts about case disposition. Admittedly, court-tracking 
studies can be somewhat difficult to do (the data are often unreliable 
and difficult for police to access), and some police agencies don't 
consider anything that happens after police processing to be of their 
concern. When the police limit their inquiry to their own arrest 
actions, they miss a full understanding of the systemic responses to a 
problem. It takes some effort to discern precisely how problems are 
being handled and to what extent current practice is effective. 

81The early Goldstein and Susmilch (1982a) 
problem-oriented study of the drinking driver in 
Madison concluded that, contrary to most police 
officers' belief, a driver's refusal to take a 
breath test almost ensured a conviction for the 
primary charge of drunken driving. This was so 
because of plea-bargaining practices. Police 
officers had become conditioned to believe that 
plea bargaining was contrary to their interests, 
when under those circumstances, the bargaining 
practices were entirely consistent with them. 

The flip side of dismissing the value of current conventional 
responses, when faced with a problem that is not getting adequate 
attention, is simply increasing the effort put into conventional 
responses, without carefully considering their strategic value. Many 
reports on problem-solving projects leap quickly to judgments that 
greater police presence, more arrests, more certain prosecution, or 
stiffer penalties are the best response to a problem. Such judgments 
are often made without examining the effectiveness of existing levels 
of these interventions. 

How Should the Police Develop and Implement New 
Responses to Problems? 

Expanding the Range of Response Alternatives 

Goldstein urges the police to greatly expand their range of alternative 
responses to problems, responses beyond the conventional increased 
police presence and criminal arrests. This is perhaps the aspect of 
problem-oriented policing that thus far the police have most 
successfully applied.82 A wide range of responses is emerging from 
reports of problem-oriented policing projects. It may be that the 
police have long tried many of these responses, but have informally 
and seldom acknowledged so openly. That doesn't diminish their 




significance. The concept of problem-oriented policing has 
successfully brought these new responses into professional and public 
discourse about policing. 

82Deputy Chief Pat McElderry of the Colorado 
Springs Police Department aptly summarized the 
police tendency to emphasize responses to 
problems over the identification, analysis or 
assessment of problems when he wrote, "[O]ur 
acculturation in traditional policing still makes it 
difficult to see 'SARA' as anything other than 
'saRa'" (1999). 

Goldstein intended that new responses to chronic problems be well-
considered, following logically from careful problem analysis; that they 
not be merely a few clever ideas thought up as a hasty reaction. Clever 
ideas have some value, but without a clear line of reasoning that 
articulates the basis for the new response, they do not add much to 
the body of professional knowledge from which other police agencies 
and communities can draw. Police agencies often copy other agencies' 
clever or innovative ideas. But, without first assessing how they might 
work in the local situation, these ideas might well prove ineffective. 

It is also unfortunate when the police launch problem-solving 
initiatives with a preferred response in mind. The subsequent problem 
analysis serves more to justify the preferred response than to inform 
the decision-maker about the nature of the problem. Most training 
programs in problem-oriented policing incorporate some structured 
methods for generating ideas about possible new responses. 
Brainstorming is the most common. Yet the actual practice of 
problem-oriented policing does not apply as much structured group 
decision-making as the training would suggest occurs. Response 
strategies are more often the product of an ad hoc process involving 
only a single or a few key decision-makers. When this occurs, there is 
greater risk that the decision-makers' personal biases will dictate the 
response strategy. The most common response-related bias is toward 
using criminal arrest as the primary response. Ideally, the criminal 
arrest response is considered neutrally, as one possibility among many 
for addressing a problem. 

When a police department 
takes a problem-oriented 
policing approach, it turns 
police work upside down by 
asking whether the current 
response is working. It calls for 
a constant reexamination of 
what we do, including our 
relationship with the 
community. 

 Rana Sampson 

Categorizing Response Alternatives 

In the literature on problem-oriented policing, there are now several 
frameworks for considering response alternatives. Goldstein 
approached the issue by chronicling and then categorizing a wide 
range of response alternatives that police agencies have actually 
adopted. He devoted Chapter 8 of Problem-Oriented Policing mainly to 
describing these categories, their rationale and examples (1990a). His 
classification scheme is a descriptive one (see Table 3 on the next 
page). 


Table 3 
Goldstein's Categories of Responses in Problem-Oriented Policing 

1. Concentrating Attention on Those Individuals Who Account for a Disproportionate 
Share of a Problem 
2. Connecting With Other Government and Private Services 
	a. Making Referrals to Other Agencies 
	b. Coordinating Police Responses With Other Agencies 
	c. Correcting Inadequacies in Municipal Services, and Pressing for New Services 
3. Using Mediation and Negotiation Skills 
4. Conveying Information 
	a. To reduce anxiety and fear 
	b. To enable citizens to solve their own problems 
	c. To elicit conformity with laws and regulations that are not known or understood 
	d. To warn potential victims about their vulnerability, and advise them of ways to 
	protect themselves 
	e. To demonstrate to people how they unwittingly contribute to problems 
	f. To develop support for addressing a problem 
	g. To acquaint the community with the limitations on the police, and to define 
	realistically what they can expect of the police 
5. Mobilizing the Community 
6. Using Existing Forms of Social Control, in Addition to the Community 
7. Altering the Physical Environment to Reduce Opportunities for Problems to Recur 
8. Increasing Regulation, Through Statutes or Ordinances, of Conditions That Contribute 
to Problems 
9. Developing New Forms of Limited Authority To Intervene and Detain 
10. Using the Criminal Justice System More Discriminately 
	a. Straightforward Investigation, Arrest and Prosecution 
	b. Selective Enforcement, With Articulated Criteria 
	c. Enforcement of Criminal Laws That, by Tradition, Another Agency Enforces 
	d. Definition, With Greater Specificity, of That Behavior That Should Be Subject to Criminal Prosecution or to Control Through City Ordinances 
	e. Intervention Without Making an Arrest 
	f. Use of Arrest Without the Intention to Prosecute 
	g. Attachment of New Conditions to Probation or Parole 
11. Using Civil Law to Control Public Nuisances, Offensive Behavior and Conditions 
Contributing to Crime 


Source: H. Goldstein. 1990. Problem-Oriented Policing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 


Ron Clarke (1997b) has developed a different sort of framework"the 
16 techniques of situational crime prevention. He derived the 
categories from the theoretical bases of situational crime prevention 
and routine activity theory. Clarke also provides examples of each 
response category, which I have reproduced with minor stylistic 
changes in Table 4 below. 

Table 4 
16 Opportunity-Reducing Techniques 

Increasing Perceived Effort
1. Target Hardening 
 Slug Rejector Devices 
 Steering Locks 
 Bandit Screens
2. Access Control
 Parking Lot Barriers 
 Fenced Yards 
 Entry Phones
3. Offender Deflection
 Bus Stop Placement 
 Tavern Location 
 Street Closure 
4. Facilitator Control
 Credit Card Photo 
 Gun Control 
 Caller ID 
 
Increasing Perceived Risks 
5. Entry/Exit Screening
 Automatic Ticket Gates 
 Baggage Screening 
 Merchandise Tags 
6. Formal Surveillance
 Red-Light Cameras 
 Burglar Alarms 
 Security Guards 
7. Employee Surveillance 
 Pay Phone Locations 
 Park Attendants 
 CCTV Systems 
8. Natural Surveillance
 Defensible Space 
 Street Lighting 
 Cab Driver ID 

Reducing Anticipated Rewards 
9. Target Removal 
 Removable Car Radios 
 Women's Shelters 
 Phone Cards 
10. Property Identification
 Property Marking 
 Vehicle Licensing 
 Cattle Branding
11. Temptation Reduction
 Gender-Neutral Listings 
 Off-Street Parking 
 Rapid Repair 
12. Benefit Denial
 Ink Merchandise Tags 
 Car Radio PINs 
 Graffiti Cleaning 

Removing Excuses 
13. Rule Setting 
 Customs Declaration 
 Harassment Codes 
 Hotel Registration 
14. Conscience Stimulation 
 Roadside Speedometers 
 "Shoplifting Is Stealing" 
 "Idiots Drink and Drive" 
15. Disinhibitor Control 
 Drinking-Age Laws 
 Ignition Interlocks 
 V-Chips 
16. Compliance Facilitation 
 Easy Library Checkout 
 Public Lavatories 
 Trash Bins 

Source: R.V. Clarke. 1997. Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies 
(2nd ed.). Albany, N.Y.: Harrow and Heston. 


John Eck's problem-solving manual, a work still in progress, offers yet 
another framework that, like Clarke's, is built around the theories 
underlying situational crime prevention (see Table 5). 

The Problem-Solver computer program codeveloped by Lorraine 
Green Mazerolle also includes menus of suggested response 
alternatives derived from the existing literature on problem-oriented 
policing. Whether one uses deductive frameworks like Clarke's or 
Eck's, in which responses are classified according to theoretical 
premises, or inductive frameworks like Goldstein's, in which responses 
are classified according to common features of tested responses, these 
frameworks have the potential to expand the range of responses the 
police and others use to address community problems. As with 
problem analysis guides, problem response guides should not be 
considered comprehensive sets of solutions to problems. 

What Does It Mean for the Police to Be Proactive? 

In problem-oriented policing, proactive responses are preferred over 
merely reactive responses. Reactive responses may be entirely 
appropriate as a temporary measure to stabilize a problem and to 
serve other legitimate police objectives. Goldstein stresses proactivity 
in policing in two senses. First, he asserts that responses to problems 
should prevent future harm, and not just address past harm. Second, he 
believes the police should see it as a legitimate part of their role in 
government and society to speak out about public safety problems 
that are not being adequately addressed. This relates to the earlier 
discussion about what sorts of problems the police should address as 
part of their mandate. 

Speaking out about problems might simply require calling them to the 
attention of other officials or community leaders. Beyond that, it 
might require that the police appeal to others' moral and ethical 
obligations to take responsibility for problems, or invoke legal 
authority to compel others to do so. The questions of when and how 
the police should assign responsibility have not been adequately 
addressed. Assuming that the police have an obligation to speak out 
about problems they are aware of, but others may not be aware, in 
what forum should they speak? Should they speak out when elected 
officials have consciously chosen not to? What pressure should the 
police put on uncooperative segments of the community? Goldstein 
(1996c) has articulated a continuum of pressure the police might apply 
to get other entities to assume or share ownership for community 
problems. The degree of pressure the police apply should depend on 
the strength of the evidence they have regarding the nature of the 
problem and its causes. Table 6 summarizes this continuum, with each 
step involving more pressure. 

Table 5 
Eck's Categories of Response Alternatives 

I. 
Offender Control Tactics 
Offenders 
Offenders' Tools 
Handlers 
Handlers' Tools 

II. 
Target and Victim Control Tactics 
Target and Victim Protection 
Target and Victim Tools 
Guardianship 
Guardianship Tools 

III. Place Control Tactics 
Places 
Managers 
Management Tools 
Streets and Routes 

Source: J. Eck. 1998. A Problem-Solving Manual 
for the Police and the Public. Unpublished draft. 

Cities need to develop an 
understanding of, and an 
explicitness about, the 
responsibilities of businesses 
that consume a 
disproportionate volume of 
police serviceslike 
convenience stores and 
shopping mallssocial 
responsibilities of companies 
not to create crime 
opportunities. 

 Rana Sampson 


Table 6 
Goldstein's Continuum of Police Pressure on Others to Accept Ownership 
of Community Problems (from least degree of pressure to greatest) 

 develop educational programs regarding responsibility 
for the problem 
 make a straightforward informal request of some entity 
to assume responsibility for the problem
 make a targeted confrontational request of some entity 
to assume responsibility for the problem
 engage another existing organization that has the 
capacity to help address the problem
 press for the creation of a new organization to assume 
ownership of the problem 
 shame the delinquent entity by calling public attention 
to its failure to assume responsibility for the problem 
 withdraw police services relating to certain aspects of 
the problem 
 charge fees for police services related to the problem 
 press for legislation mandating that entities take
measures to prevent the problem 
 bring a civil action to compel entities to accept 
responsibility for the problem. 

Herman Goldstein's original 
concept was more centralized. 
I don't think he saw police 
officers making direct  
contributions to problem-
solving; he saw them more as 
resources to analysts and 
researchers. Newport News 
and Baltimore County showed 
that police officers can do 
problem-solving themselves. 
I know Herman has had mixed 
feelings about this. 
 Darrel Stephens 

The notion of police proactivity has led to some confusion and abuse. 
It raises questions about the propriety of police involvement in certain 
social issues, as discussed earlier. There is also some confusion about 
what, precisely, constitutes proactive measures vs. reactive measures. 
The answer depends somewhat on one's frame of reference. For 
example, with respect to repeat victimization, police measures to assist 
a repeat victim are reactive with respect to the first victimization, but 
may be proactive with respect to future victimizations. The notion of 
proactivity has also been misunderstood and abused when it has been 
invoked as a code word for aggressive police tactics. 

Who Should Be Involved in Problem-Oriented Policing, 
and How? 

While Goldstein originally encouraged line officers' involvement in 
problem-oriented policing, he did not anticipate that they would 
emerge as the leaders in addressing problems. Goldstein originally 
imagined that command-level police officials and research 
collaborators would lead most problem-oriented initiatives; that they 
would be, in essence, research efforts like the early Madison studies of 
drinking drivers and repeat sex offenders. As originally conceived and 


tested, problem-oriented policing focused on the police's 
administrative and investigative operations, more so than on routine 
patrol operations. Few of the systems, supports and expectations for 
patrol-level problem-solving that are now widely recognized as critical 
to problem-oriented policing were part of Goldstein's early vision. 
The later research done in Baltimore County, Newport News, Va., and 
other places better defined a role for line officers and made problem-
solving part of the daily routine. 


Problem-oriented policing has seen leadership on projects come from 
many levels in the police hierarchy. Line police officers have emerged 
as the leaders of many projects, even when the scope of the project 
has been quite large. In my analysis of submissions for the Herman 
Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing for 
1993 to 1999 (see Appendix A), I concluded that about half of the 
projects were led by one or a couple of line-level police officers.83 In 
one respect, this provides some evidence of the talent line-level police 
officers have, talent that police managers do not fully appreciate or 
exploit. About one-third of the submissions analyzed reported active 
leadership on the project from a police supervisor.84 Only 15 percent 
of the submissions cited command-level officers for active project 
leadership. The results of this analysis are consistent with my own 
experiences in several police agencies. While this degree of line-level 
leadership certainly advances Goldstein's intent that line officers be an 
important part of the decision-making process, it leaves open to 
question whether line-level officers should be expected to provide 
their own leadership. One possible explanation for this trend toward 
line-level leadership is that supervisory and command-level officers are 
simply not sufficiently engaged in practicing problem-oriented 
policing. 

To some extent, the New York City Police Department's experiences 
during Commissioner William Bratton's tenure showed the weaknesses 
of exclusively line-level leadership. Bratton believed that the 
department's community policing and problem-solving efforts in prior 
administrations depended far too heavily on community police officers 
to identify and address community problems, without sufficient 
involvement of precinct commanders (Bratton 1995). The Compstat 
process was one means by which command-level officers were 
compelled to become more intimately engaged in resolving 
community problems. Critics of this approach argue that when 
commanders are held accountable for problem-solving, problems tend 
to get defined in their terms, and less so in the community's and the 
line officers' terms; the community and line officers are likely to be 
more familiar with the problems than the commanders. Moreover, the 
real leadership capacity of many line officers may be overlooked, and 
they may be discouraged from engaging in problem-solving's analytical 
aspects. 

83Determining precisely who led any particular 
project is sometimes subjective and depends on 
the project report author's account. Some 
authors discount potentially significant higher-
level leadership to deflect credit to the line 
officers; others do the opposite. Of the 100 
submissions I analyzed, 48 indicated that line-
level officers led the project. Of those 48, about 
one-fourth concerned localized problems, one-
half concerned intermediate-level problems, and 
one-fourth concerned communitywide problems. 

84This figure itself is generously high insofar as 
I attributed supervisory leadership to all projects 
in which an entire unit of police officers was 
credited for leading the project. I assumed that 
if an entire unit was involved, the unit's 
supervisor likely provided at least some 
leadership. From experience, I know this 
assumption is not always accurate. 



What is the ideal level of police authority for providing leadership in 
problem-oriented policing projects? The answer, like the answer to so 
many questions related to problem-oriented policing, is that it depends 
principally on the scope of the problem being addressed. As a general 
proposition, supervisors should provide active leadership in localized 
beat problems; commanders in intermediate-level problems; and top 
commanders, perhaps including the chief executive, in 
communitywide problems. In every instance, line officers should be 
encouraged to be as involved as their time and abilities permit. There 
is always a need for higher levels of authority to become involved in a 
particular project, as the situation dictates (e.g., if a lower-level official 
cannot get cooperation). 

That higher-ranking police officials seldom actively lead problem-
oriented policing initiatives suggests that the problem-solving method 
of operations has yet to achieve a high level of importance in most 
police organizations. It tends still to be viewed as something that only 
beat police officers do. Police chiefs need to pay at least as much 
personal attention to substantive community problems as they do to 
administrative and political concerns.85 Some command officers, to 
the extent they are supportive of problem-oriented policing, see their 
role as administrative manager, ensuring that systems are in place and 
resources available for line-level problem-solving. This is fine as far as 
it goes, but without more personal and direct command-level 
leadership, few large and complex community problems are likely to 
be taken on in a sophisticated, problem-oriented way. Line-level 
officers simply lack the requisite resources in most instances to 
conduct the sort of analysis and effect the sort of responses necessary 
to bring about substantial improvements in communitywide problems. 

From my observations, San Diego's former police chief, Jerry Sanders, 
widely seen as the champion of problem-oriented policing within his 
agency, provided an optimal style of leadership with respect to 
problem-oriented policing projects. Sanders made a habit of attending 
the department's periodic Problem Analysis Advisory Committee 
meetings. His attendance demonstrated both his interest in problem-
oriented policing generally, and in the line officers' projects 
particularly, as well as his commitment to become personally involved 
in a project if circumstances warranted. Through his consistent 
expressions of interest in community problems, and his consistent 
availability to intervene in projects, he allowed each problem to receive 
the appropriate level of leadership. The informal operating principle 
was that the lowest level of leadership necessary to effectively address 
a problem was the optimum. Accordingly, one often found at least 
mid-level police managers personally engaged in large problem-solving 
projects, and only indirectly involved in smaller, localized problems. 

85My own experiences working in the 
administration of the New York City; Fort Pierce, 
Fla.; and St. Louis Metropolitan police 
departments confirm this observation. I typically 
found that top-level staff meetings were almost 
entirely consumed by discussions of 
administrative matters. 



At its best, problem-oriented 
policing engages police officers 
at the front end, and gets them 
excited about their work. It 
gives them a whole new 
perspective on their job, such 
that the job can become 
exciting instead of routine, and 
that's important. 

 Gloria Laycock 

It makes no sense to dictate, as a matter of policy, that a certain rank 
police official become personally involved in problem-solving 
initiatives anymore than it makes sense to dictate this in the handling 
of incidents or the investigation of crimes. The goal is to get an entire 
police agency thinking in problem-oriented terms, not merely to have 
everyone simultaneously working on projects. This question of active 
leadership should be resolved pragmatically, depending on the 
particulars of each problem. Given the abundance of community 
problems in every jurisdiction of sufficiently large scope, supervisors 
and command-level officers have plenty of opportunities to become 
personally engaged in problem-oriented policing, and they need to do 
so for problem-oriented policing to advance and become 
institutionalized practice. 

How Should the Effectiveness of Implemented Responses 
Be Evaluated? 

The aspect of problem-oriented policing Goldstein has written least 
about is the measurement of effectiveness. The early experimental 
projects he conducted in Madison were not fully implemented, so 
there was little opportunity to evaluate the impact of the proposed 
response strategies. Goldstein has always asserted that measuring 
effectiveness is crucial to the process. Without some measurement of 
impact, the police can learn little about the value of different 
responses. Several major issues and debates have arisen with respect to 
this aspect of problem-oriented policing. 

Process vs. Outcome Measurement 

Perhaps the single greatest source of confusion relating to the 
evaluation of problem-oriented policing initiatives surrounds the 
distinction between the measurement of processes and the measurement 
of outcomes. The measurement of processes is the documentation of 
the actions taken in implementing responses, and an assessment of 
whether the responses were actually implemented as intended. The 
measurement of outcomes is the assessment of the ultimate impact 
the responses had on the problem, as defined (i.e., Did the problem 
improve, worsen or remain the same? Were the outcome objectives 
achieved?). 

In many problem-oriented policing projects, these two different types 
of evaluation are confused. Most commonly, evaluators misconstrue 
process evaluation for outcome evaluation; that is, they limit their 
inquiry to determining how well and to what degree the police and 
others actually implemented their plan of action. While this 
information is vitally important, it cannot be substituted for some 




inquiry about what effect the plan of action, however well-
implemented, had on the problem. Trained researchers have also fallen 
into this conceptual trap. The evaluation design of a problem-oriented 
policing initiative funded by the COPS Office Problem-Solving 
Partnerships Program provides a common example of this confusion. 
The problem being addressed was auto theft. A response strategy was 
developed that focused on the apprehension, prosecution and 
punishment of juvenile offenders. The written evaluation design, 
prepared by an outside trained researcher, listed the following 
outcome measures for the project: 

 Increase the number of people arrested for auto theft. 
 Increase the number of juveniles arrested for auto theft. 
 Focus particular attention on repeat offenders. 
 Increase the number of cases filed for prosecution. 
 Increase the number of juvenile cases filed for prosecution. 
 Increase the conviction rate of auto theft offenders. 
 Increase the conviction rate of juvenile auto theft offenders. 
 Increase the punishment for convicted offenders, including 
sentence lengths. 
 Increase the actual time of incarceration. 


None of these outcome measures would reveal anything about the 
number of auto thefts committed after the police implemented the 
response strategy, an indicator that logically should be the primary 
outcome objective. 

The analysis of problems by 
police officers in some projects 
is impressive, and their 
responses, creative. Herman 
Goldstein recognized how 
creative officers are. Problem-
oriented policing allows for that 
creativity; it is no longer just 
something that is exercised 
when the sergeant isn't 
looking. 
 Rana Sampson 

Problem-solving seems to 
happen more naturally at both 
the bottom and top levels of 
police organizations. But it's not 
satisfactory that it happen at 
only these levels, since most 
problems we care about are 
intermediate-size problems, 
calling for intermediate-level 
responses, organized and 
coordinated within the middle 
layers of police organizations. 
 Malcolm Sparrow 


One possible explanation for the persistent confusion over process 
and outcome measurement may lie in confusion about the 
fundamental police objectives (discussed more fully in chapter 2). If 
one believes the police's primary objective is to enforce the law 
through apprehension and criminal prosecution, then one can logically 
understand measures of the sort listed above to be outcome measures. 
If, on the other hand, one believes that the police's primary objective 
is to reduce the incidence and seriousness of harm to the community, 
and that enforcing the law is but a means to that end, then the 
measures listed above are clearly only process measures, and not 
outcome measures. Goldstein, of course, holds the latter view, and 
evaluation designs that are limited to measuring arrests and other 
process indicators represent a serious distortion in the practice of 
problem-oriented policing. Ideally, a problem-oriented policing project 
will include measurement of both processes and outcomes. 

What Standards of Proof Should Apply in Evaluating Effectiveness? 

Another major issue relating to evaluation in problem-oriented 
policing surrounds the evaluation methodology and standards of 


proof to be applied. This issue presents itself in much the same way 
the problem analysis issue does. The questions in evaluation are: What 
are legitimate methods to determine the effectiveness of responses? 
and, How certain must we be to legitimately claim success? On this 
matter, Goldstein and other academics disagree. Goldstein advocates a 
certain degree of flexibility. He acknowledges the many difficulties in 
establishing precise and certain conclusions in the complex world of 
human behavior where policing occurs, and accordingly, he is willing 
to settle for less than the most rigorous tests of effectiveness in most 
instances.86 In addition, the evaluation of police interventions is not 
yet sophisticated, so insisting on rigorous standards, however justified 
theoretically, would likely stifle much experimentation with the 
problem-oriented concept. As with problem analysis, Goldstein 
concurs with Ron Clarke's belief in good enough measurement. 
How precise and certain one has to be in problem-oriented policing 
depends greatly on the consequences of being wrong. The main critic 
of this brand of eclectic, flexible evaluation has been Lawrence 
Sherman. Sherman, who endorses the problem-oriented approach to 
policing generally, has advocated that outcome evaluation entail what 
he considers the most reliable methodologycontrolled 
experimentsand the most demanding standard of proofthe 
elimination of all rival hypotheses.87 Sherman is less willing than 
Goldstein or Clarke to accept the validity of claims based on less than 
rigorous and controlled evaluations. Few problem-oriented policing 
projects reported to date have employed anywhere near the level of 
rigor and control that Sherman considers ideal. Thus, how much the 
practice of problem-oriented policing has advanced police knowledge 
about how to reduce crime, disorder and fear depends heavily on one's 
views about evaluation. Those who share Goldstein's and Clarke's 
views might conclude that a lot has been learned;88 those who share 
Sherman's view might conclude that little has been learned (see 
Sherman et al. 1997).89 Clarke shares some of Sherman's concerns 
about the inadequacy of evaluation in many problem-oriented policing 
projects, concluding that the studies conducted under the rubric of 
situational crime prevention have, on the whole, been more rigorous 
and reliable than those conducted under the rubric of problem-
oriented policing. Most of the work conducted in situational crime 
prevention, at least the evaluation component, has been led by trained 
researchers. Most of the work conducted in problem-oriented policing 
has been led by police practitioners. That there is better evaluation in 
the situational crime prevention context is therefore not surprising. 
Yet, in the end, the knowledge gained from the work matters more 
than the rubric under which the work is done. Goldstein sees the 
situational crime prevention work as extraordinarily valuable to the 
police, not so much because he feels they can emulate the research 
methods, but because they can learn important lessons about the 
effectiveness of different responses to common problems. 


86There may be inherent tension in the concept 
of problem-oriented policing between the 
principles related to effective responses and 
those related to evaluation. Problem-oriented 
policing encourages the police to develop 
multifaceted response strategies to maximize 
the likelihood of success (and, in fact, most 
problem-oriented policing projects entail the use 
of multifaceted strategies). Multifaceted 
response strategies, however, are considerably 
more difficult to evaluate than single response 
strategies because it is difficult to isolate each 
response's effects (Eck 1997). 

87Sherman himself was criticized by other 
scholars for failing to set sufficiently high 
standards of replicability of results in his 
domestic violence experimental studies, a 
charge Sherman defended against, arguing that 
policymakers must make decisions on the best 
evidence available, however imperfect 
(Mastrofski and Uchida 1993). 

88Among the other scholars who also endorse 
less than the strictest evaluation methodology 
are Bazemore and Cole (1994). They wrote: 
Police departments, as they move increasingly 
toward the community policing model and 
problem-oriented strategies, will need to 
assume increased initiative for monitoring and 
assessing initial implementation of these 
approaches, as well as evaluation of 
intermediate impacts While these 
evaluations and assessments may not always 
meet the highest methodological standards for 
purposes of causal inference, viewed as case 
studies of strategic interventions and their 
intermediate impacts on crime and citizen 
attitudes, local community policing experiments 
can be expected to add significantly to practical 
knowledge and theory development (p. 121). 

89See, also, Brame and Piquero (1998), who 
wrote: In sum, the evidence on effectiveness of 
problem-solving strategies seems to have an 
optimistic tone. Unfortunately, much of it is 
anecdotal and not scientifically rigorous Thus, 
a critical issue in the area of problem-solving is 
the need for more rigorous research designs and 
multiple-site studies to evaluate the 
effectiveness of various measures. 



What Are the Specific Objectives of Problem-Solving Efforts? 

Another issue related to the evaluation of problem-oriented policing 
concerns the articulation of problem-specific objectives. The Newport 
News study (Eck and Spelman 1987) first delineated a set of generic 
legitimate objectives in problem-solving. It grouped those objectives 
into five categories: 

1. totally eliminate a problem; 
2. substantially reduce a problem; 
3. reduce the harm created by a problem; 
4. deal with a problem better (e.g., treat people more humanely, 
reduce costs or increase effectiveness); and 
5. remove the problem from police consideration. 


The fifth objective, removing problems from police consideration, 
differs from the first four in that it does not directly address the 
question of whether the problem, as experienced in the community, 
will be improved by removing it from police consideration. Taken to 
the extreme, the police could claim success in problem-oriented 
policing merely by working to absolve themselves of responsibility for 
problems. Goldstein did not intend such an outcome; nor did Eck and 
Spelman. If shifting responsibility for addressing a problem to another 
entity results in more effective handling of the problem, then the 
objective is legitimate. If such a shift results merely in some efficiency 
gains for the police, then it may have some merit, but one cannot 
consider it an effective resolution. 

When proper outcome evaluations of problem-oriented policing 
initiatives are conducted, some prove too limited in their scope; that is, 
they are limited to measuring only a few indicators of impact, most 
often the volume of calls for service or the numbers of reported 
crimes. Often neglected in evaluations are indicators of the prevalence 
of the problem, the net harm caused by the problem, the possible 
displacement of the problem, the possible diffusion of response-strategy 
benefits, and an accounting of the total costs arising out of the problem 
and responses to it.90 Looking at the prevalence of a problem in 
addition to the incidence of the problem is interesting because it 
reveals how widely or narrowly the entire community experiences the 
harms caused by the problem. An initiative might succeed in reducing 
the overall incidence of a particular problem within the jurisdiction, 
but if the problem consequently becomes concentrated in one 
particular neighborhood, this result may not be desirable. A review of 
the submissions for the Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in 
Problem-Oriented Policing indicates that police problem-solvers are 
increasingly recognizing the issue of problem displacement. This is 
largely due to more specific award submission criteria regarding 


displacement. Overall, the reports on problem-solving projects far 
from adequately address displacement, but at least it is becoming 
recognized as a phenomenon worthy of inquiry..91 Too few problem-
oriented policing initiatives entail any real economic assessment of a 
problem. Economic analyses should not be seen as definitive of 
success or failure, but they add an important dimension to judging an 
effort's overall quality. The police, particularly in the United Kingdom, 
are increasingly being asked to account for the cost-effectiveness of 
policing strategies (Stockdale, Whitehead and Gresham 1999). 

90Tilley (1999) lists the following typical 
shortcomings in the evaluation of crime 
prevention measures: the use of simple 
before/after comparisons, use of short and 
arbitrary before-and-after periods, neglect of 
benchmark statistics, failure to consider 
possible other (nonintervention) causes of the 
changes observed, failure to test for 
displacement or diffusion of benefits, and 
uncritical promotion of success stories. 


91For a discussion of the displacement of crime, 
and its opposite phenomenon, the diffusion of 
benefits, see Clarke (1997b:28-33). 


Chapter 2 

Putting Problem-Oriented Policing and Problem-Solving in the Context of 
the Whole Police Mission 

How Does Problem-Solving Fit in With Other Aspects of 
Police Work? 

Goldstein's assertion that problem-oriented policing affects virtually 
everything the police do, and how police agencies are run, can be 
confusing. Is he saying that the police should discontinue all their 
conventional methods of operation and engage exclusively in 
problem-solving processes? Where does this leave the conventional 
tasks and methods for responding to calls for service or investigating 
crimes? Police administrators who endorse problem-oriented policing 
have sought to reconcile the demands on their agencies to continue 
performing these conventional police tasks with the new demands to 
engage in substantive problem-solving. Lingering conceptual 
confusion about how problem-solving is supposed to fit into the 
context of the entire police mission may account for why the police 
have not fully integrated the old, unavoidable tasks and methods with 
the new tasks and methods. 

One may clear up the conceptual confusion by returning to some first 
principles of policing. Goldstein's writings on problem-oriented 
policing are best understood in the context of his earlier writings 
about the police's role in society (1977). In those writings, Goldstein 
argued that to understand policing properly, one has to distinguish 
between the objectives the police are trying to achieve and the 
methods they use to achieve them. Accordingly, he has argued that 
investigating crimes and enforcing laws, long thought of as basic 
policing objectives, are not objectives in and of themselves, but rather 
methods for achieving other, more broadly stated, objectives. 
Problem-oriented policing, then, is concerned with expanding on and 
improving the methods the police use to achieve their more 
fundamental objectives. 

We need problems to become 
the basic units of work in 
policing and other city services, 
and to make that idea real. 

 Dennis Nowicki 

What Are the Fundamental Objectives of Policing? 

The fundamental objectives of policing (also referred to as the 
mission of the police or the core functions of policing) are the 
ultimate purposes for which police agencies have been created. 
Goldstein was one of a number of scholars who recognized and 
articulated the breadth and complexity of the police mission. He 
synthesized his understanding of the multiple objectives of the police 
in his seminal work, Policing a Free Society, a precursor to his writings on 





problem-oriented policing. Drawing from even earlier work he had 
done, Goldstein (1977) characterized the fundamental objectives of 
the police in free societies as follows: 

1. to prevent and control conduct threatening to life and property 
(including serious crime); 
2. to aid crime victims and protect people in danger of physical 
harm; 
3. to protect constitutional guarantees, such as the right to free 
speech and assembly; 
4. to facilitate the movement of people and vehicles; 
5. to assist those who cannot care for themselves, including the 
intoxicated, the addicted, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, 
the elderly, and the young; 
6. to resolve conflict between individuals, between groups, or 
between citizens and their government; 
7. to identify problems that have the potential for becoming more 
serious for individuals, the police or the government; and 
8. to create and maintain a feeling of security in the community. 


While there are other ways to characterize the police mission, both in 
greater and lesser detail, Goldstein's formulation remains a 
comprehensive and useful reference for guiding police actions. Some 
police agencies have other specialized functions, but most have these 
basic ones in common. The ultimate aim of problem-oriented policing 
is to continually make the police better at accomplishing each of the 
above objectives to better prevent crime, to better assist victims, to 
make communities feel safer, and so forth. Everything the police do, 
whether using conventional or innovative methods, should be in 
pursuit of one or more of these fundamental objectives. 

Reactive policing is so much 
easier. Police officers are 
trained to prefer order to 
disorder, and problem-solving 
seems, to some officers, to be 
creating disorder, to be 
upsetting the balance of 
things. 

 Dan Reynolds 

Properly understood, this broad, though not limitless, set of objectives 
should be liberating for the police. Theoretically, at least, it frees the 
police from being bound to certain methods of achieving these 
objectives, allowing them to develop other methods that might prove 
more effective. In practice, however, the police remain somewhat 
bound to conventional methods of operating, for several reasons. One 
is the sheer force of habit habits not only of the police, but also of 
the public and of other government institutions. Enormous 
investments have been made in the form of technology, training and 
organizational relationships to support conventional methods like 
criminal investigation, criminal prosecution and rapid response to calls 
for police service. A second, and yet more profound, reason why the 
police remain bound to conventional methods is that not all decision-
makers accept the notion that law enforcement is but a means to other 
ends. The idea, that the fundamental purpose of the police is to 
enforce the law, however idealistic, remains powerfully attractive 


because it is simple and straightforward, and it seems, on its surface, 
to be consistent with more deeply held beliefs about the rule of law. 


The entire edifice of problem-oriented policing is built on the 
foregoing ideas about the fundamental objectives of the police, the 
recognition of law enforcement power as a means rather than an end, 
and all the implications these notions have for the exercise of police 
discretion and for police authority to operate by administrative rules, 
and not solely by legislative decree. In other words, problem-oriented 
policing makes sense to those who share these fundamental beliefs 
about the police's role and who see policing as a complex and sensitive 
function, but less so to those who don't. Many of these core beliefs 
get glossed over in the debates and discussions about problem-
oriented policing. The debates and discussions then are about how 
best to implement problem-oriented policing, rather than whether it is 
the right approach to policing at all. Problem-oriented policing 
implicates some of the most important principles governing police 
power in a society of law. 

What Are the Various Operational Strategies of Police Work? 

Assuming, as I do, that Goldstein is correct in his articulation of the 
fundamental objectives of the police (that there are multiple objectives 
that overlap and, at times, conflict with, one another, and that law 
enforcement is but a means to these ends), it is then possible to 
understand policing in terms of the various methods or strategies used 
to achieve these objectives. The police employ innumerable specific 
tactics, but one can better understand these in terms of a few core 
operational strategies.92 There are five core operational 
strategiespreventive patrol, routine incident response, emergency 
response, criminal investigation, and problem-solvingand one 
ancillary operational strategysupport services. This, of course, is not 
the only way to conceptualize police work. The first four operational 
strategies constitute the ways police have conventionally done their 
work, at least since the 1930s. Problem-solving is a new operational 
strategy, introduced in Goldstein's problem-oriented policing concept. 
(See Chapter 1 for a discussion of the distinction between problem-
solving and problem-oriented policing.) 

92I struggled to find the right term to apply to this 
concept. After trying mode, method, mental 
construct, and core process, I settled on 
operational strategy thanks to a suggestion by 
Lt. Ken Bunker of the Reno Police Department. 

Each operational strategy of police work has unique and distinct 
features. Each represents a particular process or method for 
approaching situations the police encounter. Each is taught to police 
officers (problem-solving, only recently), and officers are taught when 
each is appropriate. Each has a distinct general procedural framework 
that guides officers in doing their work within that operational 
strategy. Each has a distinct general goal or objective. Each entails a 
unique way of defining a unit of work, and distinct general 




performance standards and indicators. Each has its own accountability, 
reporting and record-keeping systems. 

Preventive Patrol 

Preventive patrol remains the predominant operational strategy of 
policing in terms of time spent, all research questioning its 
effectiveness notwithstanding. It is the operational strategy in which 
uniformed police officers are expected to operate when they are not 
otherwise compelled to operate differently. The fundamental logic of 
preventive patrol is twofold. First, the presence of uniformed police 
officers is intended to deter citizens from committing offenses, and to 
enhance their sense of security. Second, the presence of officers is 
intended to increase the probability that they will interrupt offenses in 
progress. The objectives of preventive patrol are to prevent and detect 
offenses, and promote a general feeling of security. Few police 
departments use formal performance indicators to measure preventive 
patrol, although many departments still try to quantify the amount of 
time officers dedicate to preventive patrol by foot, and some capture 
vehicle mileage.93 Recruit officers are taught methods of preventive 
patrol, though few experienced officers seriously adhere to these 
methods. Unlike the other operational strategies of police work, 
preventive patrol does not lend itself to discrete work units; rather, it 
is an ongoing activity. Nor are there strong systems of accountability 
for preventive patrol beyond the occasional chewing out of an officer 
who fails to detect a commercial burglary on his or her beat. While 
preventive patrol has been deemphasized by many modern police 
managers, it remains a strong public expectation of police. Police 
patrol operations remain principally structured around preventive 
patrol, emergency response and the handling of routine incidents. 

93O.W. Wilson, one of the principal proponents 
of the value of motorized preventive patrol, 
reportedly thought of installing electronic 
sensors on streets in Chicago to monitor the 
frequency and patterns of motorized police 
patrols. Such a system would allow for 
quantifiable performance indicators related to 
preventive patrol. For further reading on the 
history and effectiveness of preventive patrol, 
see Kelling et al. (1974) and Police Foundation 
(1981). 

Routine Incident Response 

Most reactive police business is handled using the routine incident 
response operational strategy, encompassing the vast majority of what 
patrol officers and their civilian support staff do (other than 
preventive patrol). Routine incident response entails the methodical 
collection of information about a situation, and classification of the 
situation (crime, information exchange, civil matter, etc.). Most police 
agencies have over 100 classification categories. The specific police 
objective will, of course, vary depending on the nature of the 
situation, but generally, the objective is to restore order, document 
information or otherwise provide some immediate service to the 
parties involved. Specific performance indicators are such things as 
satisfied citizens, no repeat calls for service during that tour of duty, 
etc. Most routine incidents are packaged as a call for service, 
complete with a permanent record of the incident and the police 


response. Much of the patrol operation is judged by how officers 
handle these routine incidents. 


Emergency Response 

Police use the emergency response operational strategy far less 
frequently than the routine incident response operational strategy, yet 
it is probably the most critical to the police agency's success, because 
human life is most directly at stake. It encompasses crimes in progress, 
officers' requests for immediate assistance, traffic accidents with 
injuries, natural disasters, and so forth. The general objective is to save 
lives, minimize injury and restore a basic level of order. Until the 
police achieve these objectives, they can employ no other operational 
strategy of police work. The unit of work is commonly thought of as 
a critical incident or an emergency response. Special reports about 
major critical incidents and how they were handled are sometimes 
prepared and reviewed with an eye toward improving future responses 
to similar incidents. The police are specially trained in emergency 
response techniques, from vehicle operation to first aid to hostage 
rescue. 

Criminal Investigation 

The criminal investigation operational strategy, while constituting a 
smaller proportion of police work than most people imagine, 
dominates the public's perception of police work and the police's 
perception of themselves; that is, thoughts about investigative work 
and images of detectives contribute to an idealized understanding of 
policing. There is a basic framework common to all criminal 
investigations, from those of the most minor crimes, such as 
shoplifting, to those of the most complex, such as homicide. Once the 
police determine that a crime has been committed, the elements of 
criminal law provide the general framework for investigations, and 
various techniques have been developed to enable the police to 
establish the statutory elements of crimes.94 The unit of work in 
criminal investigations is the case. There are special procedures for 
managing the processing and flow of cases. The standards of proof 
applied to criminal investigations are legal standards. Police must have 
reasonable suspicion to detain suspects, probable cause to arrest 
them, and enough evidence for prosecutors to establish proof 
beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction. The general 
objective in this operational strategy is to prepare a prosecutable case. 
Case clearance and case filing rates provide the specific performance 
indicators and serve as the foundation for accountability in criminal 
investigations. There is an abundance of specialized training unique to 
the investigation of crimes. 

94Preliminary crime investigations can lead the 
police to pursue responses in addition to or 
other than criminal investigation, but all too 
often, police investigators limit themselves to a 
criminal investigation, without broadening the 
inquiry into the larger or underlying problems. 


The sense of emergency in 
policing has crowded out our 
capacity to think about 
problems in the long term. 

 Dan Reynolds 

Problem-Solving 

The fifth operational strategy of police work is what is now referred 
to as problem-solving. Historically, it is the least well-developed by the 
police profession. While the police have always used the mental 
processes of problem-solving, problem-solving as a formal 
operational strategy of police work has gained some structure and 
systematic attention only in the past 20 years. Like the other 
operational strategies, problem-solving has a distinct framework for 
guiding action. Problem-solving methodology in policing is known 
familiarly by such acronyms as SARA or CAPRA. It entails problem 
identification, analysis, response, and evaluation. The general objective 
of problem-solving is to reduce harm caused by patterns of chronic 
offensive behavior. The unit of work in problem-solving is known as a 
problem, a problem-solving project or a POP project. 
Performance indicators are significant reductions in harm that are 
plausibly caused by some specific intended intervention, reductions 
that hold for some reasonable period of time. Sufficient standards of 
proof have not been developed, but the current standards are adapted 
from the social sciences. Problem-solving also involves some 
specialized training, and systems for reporting and accounting for 
problem-solving are being developed. 

Support Services 

A sixth operational strategy rounds out the picture of the business of 
policing. This operational strategy, which one might call support 
services, incorporates the many ancillary services the police provide to 
the public. The police provide these services routinely, rather than in 
response to any specific situation. Such services include providing 
copies of police reports, taking fingerprints for noninvestigative 
purposes, distributing or teaching generic crime prevention 
information, operating youth activity programs, and so forth. This 
operational strategy relates only indirectly to the police's fundamental 
objectives, although its scope has clearly grown in the era of 
community policing. It serves primarily to promote and enhance 
police legitimacy in the eyes of the public by providing 
nonconfrontational, nonadversarial and noncontroversial services to 
the public. 

Table 7 summarizes the operational strategies of police work and their 
distinct features. 


Table 7 
Operational Strategies of Police Work 

-Operational strategy
-Work Unit
-Objectives 
-Record System
-Reporting Requirements
-Performance Standards
-Specialized Training 
-Processes 
-Accountability 
    
-Preventive Patrol
-None  ongoing
-Prevent and detect offenses, promote general feelings of security
-Daily activity reports, patrol vehicle mileage
-Daily activity reports
-Absence of crime, low levels of citizen fear, high rates of police detection of certain types of offenses (e.g., commercial burglary)
-Patrol methods (random, directed, conspicuous, inconspicuous)
-Limited  some officers use systematic area coverage patterns and plans
-Limited  some expectations officers will detect certain offenses on their beats,
some command accountability for absence of citizen complaints about police presence 


-Routine Incident Response
-Call 
-Record incident, resolve dispute, provide or take information
-Dispatch records
-Report or coded disposition
-Complainant satisfaction, no repeat calls that shift, fair treatment of parties, proper completion of report
-Special training by type of incident
-Procedures according to call type, reporting requirements
-Code out call, file report; accountability rests with officer assigned and shift  supervisor 


-Emergency Response
-Critical incident
-Save life, interrupt crime, protect property, minimize injury
-Dispatch records, after- action reports
-Critical incident report
-No deaths, minimal injuries, order restored
-Vehicle operation, first aid, hostage rescue, SWAT, defensive tactics
-First aid procedures, critical incident procedures, triage
-Primary officer or scene commander, until incident ends (handed off, if necessary) 


-Criminal Investigation 
-Case 
-Establish culpability, make prosecutable case, apprehend offender, clear case
-Case files 
-Case report and file
-Case filed by prosecutor, suspect apprehended
-Death investigation, crime scene analysis, forensics, interviewing 
-Criminal investigative procedures
-Case file deadlines, case management (handed off, if necessary), rests with detective 
assigned, unit supervisor 


-Problem-Solving
-Problem or project
-Reduce harm, reduce incidence, eliminate problem, improve response
-Project files 
-Sometimes none, project report
-Significant reduction in harm, caused by intervention, for reasonable period of time
-Problem-solving methods
-SARA, CAPRA 
-Rests with police chief, district commander, supervisor, and officer 
 

-Support Services
-Program or procedure 
-Provide service, enhance police legitimacy 
-Program reports
-Program or budget reports
-Use/popularity of service
-Specific procedures
-Written procedure or curriculum 
-Fiscal 
      



 

At What Levels Is Police Work Done? 

In addition to understanding police work in terms of the eight 
fundamental objectives and six operational strategies, one can also 
understand it in terms of the various levels at which police operate. 
That is, policing in any given jurisdiction occurs on several scales, 
ranging from a microlevel (or highly localized) to intermediate levels 
to a macrolevel (or communitywide). The microlevel refers to how 
individual, isolated, specific situations are handled. The intermediate 
level refers to the combination of separate situations into a larger unit 
of work. The macrolevel refers to the police agency's policies and 
practices related to an entire class of situations. For simplicity, I use 
three levels of aggregation to describe the scope or scale of police 
work. The scale of the police work is roughly proportionate to, and is 
determined by, the number of people affected by a particular 
situationoften, the number of victims or complainants.95 

95Alpert and Moore (1998) point out that the 
size (or scope) of problems can be described in 
various terms: (1) [the] total resources 
committed to the problem, (2) [the] amount of 
time taken to solve, (3) the number of 
specialized resources required, (4) the extent to 
which higher-ranking officers must mobilize and 
coordinate efforts within and outside the 
department to deal with the problem, and (5) its 
importance and scale within the community.

There are varying operating levels in each operational strategy of police 
work. For example, criminal investigation occurs at the microlevel 
during the investigation of a single crime with a single victim (e.g., a 
theft or assault). It also occurs at the macrolevel, where the policies 
and practices for investigating an entire class of crimes, and potentially 
affecting the entire community, are determined. Criminal investigation 
also occurs at the intermediate level, where a series of individual 
crimes are combined for investigative purposes. A rash of burglaries 
or robberies in a neighborhood might be investigated jointly. Similarly, 
emergency response occurs at the microlevel (e.g., a single traffic 
accident, with injuries), the intermediate level (e.g., a natural disaster or 
large civil disorder), and the macrolevel (e.g., emergency preparedness 
planning). The same pattern holds for the problem-solving operational 
strategy, which ranges from highly localized beat-level (microlevel) 
problem-solving (e.g., one drug house, or even one person) to the 
intermediate level (e.g., a prostitution strip), to the macrolevel (e.g., 
juvenile homicides throughout a city). In each operational strategy, the 
scope of the situation should dictate the level of resources dedicated 
to addressing it. 

Almost all police work can be understood within this general 
conceptual framework of objectives, operational strategies and 
operating levels. The framework helps explain what the police are trying to 
achieve, how they are trying to achieve it, and on what scale they are operating. 

For example, the police might identify a problem related to crowds' 
congregating on the streets and sidewalks following political rallies. 
They might then decide that their primary objective is to safeguard the 
constitutional right to public assembly, with secondary objectives of 
preventing injury and facilitating the movement of traffic. They might 
then conclude that, in addition to handling the incident at hand, they 


need to study this type of problem further to develop a new response, 
because the current response is inadequate, and similar incidents arise 
in various contexts. Accordingly, they might then decide that the 
inquiry needed is sufficiently expansive to warrant making it a high 
priority for the research and planning unit, and to warrant assigning 
several police officers and supervisors who regularly handle such 
incidents to join the planning effort. The inquiry results would then 
determine the level of resources needed to address future incidents. 
Table 8 provides additional examples of police work at each level, in 
each operational strategy. 


Table 8 
Operating Levels and Operational Strategies of Police Work 

Operating Level 
Operational Strategy of Police Work 

-Preventive Patrol 
-Routine Incident Response 
-Emergency Response 
-Criminal Investigation 
-Problem-Solving 

Macro 
-Patrol deployment plans 
-Policies related to categories of incidents 
-Policies related to categories of emergencies 
-Policies and practices related to categories of crimes 
-Policies and practices related to categories of problems 

Intermediate 
-Directed patrols by groups of officers 
-Traffic control at large public event 
-Bar fight, multiple-vehicle accident 
-Rash of burglaries in a neighborhood 
-Prostitution on a commercial strip 

Micro 
-Routine preventive patrol by beat officers 
-Dispute, minor crime reporting, provision of directions, minor traffic accident  investigation 
-Traffic accident, with injuries; police officer in need of immediate assistance 
-Shoplifting; assault, with known suspect 
-Problem individual 


Note: The flow of the arrows reflects the need for data from the first four operational strategies to be analyzed in the problem-
solving operational strategy, which in turn informs and improves the other operational strategies. 




The ultimate goal of police reform is to enable the police to better 
achieve the full range of their objectives, effectively, efficiently and in 
a manner consistent with basic principles of justice. To do so, the 
police must be able to perform well in each operational strategy of 
police work, and at each operating level. This requires that the police 
develop an organizational capacity to employ the appropriate 
operational strategy of police work with the appropriate level of 
resources.96 It means having a refined understanding of what particular 
objectives the police are trying to achieve. It means being able to make 
smooth transitions between and among the various operational 
strategies of police work, and up and down the operating levels. 

96Sparrow observed that some forms of 
community or neighborhood policing that deploy 
the majority of police resources at the 
neighborhood or beat level inadvertently limit 
the police agency's capacity to respond to larger 
crime and disorder problems. He wrote, [P]olice 
departments need to build their capacity to 
perform problem identification and analysis at 
many different levels of aggregation, and in 
many different defining dimensions (1994:48). 

A good police officer is one who is always clear about his or her 
objectives, and knows how to transition from an emergency response 
to a routine incident response, or from a criminal investigation to 
problem-solving. A good police manager is one who knows how to 
ensure that each situation is being handled with the right level of 
resources, and in the appropriate operational strategy. Making the links 
between and among the cells of this matrix is challenging and 
demands sophisticated police work and managementknowing, for 
example, when a pattern of routine incidents indicates a larger 
underlying problem that might lead to worse disruption of community 
life if not addressed, and then using the right level of resources and 
the right processes to address the situation. A good police department 
is one in which all operational and administrative systems are aligned 
and prepared to respond to the community's needs. Where policing 
often goes wrong is in failures to recognize and balance competing 
objectives, failures to recognize that a different operational strategy is 
required for a situation, and failures to use the right level of resources 
for a particular situation.97 Precisely because the dynamics of social 
conflict change so quickly, police organizations are seriously 
challenged to become highly sensitized to these changes and to 
respond appropriately. In its broadest sense, problem-oriented policing 
is a framework designed to help police meet this challenge. 

97I found an outstanding example of a police 
agency that tries to determine the appropriate 
operational strategy of response and operating 
level at the earliest possible time. The 
Merseyside, England, Police have created what 
they call incident management units (IMUs). The 
IMUs, staffed by police constables and analysts, 
receive notification of most nonemergency 
citizen complaints to the agency. Once they log 
a complaint, they begin a preliminary analysis of 
it to determine if it constitutes part of a larger 
problem. They then either try to address the 
problem, or forward the information to the 
appropriate operational personnel for follow-up 
(Merseyside Police n.d.). 


The above conceptualization of police work in terms of the 
interdependent relationships between and among objectives, 
operational strategies and operating levels is my own. Herman 
Goldstein conceptualizes these matters a bit differently than I do. In 
his view, problem-oriented policing is a mindset that transcends the 
operational strategies of preventive patrol, routine incident response, 
emergency response and criminal investigation. It is an analytical way 
of thinking about and addressing all of the business of policing. In 
his view, if all of the business of policing, including the handling of 
incidents, emergencies and criminal investigations, were subjected to a 
problem-oriented approach, it would ultimately inform the way the 
police perform those functions. For Goldstein, problem-solving is 


more like the research behind police operations. I see problem-solving 
more as part of police operations. Goldstein worries that my 
characterization of problem-solving as a distinct operational strategy 
of police work reduces it to a lower level of importance than is 
warranted, and detracts from the holistic nature of his approach. My 
intent is quite the opposite: In conceptualizing problem-solving as a 
distinct operational strategy of police work, I intend to elevate it to a 
level of importance and attention commensurate with that of 
preventive patrol, emergency response, routine incident response and 
criminal investigation. For most of the history of policing, problem-
solving has not been recognized as a distinct operational strategy of 
police work. I contend that, even since the advent of problem-
oriented policing, most police agencies still have not elevated problem-
solving to the level of the other operational strategies, failing to 
develop the formal systems needed to sustain it. Goldstein and I agree 
that the process of problem-solving is at least as important as the 
conventional processes the police use. 


How Should the Police Integrate the Need To Address 
Community Problems With the Desire To Improve 
Administrative and Procedural Processes? 

A problem-solving methodology can be applied to almost any 
endeavor requiring some critical thought before action. In the context 
of policing, problem-solving methods can be applied to community 
problems as well as to internal administrative and procedural 
problems. The mere application of a problem-solving process does 
not automatically render the undertaking a form of problem-oriented 
policing in Goldstein's terms. For example, a police department supply 
clerk could use a problem-solving process to work out difficulties 
ordering uniforms, but this would not make uniform acquisition part 
of problem-oriented policing. The problems to which Goldstein 
refers in problem-oriented policing are matters directly relating to the 
public's safety and security, not to the police agency's inner workings. 
Table 9 on the next page lists examples of what Goldstein refers to as 
substantive community problems, and examples of administrative 
and procedural processes. 

Similarly, the police can apply problem-solving to the process of 
investigating crimes or responding to emergencies, but if this results 
only in making these processes more efficient, without creating some 
overall improvements to the public's safety and security, it does not 
constitute problem-oriented policing. In Goldstein's terms, problem-
oriented policing entails making tangible improvements to the public's 
safety and security, and increasing police effectiveness, not merely 
making police processes less burdensome to the police and/or the 
public. 

Compared with other 
regulatory professions, the 
police have led the way in the 
early articulation and 
implementation of the problem-
oriented approach. The police, 
however, have since run into a 
specific obstacle, which is their 
general failure to construct the 
managerial systems that are 
required to run problem-solving 
at higher levels, and as the core 
of police operations. 

 Malcolm Sparrow 


Table 9 
Examples of Substantive Community Problems vs. Administrative and Procedural Problems 

Substantive Community Problems98 		    Administrative and Procedural Problems 

 Auto insurance frauds 			     Assigning cases for investigation 
 Auto thefts for export 			     Automating report writing 
 Auto thefts in mall parking lots 		     Constructing new police facilities 
 Auto thefts in parking garages 		     Controlling police misconduct 
 Auto thefts/larcenies in commuter lots 	     Eliminating discriminatory personnel practices 
 Bullying in high schools 			     Establishing satellite police offices 
 Burglaries at schools and recreation buildings     Evaluating personnel performance 
 Burglaries at storage facilities 		     Gaining accreditation 
 Burglaries at warehouses 			     Implementing bicycle patrol 
 Burglaries in the suburbs 			     Improving media relations 
 Burglaries/thefts in areas near high schools       Maintaining official records 
 Carjackings 					     Negotiating labor contracts 
 Crack houses and shooting galleries 		     Preparing a budget 
 Cruising (automobile) by youths 		     Preparing patrol deployment plans 
 Day laborers (problems due to congregation of)     Promoting and rewarding personnel 
 Disturbances/riots during local festivals 	     Purchasing equipment and supplies 
 Drug dealing and pay phones 			     Recruiting and managing citizen volunteers 
 Drug dealing in parks 			     Recruiting police officers 
 Drug dealing/prostitution in motels 		     Reorganizing the police department 
 Drug dealing to schoolchildren 		     Setting shift rotation schedules 
 Drug markets on the street 			     Storing evidence 
 Drunkenness and fights in entertainment districts  Streamlining booking procedures 
 False intrusion alarms 			     Upgrading communications technology 
 Fights and disturbances at bars/clubs 
 Fights/weapons in high schools 
 Gasoline drive-offs 
 Graffiti in commercial districts 
 Homeless people loitering in libraries and public buildings 
 Illicit sexual activity in public places 
 Motorists running red lights 
 Muggings/assaults around bus terminals 
 Panhandling in commercial districts 
 Pawn shops (trafficking in stolen property) 
 Private apartment complexes (problems in) 
 Prostitution strips 
 Public housing complexes (problems in) 
 Robberies at convenience stores 
 Robberies/purse-snatchings of tourists 
 Shoplifting by juveniles 
 Shoplifting by professionals 
 Squeegee men (intimidation, extortion by) 
 Telephone frauds and shoulder surfing at public transport terminals 
 Thefts from construction sites 

98This list of substantive problems is drawn 
from one Ronald Clarke, Michael Scott and Rana 
Sampson compiled for a funding proposal to the 
COPS Office (September 1999). 



The distinctions made earlier between problem-solving and problem-
oriented policing do not mean that the problem-solving applied to 
administrative issues or to promote procedural efficiency is not 
important. Indeed, the police have a continual obligation to use their 
resources as efficiently as possible, and problem-solving processes can 
help them do so. Using thoughtful, analytic methods to address 
administrative matters can sharpen those skills needed to address 
community problems. However, no amount of efficiency-driven 
problem-solving can substitute for the more important and more 
challenging application of problem-solving to community crime, 
disorder and fear. 

The application of problem-solving methods to administrative or 
procedural matters represents one of the most significant sources of 
confusion about problem-oriented policing.99 A significant proportion 
of the observable problem-solving undertaken today in the name of 
problem-oriented policing is not focused directly on community 
problems, but rather on police agencies' administrative concerns or 
operational inefficiencies.100 

99In the first few chapters of their book, Police 
As Problem Solvers, Toch and Grant present a 
generally faithful interpretation of Goldstein's 
concept of problem-oriented policing, and some 
useful insights into organizational obstacles to 
its implementation. However, they then proceed 
to describe, as an early example of problem-
oriented policing, an initiative undertaken by the 
Oakland, Calif., Police Department in the late 
1960s, in which line officers and researchers 
studied police-citizen conflict in Oakland, and 
developed programs to reduce it. Aside from the 
fact that the initiative occurred some 10 years 
before Goldstein wrote his first article on 
problem-oriented policing, the problem 
addressed was not a substantive community 
problem in the sense that Goldstein defines the 
term. The problem was certainly important, both 
to the police and to the citizens, and the 
officers' work was commendable, but the 
initiative is not a prime example of problem-
oriented policing in practice. Toch and Grant 
recognized the tension between the Oakland 
problem and the types of problems Goldstein 
had in mind, but ultimately concluded the 
initiative did constitute problem-oriented 
policing. I respectfully disagree. Although Toch 
and Grant also described some group problem-
solving Oakland police officers conducted 
regarding the police response to family violence, 
clearly a substantive problem, that effort did not 
reflect the sort of careful problem analysis 
Goldstein envisioned. 

100Another scholarly article seeks to apply the 
problem-oriented policing model to sex 
discrimination in police recruitment (Prenzler 
1997). While acknowledging the distinction 
between external and internal problems, the 
author argues that problem-oriented policing 
must address both. However important the sex 
discrimination problem, and however amenable 
it is to problem-solving analysis methods, 
defining this sort of inquiry as an example of 
problem-oriented policing stretches and distorts 
one of Goldstein's fundamental principles of 
problem-oriented policingthat the focus be on 
the community problems for which the police 
are responsible. 


Problem-oriented policing is only indirectly concerned with the 
administration of police work and with procedural efficiency. It is 
concerned with these matters only to the extent that they affect the 
quality of service the police provide to the public, and to the extent 
that administrative or operational improvements can actually 
contribute to increased public safety and security. Herein lies a real 
source of confusion and dilemmas for those trying to implement 
problem-oriented policing. To bring about a complete reorientation of 
policing, from an administrative and procedural focus to a substantive 
focus, many of the existing administrative processes need to change. 
Goldstein himself describes many of the administrative changes 
needed to effect this transformationfrom hiring processes to training, 
from records management to information sharing. Making the 
organizational and administrative changes necessary to support 
problem-oriented policing, however, is not the same as practicing 
problem-oriented policing. Only systematic and well-analyzed 
improvements in policies and practicesthose made to increase public 
safety and securityconstitute the essence of problem-oriented 
policing. All else, however important, is ancillary. 

It is difficult to overstate the extent to which administrative and 
political matters can consume the time and attention of the decision-
makers most responsible for public safety, including police 
administrators, other government agency administrators and 
legislators. Ironically, even when there is a deliberate move to adopt a 
problem orientation to policing or local government, the business of 
managing organizational change often crowds out the business of 





addressing actual community problems, at least among top decision-
makers. Personnel matters, budgets and administrative procedures 
usually dominate staff meeting and legislative agendas, leaving little 
room for engaged discussion about substantive public safety problems, 
and how they can be alleviated. Even the research on problem-
oriented and community policing is dominated by a focus on the 
processes of organizational change and the administration of these 
new styles of policing.101 There have been numerous federally funded 
studies related to implementing community and problem-oriented 
policing. They have ranged from surveys of departments claiming to 
have adopted some new style of policing, to site-specific studies of 
implementation. A considerable amount of the literature on problem-
oriented and community policing has addressed these matters.102 
Given the way the concepts of community and problem-oriented 
policing have been merged from the federal perspective, it is 
sometimes difficult to determine which studies focus specifically on 
problem-oriented policing. The literature on substantive community 
problems addressed using a problem-oriented approach is far less 
plentiful. 

Proponents and practitioners of problem-oriented policing have 
invested a lot of effort preparing police organizations to do problem-
oriented policing, by restructuring the organization, rewriting policies, 
upgrading technology, and developing training programs. The idea has 
been to realign the organizations to do the new kind of work. Much 
of the realignment has proven traumatic to the organizations' 
personnel. It certainly has in the several police organizations for which 
I have worked. Some of that realignment and resultant trauma may be 
inevitable. It may turn out, however, that the practice of problem-
oriented policing should precede the realignment of the organization. 
Without a clear understanding of what the final product isthe 
successful conclusion of problem-oriented policing initiatives that 
demonstrably improve public safetythe process of realignment is 
uncertain and threatening. Organizational change in police agencies 
should flow from the experiences of addressing community problems, 
in somewhat the same way that assembly-line processes in automobile 
manufacturing plants should flow from the design of the automobile. 
In short, form should follow function.103 

101At a recent conference on research and 
evaluation, sponsored by the U.S. Department of 
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, I noted 
significantly higher attendance at panels 
devoted to the study of organizational change in 
police departments than at those devoted to 
addressing substantive community problems. 

102See Goldstein (1990a: Chap. 9); Peak and 
Glensor (1999: Chap. 5-7); Geller and Swanger 
(1995); Wycoff and Skogan (1993); Oettmeier 
and Wycoff (1998); and Bittner (1990) for 
discussions of a range of issues related to 
implementing and managing problem-oriented 
policing. 

103Some private corporations and a few police 
agencies have explored new methods of 
effecting organizational change whereby 
analyses of critical organizational processes 
dictate changes to those processes and, 
perhaps, to the organization's structure. This 
approach is referred to as business process 
reengineering or core process redesign, and 
the specific methodology is known as process 
mapping. For a more in-depth discussion of the 
application of process mapping to police 
operations, and of its connection with problem-
oriented policing, see Challenge to Change: The 
21st Century Policing Project, by Craig Fraser, 
Michael Scott, John Heisey, and Robert 


Chapter 3 

Relating Problem-Oriented Policing to Other Movements in Police Reform 
and Crime Prevention 

The various schools of thought on modern police reform, as well as 
several parallel or complementary movements and theories, have 
significance for the problem-oriented policing movement.104 Some of 
these movements compete with problem-oriented policing for 
acceptance as a general model for improving policing, while others 
have nicely complemented problem-oriented policing, drawing from 
disciplines other than policing. I will briefly discuss the most 
significant of these movements and theories, and their relationship to 
problem-oriented policing. 

Team Policing 

Team policing, a loose collection of ideas about how the police might 
more effectively serve the public, is, in hindsight, seen as the precursor 
to contemporary community policing methods.105 Several key people, 
like Patrick Murphy, who advocated team policing methods also would 
later advocate community policing. Many U.S. police agencies tested 
and implemented team policing in its various forms in the 1970s and 
1980s, though its true origins are reportedly traceable to Aberdeen, 
Scotland, in the 1940s (Sherman, Milton and Kelly 1973). A number 
of large and medium-sized police agencies can today attribute 
geographic decentralization of their operations to team policing 
initiatives. The decentralization of authority, however, which was 
central to team policing's underlying theories, proved more threatening 
to many police executives, and did not survive as well as geographic 
decentralization. 

Few people today have declared team policing either an unqualified 
success or an unqualified failure (Walker 1993). There is general 
consensus today that team policing might have been a bit ahead of its 
time, but that many of its premises were and remain sound, and that it 
had sufficient appeal both to the community and to rank-and-file 
police officers. Indeed, several core features of team policing, such as 
stability of geographic assignment, unity of command, interaction 
between police and community, geographic decentralization of police 
operations, despecialization of police services, greater responsiveness 
to community concerns, some decentralization of internal decision-
making, and at least some shared decision-making with the 
community, are in place in many of today's police agencies. Even 
when these features fall short of what some might consider optimal, 
most police managers generally consider them desirable almost 30 
years after the advent of team policing. 

104These ideas, including problem-oriented 
policing, are variously referred to as 
movements, philosophies, models, paradigms, 
strategies, theories, programs, schools of 
thought, etc. Just what they should be called 
isn't certain, nor is it that important, but 
Goldstein clearly intended that problem-oriented 
policing be understood as something more 
comprehensive than a program, though nothing 
so grandiose as a philosophy. One observer 
interpreted Goldstein's writings as calling for an 
existential framework in policing. Whether 
they do or not, Goldstein never conceived of 
problem-oriented policing in such philosophical 
terms. 

105One scholar (Brodeur 1998a:vii) suggests that 
the concept of problem-oriented policing 
actually originated in the team policing 
initiatives of the early 1970s. This is not quite 
true, although there is a connection. As 
evidence of this connection, Brodeur cites a 
reference to the term problem-oriented in 
Sherman, Milton and Kelly's 1973 report on 
team policing (p. 16). Sherman was describing 
the team policing pilot project in the Dayton, 
Ohio, Police Department. It turns out, according 
to Herman Goldstein, that before starting the 
team policing project, several Dayton police 
officials attended seminars at the University of 
Wisconsin Law School. During those seminars, 
University of Wisconsin police scholars like 
Goldstein and Frank Remington were introducing 
the notion of a problem-oriented focus to 
policing, a notion that grew out of their work on 
the American Bar Foundation surveys of criminal 
justice from the 1950s. Goldstein had not yet 
formulated his full-fledged concept of problem-
oriented policing, but it is clear the seeds of the 
idea have a long history and remain entirely 
associated with Goldstein's work. Brodeur 
traces the links between Goldstein's earlier 
work and his subsequent work in problem-
oriented policing in Chapter 2 of the publication 
(Brodeur 1998b). 




Community Policing 

The term community policing began to appear in the professional 
literature around the mid-1970s. Pioneering police departments, like 
the Santa Ana Police Department, used the knowledge acquired from 
team policing experiments to expand some of the elements more 
broadly into the department's routine operations and into how the 
police solicited active community participation in preventing crime 
(Sherwood 1977).106 

Much has since been written about the relationship of community 
policing to problem-oriented policing.107 It is beyond the scope of this 
writing to explore all the distinctions and similarities, except to 
summarize some arguments Goldstein made about the distinctions.108 

106The Flint, Mich., Police Department's Foot 
Patrol Experiment, begun in 1979, was 
instrumental in the subsequent formation of the 
National Neighborhood Foot Patrol Center (later 
renamed the National Center for Community 
Policing), housed at Michigan State University. 
Founded and led by Professor Robert 
Trojanowicz, this center became a prominent 
source of community policing training, 
publications and advocacy. 

107For discussions of the distinctions between 
community policing and problem-oriented 
policing, see Brodeur (1998b), Skolnick and 
Bayley (1988), Toch and Grant (1991, Chap. 11), 
and Greene and Mastrofski (1988). 

108See Goldstein (1985b, 1990a:21-27) for his 
explanation of the distinctions between 
problem-oriented and community policing. 

Most obviously, according to Goldstein, problem-oriented policing 
primarily emphasizes the substantive societal problems the police are 
held principally responsible for addressing; community policing 
primarily emphasizes having the police engage the community in the 
policing process. Under problem-oriented policing, how the police and 
the community engage one another will and should depend on the 
specific problem they are trying to address, rather than being defined 
in a broad and abstract sense. Community policing implies that 
responses to problems will involve some sort of collaborative or 
cooperative working relationship between the police and the 
community. Problem-oriented policing allows for this possibility, but 
does not imply that such arrangements are always necessary or 
appropriate for addressing every problem.109 Carefully analyzing 
problems before developing new response strategies is given greater 
weight and importance under problem-oriented policing than under 
community policing. Problem-oriented policing specifically promotes 
using alternatives to the formal criminal justice system, redefining the 
nature of the police's relationship to this and other systems; 
community policing does not explicitly address this relationship. 
Community policing strongly emphasizes organizing and mobilizing 
the community, almost to the point that doing so becomes a central 
function of the police; problem-oriented policing advocates such 
efforts only if they are warranted in the specific context of addressing 
a particular problem. Under community policing, certain features of 
police organizational structure and policy, like geographic 
decentralization and continuity in officer assignments to 
neighborhoods, are deemed essential; under problem-oriented 
policing, many of these features are seen as helpful, but not 
essentialproblem-oriented policing can be done under a variety of 
organizational arrangements. Community policing emphasizes that the 
police share more decision-making authority with the community; 


problem-oriented policing seeks to preserve more ultimate decision-
making authority for the police, even while encouraging the police to 
solicit input from outside the department. Problem-oriented policing 
emphasizes officers' intellectual and analytical skills; community 
policing emphasizes their interpersonal skills. Finally, community 
policing expands the police's role to advance large and ambitious 
social objectives, such as promoting peaceful coexistence, enhancing 
neighborhood quality of life, promoting racial and ethnic harmony, 
and strengthening democratic community governance; problem-
oriented policing is more cautious, emphasizing that the police are 
more limited in their capacity to achieve these goals than many people 
imagine, and guards against unrealistic expectations of the police 
(Goldstein 1992).110 These selected general comparisons are 
summarized in Table 10. 

109The Chicago Police Department has invested 
heavily in developing and delivering training 
programs to community groups, instructing them 
in problem-solving methods. The department 
has reportedly trained over 12,000 residents in a 
two-year span (Hartnett and Skogan 1999). 
Getting community members to understand the 
principles of problem-solving no doubt has some 
merit, but it is no substitute for the sort of 
problem analysis Goldstein advocates that 
police and trained researchers conduct. 
Moreover, from my own experiences developing 
and delivering problem-solving training to St. 
Louis community groups, doing so is a large 
undertaking that does not yield significant or 
immediate improvements in the quantity or 
quality of problem-oriented initiatives. 


110Some scholars and observers who have 
merged the concepts of community and 
problem-oriented policing erroneously ascribe 
the more ambitious goals of community policing 
to problem-oriented policing, as well (see, for 
example, Alpert and Moore 1998). 

Table 10 
Selected Comparisons Between Problem-Oriented Policing and Community Policing Principles 

-Principle 
-Problem-Oriented Policing 
-Community Policing 

-Primary emphasis 
-Substantive social problems within police mandate 
-Engaging the community in the policing process 

-When police and community collaborate 
-Determined on a problem by problem basis 
-Always or nearly always 

-Emphasis on problem analysis 
-Highest priority given to thorough analysis 
-Encouraged, but less important than community collaboration 

-Preference for responses 
-Strong preference that alternatives to criminal law enforcement be explored 
-Preference for collaborative responses with community 

-Role for police in organizing and mobilizing community 
-Advocated only if warranted within the context of the specific problem being addressed 
-Emphasizes strong role for police 

-Importance of geographic decentralization of police and continuity of officer assignment to community 
-Preferred, but not essential 
-Essential 

-Degree to which police share decision-making authority with community 
-Strongly encourages input from community while preserving ultimate decision-making authority to police 
-Emphasizes sharing decision-making authority with community 

-Emphasis on officers' skills 
-Emphasizes intellectual and analytical skills 
-Emphasizes interpersonal skills 

-View of the role or mandate of police 
-Encourages broad, but not unlimited role for police, stresses limited capacities of police and 
guards against creating unrealistic expectations of police 
-Encourages expansive role for police to achieve ambitious social objectives 


The practice of problem-
solving seems to have stalled, 
partly because it has not been 
sufficiently distinguished from 
its frequent companion 
(community policing), and has 
therefore been viewed by many 
police agencies as a question of 
professional style for beat-level 
officers, and not a central 
challenge for the departmental 
management structure. Some 
problems that the police must 
address don't lend themselves 
to the sort of community 
partnership responses 
envisioned by community 
policing, and for those kinds of 
problems, problem-solving has 
been less well-developed. 
Those problems nonetheless 
are amenable to problem-
solving interventions. 

 Malcolm Sparrow 

From the perspective of those committed to problem-oriented 
policing as a framework for police reform, the community policing 
movement has been a mixed blessing. On the positive side, the general 
idea of community policing has been enormously popular with the 
general public and, consequently, with elected officials. More 
specifically, the promise to the public of more access to the police, 
more police presence in the community, and greater police 
responsiveness to community concerns largely accounts for 
community policing's popular appeal. This popularity has translated 
into substantial financial and authoritative support for a wide range of 
programs, policies, training, and research, some of which has also 
benefited the problem-oriented policing movement. As noted above, 
to the extent that problem-solving has become at least a central 
feature of most conceptualizations of community policing, problem-
oriented policing has benefited from greater attention to this analytical 
aspect of police work. Community policing's emphasis on improving 
the general relationship of the police to the community at large, to 
minority communities and to organized community groups has 
undoubtedly helped the police be more effective in their efforts to 
address particular community problems in a problem-oriented 
framework. This is no small achievement of the community policing 
movement. 

On the negative side, the most politically popular features of 
community policing have not been the behind-the-scenes analyses of 
community problems, but the more visible programs that put police 
officers in all kinds of unconventional settingson foot and bicycles, 
in classrooms, in community meetings, at youth recreation functions, 
etc.and that have police officers providing unconventional services to 
the public, such as educating, mentoring and relating to youth. The 
attraction to these aspects of community policing has drawn some 
financial and authoritative support away from the analytical aspects of 
problem-oriented policing. The popularity of community policing has 
helped problem-oriented policing gain a degree of attention it might 
otherwise not have so quickly, but has reduced it to the level of a 
simplified analytical process for guiding police activities. The challenge 
for problem-oriented policing advocates will be to maintain support 
for the further development of the concept's less visible, but more 
critical, elements. 

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design 

Criminologist C. Ray Jeffery first articulated the concept of crime 
prevention through environmental design (CPTED) in 1971. Along 
with Jane Jacobs (1961) and Oscar Newman (1972), Jeffery recognized 
the importance of urban planning, building design and landscape 


architecture in controlling and preventing crime and disorder 
(National Crime Prevention Council 1997). CPTED is increasingly 
becoming essential knowledge and practice. A growing number of 
police agencies are developing in-house expertise in CPTED, and 
using that expertise to influence the design and use of land, buildings 
and other public spaces so that they are less prone to crime. CPTED, 
while existing as an independent method for analyzing and addressing 
crime problems closely tied to a geographic setting, has supported the 
movement toward problem-oriented policing (Saville 1999). 
Conversely, problem-oriented policing has reinforced the concept of 
CPTED. It has allowed police officers and others who make design 
decisions to view crime control from an entirely new perspective other 
than law enforcement. It has let them see, in tangible ways, a whole 
range of methods to prevent, or at least reduce, crime. Once exposed 
to the CPTED principles and methods, many police officers find 
themselves more open to understanding problem-oriented policing's 
broader implications. Many police agencies now train officers in 
CPTED and have them sit on local planning review boards. 


Situational Crime Prevention 

Situational crime prevention is perhaps the single most important 
intellectual development that reinforces and informs the problem-
oriented policing movement (Tilley 1999). Its early articulation 
precedes Goldstein's articulation of problem-oriented policing. The 
two concepts developed independently, and then began to influence 
one another. Situational crime prevention is a relatively new branch of 
criminology, originating in England, that also has built and expanded 
on the concepts of CPTED and defensible space.111 Ron Clarke 
(1993)112 succinctly described it as an approach to crime prevention 
that is directed at highly specific forms of crime and involves the 
management, design or manipulation of the immediate environment 
in as systematic and permanent a way as possible so as to increase the 
effort and risks of crime, and reduce the rewards as perceived by a 
wide range of offenders. More simply put, it refocuses crime 
prevention away from deterrence and rehabilitation-based efforts to 
change offenders' underlying attitudes and behaviors, and toward more 
situation-specific methods of convincing offenders that committing a 
particular crime in a particular place at a particular time is not 
worthwhile. 

111At least in the United Kingdom, the concepts 
of crime prevention and situational crime 
prevention are seen as related but distinct, 
with the former seen as the more 
comprehensive. 

112For a brief and highly comprehensible review 
of the theories underlying situational crime 
prevention, see Felson and Clarke (1998). See, 
also, Clarke (1993). 

The ideas of situational crime prevention theorists like Ronald Clarke 
and Marcus Felson (see Clarke and Felson 1993, and Felson 1994) 
have significantly influenced a number of police scholars, who in turn 
are communicating the concepts to police practitioners. Many of the 
core elements of situational crime prevention parallel the core 





114Some writers seek to align problem-oriented 
policing with their own favored criminological 
theories, but usually distort the concept in the 
process. Fyfe et al. (1997) assert that problem-
oriented policing supports a social conditions 
theory of crime in which economic deprivation 
is seen as a primary cause of crime. They do so 
by arguing that the police should educate and 
inspire others to improve social conditions. 
Whether or not Goldstein would agree with this 
proposition, his concept of problem-oriented 
policing is not so explicitly linked to this theory 
of crime. 

elements of problem-oriented policing. Herman Goldstein and Ron 
Clarke have formed a sort of intellectual partnership, advancing the 
development of problem-oriented policing and situational crime 
prevention, respectively, while drawing heavily on one another's ideas 
(see Goldstein 1990a and Clarke 1998). In one respect, problem-
oriented policing is the broader concept, not limited to crime 
problems, but also concerned with the full range of social disorder 
problems the police must address. In another sense, situational crime 
prevention is the broader concept, not limited to police actions, but 
concerned with the actions of any entity capable of preventing crime. 
Given the high degree of congruence of these two concepts, and the 
cross-fertilization of ideas, it is reasonable to assume that the two 
concepts will continue to fuse. Ideally, this fusion will continue to 
bring the scholars and practitioners of crime prevention closer to the 
scholars and practitioners of policing. 

Situational crime prevention has its theoretical roots in criminology. It 
starts from an intellectual interest in how to get offenders to curtail 
their crime. It is derived mainly from two theories of crimeroutine 
activity theory and rational choice theory.113 Problem-oriented policing, 
on the other hand, has its roots in public administration and political 
science. It starts from an intellectual interest in how to get the police 
to be more effective in carrying out their functions in democratic 
societies. Problem-oriented policing as a distinct model of police 
reform evolved out of Herman Goldstein's early involvement in the 
American Bar Foundation Survey of Criminal Justice of the 1950s. 
Thus, in one sense problem-oriented policing is only 20 years old, but 
its intellectual heritage is several decades older. The findings and 
conclusions that emerged from the survey provided much of the 
intellectual foundation for problem-oriented policing (see Goldstein 
1993b). 

113Routine activity theory holds that predatory 
crime requires a convergence in time and space 
of a likely offender, a suitable target, and the 
absence of a capable guardian against crime. 
The rational choice perspective holds that 
offenders make rational choices to commit 
crimes, even if their information is imperfect or 
their calculations flawed. A related theory, 
crime pattern theory, looks at how people 
interact with the physical environment in terms 
of nodes, paths and edges (where they go, what 
routes they take, and the intersections of 
familiar surroundings of different groups of 
people) (Felson and Clarke 1998). 

Problem-oriented policing has at times been criticized for lacking a 
criminological theory for its foundation. This criticism presumes that a 
theory for improving police service must first set forth a theory for 
preventing crime. This, however, is a far more ambitious, and perhaps 
unrealistic, goal to which problem-oriented policing never aspired. 
Moreover, any proposal to improve the quality of policing must 
address the full range of police tasks and responsibilities, and not 
merely the control of serious crime. 

Problem-oriented policing is best understood as a framework for 
organizing the police and their activities so that the police are better 
positioned to learn how to prevent crime and disorder, and to apply 
that knowledge. It has no explicit preference for one criminological 
theory over others.114 It seeks to leave the police open to 
understanding various criminological theories, and experimenting with 


practical applications of those theories to determine what works best 
under what circumstances. This is not to say that problem-oriented 
policing proponents do not have favored criminological theories. 
Indeed, among the reasons there has been so much cross-fertilization 
of ideas between problem-oriented policing and situational crime 
prevention is that problem-oriented proponents have found merit in 
the theories underlying situational crime prevention, and police 
practitioners find the situational crime prevention studies relevant to 
their own work. But if those theories were ultimately proven wrong, it 
is unlikely that problem-oriented policing advocates would similarly 
conclude that the problem-oriented approach was also wrong. It 
would merely add to the knowledge base from which police 
practitioners could draw to guide their strategic decisions. 


Crime Analysis and Compstat 

Many police agencies have systematically analyzed reported crime data 
for a number of reasonsto identify potential suspects in specific 
crimes, to spot geographic and temporal crime trends, and to generally 
report crime and account for police responses to it. However, crime 
analysis, as it has conventionally been practiced, is quite different from 
problem analysis in several respects. Crime analysis focused on Part I 
Index crimes; problem analysis extends to any and all forms of crime 
and disorder. Crime analysis was used principally to identify offenders 
or predict the next crime in a pattern. Problem analysis is used to 
bring about more permanent reductions in the levels or severity of 
problems. Crime analysis concentrated on police activities to address 
crime. Problem analysis explores the whole community's response to 
the problem. Some agencies now have their crime analysts engaged in 
broader problem analysis, though mainly by providing, on request, 
statistical reports and analyses to those line officers leading problem-
solving initiatives. 

Currently, one of the most prominent and popularized crime analysis 
methods is one patterned after the New York City Police 
Department's Compstat method (Giuliani and Safir n.d.). Increasingly, 
as news of the New York method spreads, police agencies are 
replicating Compstat.115 In essence, Compstat is a crime analysis 
method by which computerized crime statistics are analyzed and 
presented to operational commanders, who are then responsible for 
developing operational tactics to respond to emerging crime patterns. 
The degree to which this basic method is consistent with problem-
oriented policing depends entirely on the details of how it is practiced. 

When statistics related only to reported Part I crimes are analyzed, the 
method has little in common with problem-oriented policing. 

115The Police Foundation is currently studying 
the elements of Compstat and how the concept 
is being implemented in police agencies across 
the U.S. 


Mapping, however, is actually 
a bit of a red herring. It can 
even be unhelpful. I worry that 
people are becoming obsessed 
with maps and their pretty 
colors, without thinking much 
about what information they 
contain or what can be learned 
from them. The technology 
itself becomes what is 
fascinating, rather than the 
knowledge to be gained from it. 
So technology can at times 
inhibit the development of 
problem-oriented policing, 
because it stops people from 
thinking. 

 Gloria Laycock 

Problem-oriented policing specifically calls for a broad inquiry into 
many types of community problems demanding police attention. It 
also calls for analyzing multiple sources of information to develop a 
fuller understanding of each problem. Where a Compstat-style 
method results in commanders' selecting from among a limited and 
conventional set of responses to address problems, such as extra 
patrol or increased enforcement, it also departs radically from a 
problem-oriented methodology. Problem-oriented policing calls for a 
broad and uninhibited search for responses to particular problems, 
placing special emphasis on responses that minimize the need for the 
police to use force and large-scale arrest campaigns. A Compstat-style 
method can foster a hostile atmosphere, more like an inquisition than 
an inquiry; in this sense, it also differs from problem-oriented policing. 
Problem-oriented policing, while stressing accountability, also places a 
high priority on the free exchange of ideas, an exchange that is 
difficult to achieve in a tension-filled and rigidly hierarchical setting. 
Finally, a Compstat-style method relies exclusively on police analysis of 
data and results in decisions made exclusively by the police; in this 
sense, it also does not resemble problem-oriented policing. Problem-
oriented policing puts a high premium on communication, 
consultation and collaboration with entities outside the police 
department at all stages of the planning process. 

Ideally, a Compstat-style method would be entirely consistent with 
problem-oriented policing. As one way to identify specific problems, a 
computer-generated pattern of crimes would be only the beginning of 
a more in-depth and broader analysis of the nature of the problems, 
their underlying conditions and the limits of current responses. For 
example, if computerized systems recognized a sudden spate of 
incidents classified as robberies in a police precinct, this information 
would not be used merely to mobilize conventional police responses 
like stakeouts and extra patrol, but instead might launch a closer 
analysis of the incidents that could reveal several discrete forms of 
problems, all related to the crime of robbery, each calling for a 
different set of responses. 

This should not be understood as an attack on the Compstat method. 
For many police agencies, this method is a significant advancement in 
the use of crime data to inform operational decisions. Problem-
oriented policing, however, is a considerably more sophisticated and 
involved approach to handling police business than a Compstat 
method simplistically practiced. 

Hot-Spot Policing and Crime Mapping 

Over the last decade, many police scholars and practitioners have 
developed theories and applications for understanding crime and 


disorder in terms of geographic patterns. This has been in part 
fostered by research that shows that reported crime and disorder tend 
not to be evenly distributed across the landscape, but concentrated 
significantly in certain areas. Researchers have since developed many 
tools to allow the police to map these concentrations, to better 
understand crime and disorder and direct their resources in response. 
The basic idea is hardly new in policing, though the technology has 
made such mapping infinitely more possible and potentially useful. Its 
practical utility depends as much on how the data are organized, what 
questions are asked about the data, and what conclusions are drawn 
from the data as it does the volume of data and computing power and 
sophistication. Because of the new computer mapping technology, 
crime mapping has reached new levels of prominence in many police 
operations. It is becoming a specialized field in policing.116 

116The National Institute of Justice established 
the Crime Mapping Research Center in 1997, 
and the Police Foundation recently established 
the Computer Mapping Laboratory. For further 
reading on crime mapping and its implications 
for crime prevention, see Weisburd and 
McEwen (1998), and for its implications for 
policing, see Harries (1990) and Greene (1998b). 
See, also, La Vigne and Wartell (1998), Reuland 
(1997), and Block, Dabdoub and Fregly (1995). 

Crime mapping and its links to crime prevention can strongly support 
problem-oriented policing (La Vigne 1999; La Vigne and Wartell 1999; 
Taxman and McEwen 1998). Crime mapping is enabling police 
practitioners and researchers to think about crime and disorder and 
their relationship to other geographic phenomena in ways that were 
previously unimagined or impractical. Problem-oriented policing 
specifically calls for, among other things, an analysis of police 
incidents in terms of location as a potentially useful way to aggregate 
incidents into clusters. A spatial incident pattern can help stimulate a 
better understanding of the underlying causes of certain community 
problems. Crime mapping also fits well with situational crime 
prevention, in which understanding crime in the specific context of its 
location is critical. For example, crime maps might reveal a pattern of 
storage-facility burglaries, and that revelation might then prompt a 
closer analysis of those facilities' physical layout and management. 
Seldom will crime mapping alone suffice as problem analysis, but it is 
a potentially useful analytical tool. 

The spatial and temporal concentration of crime and disorder has led 
some scholars to propose what they call hot-spot policing. Hot-spot 
policing, in essence, requires that the police concentrate their attention 
and resources on places where and times when there is a significantly 
high volume of demand for police services. At this basic level of 
understanding, the idea also is compatible with problem-oriented 
policing. 

Crime mapping and hot-spot policing, however, are not 
comprehensive approaches to policing, as is problem-oriented 
policing. Using mapping as an exclusive means to identify and analyze 
community problems would leave many problems hidden, and 
artificially limit the analysis of even those problems with some spatial 
patterns. Many problems the police must contend with do not lend 





themselves to spatial concentrations, and thus will not show up on any 
hot-spot maps. Crimes such as credit card fraud, domestic violence or 
child abuse are prevalent throughout jurisdictions. Overreliance on 
mapping limits police inquiries to data that can be mapped, and much 
of the information the police need to get a complete and accurate 
picture of community problems is not readily captured in data that are 
mapped. To the extent that those who use computerized maps to 
analyze problems become fascinated by the technology itself, there is a 
risk that the reliability of the data underlying the maps will be taken 
for granted. In fact, a lot of police data relating to the location of 
crimes and incidents are ripe for misinterpretation.117 

Broken Windows and Zero Tolerance 

The basic notion underlying what some have called the broken 
windows theory of crime and disorder is that, by having the police 
and community address the many minor community incivilities and 
signs of neglect, more serious crimes and disorder will be prevented 
(Wilson and Kelling 1982, 1989).118 This idea has spawned as a 
consequence, intended or not, an idea popularly referred to as zero 
tolerance.119 Zero tolerance indicates that the police will restrict or 
eliminate the use of discretion in enforcement, that they will enforce 
laws as strictly as possible within their means. The idea is also 
popularly linked with the perceived practices of the New York City 
Police Department during much of the 1990s. 

Whatever merits the broken windows theory and zero tolerance 
strategy may have, how these ideas have developed in practice has little 
in common with problem-oriented policing.120 In so many respects, 
the idea of zero tolerance is antithetical to problem-oriented policing. 
If Herman Goldstein has stood for nothing else in his academic 
career, it is that the police, of necessity and largely for good cause, 
exercise enormous discretion in choosing which laws to enforce, 
when, where, and how (Goldstein 1963, 1977, 1990a, 1993b). 
Problem-oriented policing builds on that premise, drawing into 
enforcement decisions even greater input from the community, 
prosecutors and other government officials. Optimally, the refined use 
of the police's arrest powers and the exploration of the many 
alternatives to arrest will result in less reliance on criminal sanctions to 
address crime and disorder. Problem-oriented policing does allow that 
brief periods of concentrated law enforcement might be entirely 
appropriate to intervene in and disrupt a pattern of crime or disorder, 
but rejects the wholesale adoption of anything like zero tolerance law 
enforcement as a standing remedy for most community problems. 

117The address from where an incident is 
reported is easily confused with the address 
where the incident occurred. Consequently, the 
locations of public pay phones often appear to 
be hot spots of activity merely because many 
people use such phones to report incidents to 
the police. Many other incidents are attributed 
to nonspecific addresses, such as those 
occurring in large open spaces like parks and 
wooded areas. Computer-aided dispatch data 
require careful interpretation in order to reach 
valid conclusions. 

118Recently published research indicated there 
is no strong evidence that either social or 
physical incivilities in a neighborhood 
significantly affect residents' fear of crime, 
neighborhood decline or incidence of crime. The 
researchers concluded that study results warn 
against problem-oriented policing or community-
oriented policing efforts that concentrate too 
heavily on fixing physical problems as a way to 
revitalize a neighborhood or reduce residents' 
fear. Neighborhood status and low crime are 
more important than 'broken windows' in a 
neighborhood for long-term stability and low 
fear (Taylor 1999). 

119A number of writers and observers have 
asserted a connection between the broken 
windows and zero tolerance concepts, but 
George Kelling, one of the originators of the 
broken windows theory, does not endorse it 
(Rosen 1999, Goldstein 1999). Nonetheless, 
politicians and lay observers often view broken 
windows and zero tolerance as the same 
concept, and furthermore, both are often held 
out as an alternative to community policing (see 
Massing 1998). 

120The broken windows thesis actually evolved 
out of some highly specific problem-solving 
efforts in the New York City subway system, in 
which George Kelling participated, but over time 
the concept lost its problem-specific focus. For a 
critique and refutation of the broken windows 
thesis, see Sampson (1999) and Harcourt (1998). 
For a more detailed critique of the principles 
underlying zero tolerance and ordermaintenance 
policing, see Cole (1999). For a 
critique of the New York City Police 
Department's zero tolerance strategy, and a 
comparison with the San Diego Police 
Department's neighborhood and problem-
oriented policing strategies, see Greene (1999). 
For further discussion of the distinction between 
zero tolerance and problem-oriented policing, 
see Cordner (1998). For a critique of the zero 
tolerance concept and an explicit distinction of 
it from problem-oriented policing, see Goldstein 
(1999). 


Summary 

All these movements in the realm where policing, crime prevention 
and research intersect, from community policing to zero tolerance, 
have influenced, and been influenced by, problem-oriented policing. 
Some of these movements can be said to be variations on themes 
found in problem-oriented policing, emphasizing one or another 
element. Much of what is referred to as community policing or 
community-oriented policing121 is but a variation on problem-oriented 
policing themes. Other movements are more properly understood not 
as rival comprehensive theories of policing, but as specialized trends 
that, properly used, support a problem-oriented approach. Crime 
mapping is such an example. Yet other movements, like zero tolerance, 
while purporting to be a variation on problem-oriented policing, in 
practice are countermovements that reject problem-oriented policing's 
most basic premises. 

121Most uses of the terms community-oriented 
policing and neighborhood-oriented policing 
appeared after Goldstein coined the term 
problem-oriented policing. Goldstein chose this 
term carefully because he fully intended that the 
police organize and align their actions (i.e., 
orient their actions) around the notion of 
problems. It is less clear whether those who use 
the terms community-oriented policing and 
neighborhood-oriented policing similarly intend 
that the police should organize and align their 
actions around communities or neighborhoods, 
and if so, what that means, exactly. Efforts to 
understand the literal meaning of these terms 
help expose these concepts' strengths and 
deficiencies. 


Chapter 4 

Major Challenges to Advancing Problem-Oriented Policing 

In the 20 years since Herman Goldstein first proposed his problem-
oriented approach to policing, we have learned a lot about how it can 
and might be implemented and improved. We have learned more, 
perhaps, about the limits of reform than about the successes of 
reform, but in the whole history of policing, that seems always the 
case. The development of problem-oriented policing in the past 20 
years is encouraging even though quite limited. Perhaps this is to be 
expected given that the police profession, certainly as compared to 
most other professions, is relatively young and still in an early 
developmental stage. It is still developing systems, standards and 
methods for accumulating and applying research knowledge to 
practice. Police, government and community leaders must come to 
appreciate the value that research can add to their decision-making 
about how to address complex problems of crime, disorder and fear. 
They must reflect thoughtfully on complex problems, even in the face 
of demands for immediate action, and resist adopting simplistic 
responses. Problem-oriented policing's full potential will not be 
achieved in a climate of haste and impatience. 

Problem-oriented policing, as an idea rather than a program, has no 
particular central institution controlling or guiding its development, if 
indeed that is desirable or feasible. No single institution controls the 
operations and administration of the thousands of U.S. police 
agencies. Various efforts at implementation have focused on different 
aspects of problem-oriented policing. Certain aspects are especially 
appealing or relevant to different police agencies and research 
organizations at various times. Considerable progress has been made 
with respect to some aspects of the concept, and less with respect to 
others. 

We have many more police 
agencies and officers involved 
in problem-solving, and there 
are many exceptional efforts at 
addressing problems. But for 
the most part, no one has taken 
what was done by Herman 
Goldstein or by the Newport 
News Police Department and 
expanded upon it in any 
substantial manner. 

 John Eck 

Setting an Agenda for Avancing Problem-Oriented Policing 

There are only a few institutions capable of setting a national agenda 
for the advancement of problem-oriented policing, but to date, no 
institutions have done so. Several have incorporated parts of 
Goldstein's vision into their overall agendas. 

The National Institute of Justice funded the Madison pilot project in 
problem-oriented policing in the early 1980s, and has since funded a 
number of other projects and initiatives related to problem-oriented 
policing. The COPS Office made problem-solving a component of 





its funding programs through a wide range of initiatives falling under 
the general definition of community policing. So while some NIJ, 
COPS Office and other Department of Justice funding has clearly 
helped advance problem-oriented policing, it cannot be said that 
problem-oriented policing is the central component of any of these 
agencies' agendas (National Institute of Justice 1999; Office of Justice 
Programs 1998; Office of Community Oriented Policing Services 
1999).122 

122NIJ's former director, Jeremy Travis, wrote 
about the need for the federal research 
community to engage in more problem-oriented 
research of the type conducted by Harvard 
University and the Boston Police Department in 
Operation Cease-Fire. He wrote, The research 
profession needs to catch up with policing and 
to define a role in the problem-solving process 
(1999). 

Initially, PERF was the primary institution advancing problem-
oriented policing, much of it through Department of Justice funding. 
In PERF's early years, when Gary Hayes, a former student of 
Goldstein's, was the executive director, problem-oriented policing was 
a priority on PERF's research agenda. During this time, the Madison, 
London, Baltimore County, and Newport News experiments in 
problem-oriented policing were launched. After Hayes' untimely death, 
PERF continued to advance problem-oriented policing when 
Newport News' police chief, Darrel Stephens, took over as executive 
director. Projects replicating the Newport News study were launched, 
out of which grew the annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference 
and strong San Diego Police Department leadership. The conference 
gave problem-oriented policing some base of support that was only 
partially tied to PERF's research agenda. Although conference 
attendance continued to grow, further research and experimentation in 
problem-oriented policing have been less prominent parts of PERF's 
research agenda after Stephens' tenure. Problem-oriented policing 
principles and methods are still incorporated into many of PERF's 
current projects, programs and publications, but few are as directly 
related to advancing the practice of problem-oriented policing as were 
the early projects. 

Herman Goldstein has set forth his own priorities for seeing the 
concept further developed, but as yet those priorities have not been 
translated into a coherent policy agenda for the profession. Goldstein 
has proposed a national agenda to support problem-oriented policing 
(Goldstein 1993a, 1994a, 1994b; see, also, Rosen 1999), though several 
elements remain largely unaddressed. Goldstein has proposed the 
following major elements to a research and technical support agenda. 

 Fund and promote applied research on specific community 
problems, including experimentation with different response 
strategies. 
 Publish case studies of effective practices related to specific 
community problems. 
 Compile, synthesize and disseminate research and practice related 
to specific community problems. 
 Develop high-quality training programs and materials for various 
audiences. 



 Develop materials to better communicate the concept to various 
audiences. 
 Help police agencies develop capabilities to do problem-oriented 
research. 
 Develop guidance in the analysis of problems and evaluation of 
results. 
 Identify and develop information technology that supports 
problem-oriented policing. 
 Train researchers to conduct problem-oriented research. 
 Explore internal and external organizational issues related to 
implementing problem-oriented policing. 


Among the many questions and concerns about the future of policing 
and the future of problem-oriented policing, I raise and address those 
I think are the most critical for advancing the concept. Many of the 
items in Goldstein's agenda are reflected in this discussion as well. The 
first set of questions relate to how the problem-oriented policing 
concept and substantive knowledge about community problems will 
be advanced and shared. The second set of questions relate to the role 
those other than the police must play if problem-oriented policing is 
to be practiced effectively and fairly. 

One of the strengths of the 
concept is its simplicity, so it's 
hard to understand why it's so 
difficult for some people and 
agencies to do it Those who 
struggle with the concept tend 
not to appreciate the value of 
data, the time it takes to make 
use of it, and the patience 
required to reflect on the real 
nature of problems. 

 Gloria Laycock 

Advancing Problem-Oriented Policing Through Training, 
Research and Practice 

How Will the Principles and Methods of Problem-Oriented Policing 
Be Taught? 

Training in the principles and methods of problem-oriented policing 
for the many different audiences who might benefit from it remains 
sporadic and of varying quality. PERF continues to offer training in 
problem-oriented policing, some of which is now offered under the 
auspices of the Community Policing Consortium. The Community 
Policing Consortium has produced a standard training curriculum in 
community policing, one module of which is an eight-hour session on 
community problem-solving that was developed principally by 
PERF. The written curriculum adheres to the basic problem-oriented 
policing model. A short training course, however good, cannot 
possibly convey a complete understanding of, and proficiency with, 
the principles and methods of problem-oriented policing anymore 
than a short course could suffice to make police officers proficient in 
any other police operational strategy. The Community Policing 
Consortium also produced a six-part video series on community 
policing and problem-solving. Like the written curriculum, the series 
adheres to the basic problem-oriented policing model and is useful for 
an introductory-level audience. PERF and the Community Policing 





Consortium now offer some of this training on-line. In the absence of 
other high-quality, professionally developed training materials, many 
problem-oriented policing trainers continue to rely on an ad hoc 
collection of training videos and handouts. Some of these training 
videos are now almost 15 years old, still in use for want of anything 
better or more recent. 

At least 13 of the approximately 30 regional community policing 
institutes that were provided start-up funding by the COPS Office 
provide training in problem-solving, but the institutes had 
considerable latitude to design their own curricula and courses. Some 
institutes reportedly provide good-quality training in problem-oriented 
policing, and regional agencies heavily depend on them. While there 
were good and valid reasons to encourage innovation and local control 
of the institutes' curricula, it is unfortunate that the institutes' training 
in problem-oriented policing was not mandated and standardized.123 
Mandating training in problem-oriented policing would have ensured a 
wider exposure of the concept to the field and standardizing the 
problem-oriented policing curriculum would have ensured greater 
control over the quality of the instruction. 

Much of the balance of national training programs in problem-
oriented policing is provided by small training and consulting firms, 
and individuals. A few colleges and universities also offer courses 
related to problem-oriented policing.124 So while a number of 
organizations offer courses in problem-oriented policing, the number 
of training experts remains remarkably small. Even in police agencies 
that offer training courses in problem-solving as part of their 
preservice or in-service curriculum, the trainers are often the same 
subject-matter experts from the earliest days of the agencies' 
experimentation in problem-oriented policing; that is, the same few 
individuals are relied on at the local, regional and national level to 
provide training in problem-oriented policing. A challenge in the 
advancement of problem-oriented policing is to get those with an 
introductory-level understanding of the concept to progress to 
intermediate levels and those at intermediate levels to progress to an 
advanced level, thereby increasing the pool of people participating in 
and promoting the problem-oriented policing movement. 

123I served as a technical consultant to several 
of the regional community policing institutes 
from 1998 to 1999, observed several training 
courses and met with other institute 
consultants. 

124Among the colleges and universities that 
have recently listed courses in problem-oriented 
policing are Florida State University, the 
University of Maine at Presque Isle, Dalhousie 
University (Nova Scotia), Northwestern 
University (Traffic Institute), and Charles Sturt 
University (New South Wales, Australia). 


It is also still common for individuals and units other than the 
department's training unit to develop and conduct in-house training 
programs related to problem-oriented policing.125 This suggests that 
police agencies and professional training organizations have not yet 
fully adopted problem-oriented policing into their organizational 
missions. Most in-house training in problem-oriented policing, 
including that offered as part of preservice academies, is limited to 


one or two days of instruction. Such limited instruction, offered in 
discrete blocks of time, can familiarize participants with only the basic 
concepts; it can hardly be expected to make them proficient in 
practicing problem-oriented policing. A few police agencies go further 
by having recruit trainees actually do some problem-solving as part of 
their field training experience. Among the more encouraging recent 
developments in problem-oriented policing training is a project to 
develop new police field training guidelines and a model field training 
program. Funded by the COPS Office, the Reno Police Department 
and PERF seek to update what is known as the San Jose field training 
model to better reflect the new expectations in police work brought 
about by community and problem-oriented policing. The San Jose 
model, a considerable advancement for its time, is now almost 30 
years old, and may not be suited to instruct new officers in the 
principles and methods of problem-oriented policing. 

125The Seattle Police Department, with some 
funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, 
has developed a set of basic and advanced 
training curricula in problem-oriented policing. 
These materials were developed principally by 
the department's community policing division, 
and not by the training academy. 

The amount of training in problem-oriented policing today is far 
greater than it was even 10 years ago even if the total need is still not 
being met. Most organizations that provide police training offer at 
least a few courses in community or problem-oriented policing. Most 
training programs provide some instruction in the rationale for 
problem-oriented policing, the basic elements of the concept, and the 
process of problem-solving, as well as case studies or practical 
exercises in problem-solving. Some additional courses cover various 
related administrative matters like supervision or implementation. It is 
far rarer to find training courses in specific substantive community 
problems. Ideally, training in problem-oriented policing will move 
beyond simply covering the mechanics of problem-solving to a more 
advanced treatment of the state of knowledge about common 
community problems the police confront. One can imagine someday 
finding a range of courses covering police responses to such problems 
as commercial robbery, street-level narcotics trafficking, shoplifting, 
domestic violence, and so forth. Such training would not be limited to 
teaching enforcement procedures, investigative methods, or laws and 
policies, but would cover the nature and known causes of the 
problem, and proven methods of effective prevention, intervention 
and reduction. When such training courses become commonplace, 
problem-oriented policing will have moved out of its experimental 
stages and into a more sophisticated and detailed stage. 

There is a need for national training programs to provide police 
officials, including chief executives, middle managers and analysts, 
with intensive guidance in applying problem-oriented policing 
methods to difficult substantive community problems. Training 
programs like the U.S. Department of Justice's National Executive 
Institute, Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminars and 
National Academy concentrate more on the mechanics of police 


administration and leadership than on the substantive concerns of 
problem-oriented policing. One can imagine new programs, as well-
funded and supported as these others, that provide police officials 
with more direct guidance on practicing problem-oriented policing. 

Some work has been done developing written instruction in problem-
oriented policing methods for researchers and practitioners. The 
Bureau of Justice Assistance (1993) published a guide for police, 
written by John Eck and Nancy La Vigne, on methods for surveying 
citizens and the physical environment. The COPS Office has funded 
Michigan State University Professor Tim Bynum to produce a guide to 
problem analysis (forthcoming). NIJ has funded one of the principal 
researchers in the Boston Youth Violence project, Anthony Braga, to 
prepare a primer in environmental criminology (a branch of 
criminology that views the physical setting of crime as a causative 
factor) and problem-oriented research methods. As part of the COPS 
Office-funded project to produce a series of problem-specific guides 
for police, a companion guide to assessing the impact of problem-
solving initiatives will also be produced. 

While there has been some progress in developing training courses 
and instructional materials for police practitioners and researchers, 
little has been done to develop materials to convey the concept to 
other audiences. Among the target audiences whose particular interests 
have not been adequately addressed are judges, prosecutors, elected 
officials, other government agency leaders, and community 
organization leaders. There are a few promising efforts. With funding 
from the Soros Foundation, Herman Goldstein is preparing a 
publication intended to reach some of these neglected audiences. 
Malcolm Sparrow's book Imposing Duties (1994) examines the 
underlying principles of problem-oriented policing in the contexts of 
the police, tax administration and environmental protection. It 
addresses some of the neglected audiences, too. 

How Will the Police Accumulate and Transfer Knowledge About 
Substantive Community Problems? 

The concept of problem-oriented policing is grounded in research 
methods. Thus, police agencies should place a high premium on 
written informationreviewing studies of similar problems and 
reporting in writing the results of the problem-solving process. The 
spread of knowledge about problem-oriented policing occurs at least 
in part through publications. 

How Substantive Knowledge is Shared in the Police Profession 

The police culture leans more toward an oral tradition than a written 
one.126 In other words, police officers gather information about 


practicing their work principally by listening and talking to other 
practitioners. This holds true from the field training of new recruits to 
the exchange of ideas about problem-solving. One reason the annual 
Problem-Oriented Policing Conference is so popular among police 
practitioners is that it affords them an opportunity to meet and talk 
with fellow police officers about practices that do and do not work. 
Officers can gauge the veracity and reliability of reports about 
problem-solving practices by getting a feel for the character of the 
people reporting them, and by asking detailed questions.127 By contrast, 
the Problem-Oriented Policing Conference is not as well-attended by 
police researchers. There are not formal presentations of written 
papers at the conference, yielding less grist for the mill of academic 
research. However much this oral tradition strengthens the police's 
social bonds, it inhibits the transfer of reliable, accurate knowledge. As 
many myths are perpetuated as truths. 

126Mark Moore of Harvard University recounted 
how doctors in the late 1800s began to 
distinguish their profession from others, largely
by developing a body of written information
about effective medical practices (Law 
Enforcement News, June 15, 1999).

127In 1999, the Lancashire, England, 
Constabulary held an internal problem-oriented 
policing conference at which police constables 
from throughout the large police agency 
presented problem-solving initiatives. From 
what I observed, the presentations were well-
received by fellow police officials, and the 
conference proved an effective means of 
exchanging ideas, promoting good practices and 
encouraging others to become engaged in 
problem-oriented policing.

To a large extent, the concept of problem-oriented policing is 
designed to bridge the worlds of police practice and research by 
establishing common interests and a common lexicon. This bridge is 
far from complete. The transfer of collected knowledge and wisdom 
occurs differently among academicians than it does among the police. 
Researchers are expected to be familiar with the relevant literature on 
a particular subject. There is no similar expectation in policing. The 
police expect to learn about new practices by attending training 
courses and, occasionally, conferences, not so much by keeping abreast 
of the latest professional literature. 

Paid sabbaticals, by which a professional temporarily relocates to 
another professional organization in order to exchange knowledge, are 
common among academics, but not among police. Extended time 
spent outside one's own organization in an environment conducive to 
learning is every bit as necessary for spreading ideas and good 
practices in policing as it is in academia. A number of the leading 
police agencies in problem-oriented policing can trace the introduction 
of the concept to a key individual's sabbatical.128 Many other agencies 
that have implemented problem-oriented policing have been headed 
by police chiefs with experiences in other police departments, or have 
had key individuals who traveled extensively, providing training in 
problem-oriented policing. There remain far too few such 
opportunities for police officials, however. 

128Learning through sabbaticals strongly 
influenced the implementation of problem-
oriented policing in Edmonton, Sacramento, 
Reno, and Merseyside.

Writing Down Problem-Oriented Practice 

The practice of problem-oriented policing has suffered from a lack of 
quality writing about project work. Some police departments, mindful 
of other duties that compete for officers' time, have minimized the 
reporting requirements for problem-solving, emphasizing the work 
 

 

rather than the writing. However much this may encourage officers to 
engage in problem-solving, it has left little lasting evidence that the 
work occurred. Without written evidence, the transfer of knowledge 
about problem-oriented police work is limited to the storytelling of 
the particular officers involved. Once they lose interest in telling their 
stories, the knowledge dissipates. 

The efforts to chronicle good problem-oriented practice at the 
national level have been beneficial, but modest. NIJ funded a project 
to collect case studies in effective police problem-solving, the results 
of which have been published by the COPS Office (Sampson and 
Scott 2000).129 In 1999, NIJ and the COPS Office funded the 
publication of the best submissions for the Herman Goldstein Award 
for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing. Several Community 
Policing Consortium publications include narratives about problem-
solving submitted by police agencies. Since 1988, PERF has published 
Problem Solving Quarterly, a newsletter that chronicles police problem-
solving projects. Publication of this newsletter has been sporadic in 
recent years, however, largely due to the lack of sufficient quality 
submissions. The electronic database POPNet, maintained by PERF, is 
another means of disseminating information about problem-solving 
initiatives, but as noted earlier, it has only a limited number of entries, 
only summary information, and little or no quality control. These few 
efforts represent a much smaller investment than Goldstein had in 
mind, and few of the case studies entail rigorous research methods. 

129The categories of problems addressed in this 
volume are alcohol-related crime, apartment 
complex and other rental-property crime, 
burglary, college-related crime, cruising, 
domestic violence, drugs, false alarms, gangs, 
graffiti, group homes, homeless-related crime, 
mental illness, neighborhood disorder, parks, 
prostitution, robbery, and theft from vehicles.

Practitioners must be encouraged to continue using problem-oriented 
approaches to community problems, and to maintain records of their 
actions. Researchers, whether in-house or external, must be 
encouraged to do the more formal writing about problem-oriented 
projects, writing that serves two audiences: researchers and 
practitioners. To do so effectively, they should spend enough time with 
police officers to genuinely understand the issues from the officers' 
perspectives. My own experiences chronicling police officers' problem-
solving efforts confirm this. The most effective method for gathering 
information about problem-solving projects has been to interview the 
officers involved, independently review data about the problem, and 
write a narrative about the project. Self-reporting alone yields little, 
and without some independent verification, lacks reliability. If the 
profession desires and values good written reports of problem-
oriented policing, then it must use people with substantial research 
and writing skills to produce them. 

Collecting, Synthesizing and Disseminating Research and Practice on Specific 
Community Problems 

A number of publications sponsored and/or published by the federal 
government have attempted to capture the state of research and 


practice with regard to specific types of community problems the 
police confront (see Appendix B). These various publications have not 
been organized into a centralized reference system, nor have they 
followed a standardized format. While many of the publications are of 
good quality and offer useful information to police practitioners, there 
still is no coherent research agenda that would lead to a 
comprehensive and current body of knowledge about specific types of 
community problems and/or common types of responses to them.130 
The COPS Office recently awarded funding to this author and several 
colleagues to produce a series of problem-specific guides for the 
police, that will partially address this element of a national research 
agenda.131 


The Office of Justice Programs and the COPS Office have sponsored 
conferences in recent years on research and evaluation. The 
conferences are intended in part to bridge the gap between researchers 
and police practitioners, and to focus on research lessons that would 
be of interest to practitioners. However valuable the research may be, 
a police official would not have found much in those conferences that 
directly related to the police response to community crime and 
disorder problems: much of the substance of the conferences related 
to organizational and management issues.132 

How Can Problem Analysis Be Improved, and a Systematic Body of 
Research on Substantive Community Problems Be Developed? 

The police field continues to lack an organized and substantial body of 
knowledge about effective methods for addressing common 
community problems.133 There are few sources readily found that 
provide information about the causes of, and effective responses to, 
most such problems. This is largely because there simply hasn't been 
much relevant research conducted. A standard literature search on any 
particular problem would lead the researcher to a host of different 
professional journals, books and technical reports, many of which 
would provide only a theoretical perspective, rather than a practical 
perspective from which one might adopt proven interventions or 
fashion new ones. The amount of potentially useful information is no 
doubt much greater than most police officials realize, but because it 
has not been systematically compiled and annotated for use by 
practitioners, it remains largely unavailable to the police. The police 
profession would do well to begin such a systematic compilation and 
digesting of relevant knowledge if problem-oriented policing is to 
become an even more viable approach. A systematic program to 
conduct applied research on substantive community problems, and to 
compile and disseminate the results of the research findings to the 
police, would begin to build a body of knowledge both about specific 
types of problems and about types of responses to address them. 

130Peak and Glensor (1999) dedicate a chapter 
to describing in summary fashion police 
agencies' innovative responses to problems 
related to drugs, gangs, graffiti, special 
populations (mentally ill, homeless, alcoholic 
offenders), domestic violence, housing problems 
and neighborhood disorder, prostitution, 
cruising, teen hangouts, and false alarms. 

131These guides will provide practitioners with 
a summary of the state of knowledge about 
effective responses to specific community 
problems the police commonly confront. The 
guides will draw from the fields of both 
problem-oriented policing and situational crime 
prevention. These problem-specific guides, 
along with a listing of community problems, a 
classification scheme for community problems, 
and a companion guide on assessing problem-
oriented policing projects, are expected to be 
available in late 2001 or early 2002. The initial 
guides in this series will cover the police 
response to assaults in and around bars, drug 
dealing in privately-owned apartment 
complexes, street prostitution, graffiti, thefts of 
and from cars in parking facilities, false burglar 
alarms, school bullying, shoplifting, residential 
burglary, commercial burglary, disorderly youth 
in public places, speeding in residential areas, 
loud car stereos, panhandling, rave parties, 
clandestine methamphetamine labs, robbery at 
automated teller machines, 911 hangups and 
acquaintance rape on college campuses. 

132Of the 45 workshops and panels at the 1998 
National Conference on Community Policing: 
What Works: Research and Practice, by my 
estimation, only seven addressed substantive 
community problems faced by the police. Most 
of the research panels addressed matters 
related to community policing implementation, 
police sociology, community perceptions of the 
police, police misconduct, information 
technology, and police management and 
administration. 

133Toch and Grant (1991) articulated the need to 
develop a problem-oriented network of 
knowledge, both about effective responses to 
common community problems and about the 
implementation of problem-oriented policing. 
They argue that, to be useful, such a network 
must be more than a simple distillation of 
published research; it should incorporate the 
practical experiences of police officers engaged 
in problem-solving. 


 
In contrast to the earliest experimental initiatives in problem-oriented 
policing conducted by Goldstein in Madison and by the London 
Metropolitan Police, the vast majority of problem-oriented policing 
initiatives since that time have originated and been conducted at the 
operating level of police organizations. Police officers and their 
supervisors have led most of the problem-solving projects and have, 
for the most part, focused on problems concentrated in specific 
locations, neighborhoods or districts. There are few projects 
conducted at a policy level that involve reasonably sophisticated 
analysis and that focus on a large problem affecting an entire 
community.135 

Goldstein's earliest works on the problems of drunken drivers and 
repeat sex offenders in Madison are prototypes of policy-level 
problem analysis.136 New York City provides two examples of 
commendable efforts at policy-level problem analysis. One was a study 
of the problem of runaway children in the city (Ryan and Doyle 
1986). It captured the scope and nature of the problem, though 
stopped short of recommending particular changes to policy or 
practice. The second was a study of safety in city schools (Travis, 
Lynch and Schall 1993). It concluded with recommendations for 
structural and policy changes in the school system to enhance safety. 
Both studies were conducted and/or led by the New York City Police 
Department's administrative and research branches. 

From among the best submissions for the Herman Goldstein Award 
for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing, approximately one-third 
of the projects addressed problems that affected an entire community, 
yet only about one-sixth of those had demonstrable leadership or 
involvement of policy-level administrators and/or professional 
research staff (see Appendix A). The best example of high-level 
problem analysis from the Goldstein awards was the study of the 
problem of youth gang violence in Boston (Boston Police 
Department 1998). This was a joint effort of university researchers, 
police officials and community leaders. From among those 
sophisticated crime reduction efforts reported in Situational Crime 
Prevention (Clarke 1997b), only a few involved substantial police 
involvement in problem analysis and subsequent response.137 

134As noted by Harvard University's Mark 
Moore, the most substantial body of research on 
the effectiveness of police interventions is in 
the area of domestic violence, and this consists 
of only six significant experimental studies, from 
which it remains difficult to draw any firm 
conclusions (Law Enforcement News, June 15, 
1999). The research on the multitude of other 
problems faced by the police is far more 
miniscule. Wrote another Harvard researcher, 
David Kennedy, Over and over again, when 
consulting the literature to address particular 
problems, one realizes that the most basic 
questions about these problems have not been 
answered in a way that is very useful for 
informing policy and shaping practice (1999). 

135The geographic scope of a problem does not 
necessarily correspond to the degree of 
sophistication of the problem analysis. Some 
problems, though concentrated geographically, 
are quite large and warrant sophisticated 
analysis. The study of telephone fraud at New 
York's Port Authority Bus Terminal is such an 
example (Bichler and Clarke 1997). By contrast, 
some problems affecting an entire community 
are addressed by line-level personnel using less 
sophisticated research methods. The Fremont, 
Calif., Police Department's study of domestic 
violence repeat victimization is such an example 
(1997). 

136For discussions of the many issues involved 
in conducting policy-level problem-oriented 
research, see Goldstein and Susmilch (1982c), 
and Kennedy (1999). 

137The chapters that report some police 
involvement are those by Matthews 
(prostitution); Knutsson and Kuhlhorn (check 
forgery); Poyner (crime in parking lots); Brown 
(crime and disorder in public spaces in town 
centers); Hunter and Jeffrey (convenience store 
robberies); Anderson and Pease (repeat 
burglaries and car crime); Laycock (burglary); 
Homel et al. (drunkenness and violence near 
nightclubs); and La Vigne (crime in subways). 
The police involvement in these crime 
prevention projects varied. In some, police 
officials were instrumental in designing the 
intervention; in others, they were instrumental 
in implementing the intervention.

From a crime reduction perspective, it matters less whether the police 
or some other entity is responsible for effecting the changes that bring 
down crime rates, but from a police perspective, the police miss many 
opportunities to effectively address crime and disorder problems 
because they are not engaging in much policy-level problem analysis.138 
Large police agencies with research and planning units should consider 
shifting more of those units' focus to analyzing large-scale community 
problems. This also requires that police research units reorient their 


approach, expanding beyond conventional methods such as identifying 
spatial patterns of crime through mapping.139 Police agencies without 
such in-house expertise or resources should consider collaborating 
with outside researchers.140 Police researchers should have the skills 
necessary to conduct advanced problem analysis or, at a minimum, be 
able to make intelligent use of what literature exists on substantive 
problems. 

138Bichler and Clarke (1997) reported a 
significant missed opportunity for the police to 
address the problem of telephone fraud in a bus 
terminal. 

139The Westminster, Calif., Police Department 
recently reported a commendable effort to 
enhance its internal capabilities to conduct 
sound evaluation studies of departmental 
programs and initiatives (Community Policing 
Consortium 1999). The examples of evaluation 
studies cited, however, are either process 
evaluations or administrative-initiative 
evaluations; none are outcome evaluations of 
efforts to address substantive community 
problems, the sort of evaluations essential to 
the practice of problem-oriented policing. 

140Goldstein and Susmilch (1982c) discuss the 
challenges faced by external researchers 
collaborating with police agencies in problem-
oriented research. 

The sort of police practitioner-researcher collaboration envisioned for 
problem-oriented policing has not occurred more often as a result of 
difficulties on both sides. For their part, some police officials are 
impatient with extensive research, preferring to work on smaller-scale 
problems with rudimentary research than to wait for more 
sophisticated research to shed new light on larger problems. 
Researchers, for their part, sometimes find it difficult to make the 
transition from pure social science research methods to the action 
research called for in problem-oriented policing. Pure research 
frequently produces either interesting theory with little practical value, 
or exquisitely precise findings about factors that do not lend 
themselves to effective intervention. Consequently, they have limited 
value for problem-oriented policing. 

As a general proposition, the entire criminology field and related 
criminal justice sciences have been slow or reluctant to substantively 
engage in problem-oriented policing (see Clarke 1997a).141 The 
number of environmental criminologists is growing. Environmental 
criminology, from which the concept of crime prevention through 
environmental design flows, has a theoretical kinship with problem-
oriented policing, although many environmental criminologists have 
yet to connect directly with police concerns. Environmental 
criminology to date remains on the periphery of mainstream 
criminology. There are few academic researchers with much practical 
experience in problem-oriented policing, so some police agencies 
would be hard-pressed to find the right kind of research assistance, 
even if they sought it.142 For their part, the police have viewed 
criminology as abstract and, accordingly, have not sought to 
incorporate the lessons of criminology into their practices. The field 
of environmental criminology is giving the police good reason to do 
so, however, and they would be well-advised to become more familiar 
with its lessons. 

141I reviewed a list of the panel discussions 
offered at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the 
American Society of Criminology. Of the 442 
discussions listed, only 42 (about 10%) of the 
titles related to the substantive community 
problems the police face. 

142One of the objectives of NIJ's Strategic 
Approaches to Community Safety Initiative is to 
train researchers in problem-oriented policing 
research methods. 

In recent years, some research funding has promoted action research 
in policing. As mentioned earlier, the COPS Office's Problem-Solving 
Partnership and School-Based Partnership grants and NIJ's Strategic 
Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) and Locally 
Initiated Research Partnerships in Policing programs (described in 
chapter 1, action research model section) encourage collaborations 






between the police and researchers. NIJ has also announced a funding 
program called Computer Mapping, Planning and Analysis of Safety 
Strategies (COMPASS). This program is intended to enhance the 
internal data analysis capabilities of police agencies in ways that will be 
compatible with community and problem-oriented policing. The 
COMPASS model expands on the Compstat model, combining police 
data with other community-related data (e.g., data on fear levels, 
vacant housing, street lighting, sanitation, housing, school safety, 
hospital records, courts and corrections, victimization, and drug use). 
In England and Wales, the national government is offering substantial 
funding (250 million, or the equivalent of almost $400 million) to 
implement and evaluate crime reduction practices. The government 
will provide police and other agencies with research advice and 
expertise as part of the program. The program specifically promotes 
placing greater emphasis on problem-oriented policing (Home 
Office 1998). However much reliable research all these programs 
produce, they fall short of constituting a coherent and comprehensive 
research agenda regarding the specific types of crime and disorder 
problems the police confront. 

Since the early 1990s, it has 
been frustrating that, after 10 
years, most problem-solving 
efforts remained small local 
efforts by line officers, not 
intermediate or communitywide 
sorts of problems. 

 David Kennedy 


Research units can't and 
shouldn't do all the work in 
problem-oriented policing, but 
they should do problem-solving 
of a different type than beat-
level problem-solving, and 
should engage in some 
experimentation. 

 Rana Sampson 

Summary 

What these gaps in knowledge and learning methods mean for the 
further development of problem-oriented policing is not yet clear. 
Perhaps researchers will do more research that is directly relevant to 
police practitioners. Perhaps researchers will learn to write more 
intelligibly for a practitioner audience, and attend more practitioner 
conferences to convey their knowledge in person. Perhaps the police 
will come to read more and rely more on published information. 
Perhaps the expanded use of Internet technology will make written 
information more available, obviating the need to develop and staff 
extensive police libraries. The experiences of the past two decades 
suggest that the best avenue for systematically advancing knowledge is 
one that requires contributions from both practitioners and 
researchers. I don't know whether improvements in the research 
community will generate greater interest among the police in using 
research to address community problems, or whether a greater police 
demand for such research will spur researchers to action. One thing is 
clear: The quality and quantity of the underlying research and the 
writing about problem-oriented projects need substantial 
improvement, even while the current, more modest efforts should be 
recognized and encouraged. 


Defining Roles for Others in Practicing 
Problem-Oriented Policing 

Are New Alliances Between the Police and the Community Healthy? 

Problem-oriented policing, like community policing, stresses police 
collaboration with the community to address problems. This general 
proposition is hardly controversial, though the particulars of actual 
collaboration can spark debate and controversy. The general 
proposition that the police collaborate more extensively with the 
community has, on balance, been a positive development, for many 
reasons. However, under certain conditions, these new collaborations 
between police and community present significant challenges in a 
constitutional democracy. At times, the majority rules philosophy of 
the community and the conservative traits of the police combine to 
support police practices that the courts find threatening to the 
constitutional order. A couple of examples typify this concern. 

In June 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Chicago 
ordinance that empowered the police to order people seen loitering on 
the streets with reputed gang members to disperse or be arrested.143 
The Chicago police had ultimately endorsed this ordinance after 
initially voicing opposition. It also had support from segments of the 
predominantly minority communities in Chicago most likely to be 
affected by it. National police and municipal executives' organizations 
supported legal arguments in favor of the ordinance (though national 
police organizations representing black police officers opposed it). 
Civil libertarians and some neighborhood association groups also 
opposed it. The Supreme Court found that the ordinance granted 
excessive discretion to the police, even while acknowledging the 
legitimate interest the police had in reducing intimidation of the public 
by gangs.144 

In the early 1990s, the city of Santa Ana experienced problems with 
transients' congregating around civic buildings, intimidating others. 
The Santa Ana police, in trying to respond to widespread citizen 
complaints, developed a strategy that entailed strict enforcement of all 
laws and ordinances against those deemed to be transients. Both the 
strategy and the insensitive tactics the police usedtargeting their 
enforcement only on suspected transients, rounding them up and 
marking their bodies with booking numbersled to a harsh legal 
judgment against the police for violating the offenders' rights.145 

The Chicago police did not specifically undertake the initiative in the 
name of problem-oriented policing, although the department generally 
espoused the principles of community policing and problem-solving. 

143City of Chicago v. Morales et al. No. 97-1121. 
Decided June 10, 1999. 

144For further explorations of the issues 
addressed in the Morales case, see Roberts 
(1999). 

145See Homeless Rousted in Santa Ana, 
Orange County Register, Aug. 17, 1990; and 
Cases Dismissed in Santa Ana's Homeless 
Sweep, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 7, 1991, for 
journalistic accounts of the situation. 



The Santa Ana police undertook their initiative as a problem-oriented 
project. Regardless of how the police label such initiatives, Goldstein 
imagined that the processes used in problem-oriented policing, in 
which the police carefully develop responses based on thorough 
research, and subject those responses to review and input from many 
perspectives, would reduce the possibility that the courts would 
challenge and strike down police actions. Had Chicago studied the 
problem of gang intimidation using a problem-oriented approach, it 
might have yielded a range of new responses, and any new legislation 
might have been better drafted to respond directly to the problem and 
thereby survive judicial scrutiny. Whether the police in the instances 
cited above were wrong in their actions is largely a matter of opinion 
(even the U.S. Supreme Court was not unanimous in the Chicago 
ruling). Some might see these examples as wrong-headed judicial 
opinions rather than wrong-headed police decisions. What bears 
remembering is that the mere application of a problem-solving 
process to community problems does not guarantee that all the 
interests of a constitutional democracy will be protected. Goldstein 
specifies that, when choosing from among various alternatives for 
responding to a problem, the police must consider the 
constitutionality of the response, the effectiveness of the response, 
and the potential for negative consequences. However, he does not, 
nor can he, specify what conclusions decision-makers might draw 
when considering these factors. 

Are New Alliances Between the Police and Other Government 
Agencies Healthy? 

The many new alliances between the police and other government 
agencies hold potential for overreaching. As a general proposition, 
Goldstein's model of problem-oriented policing endorses closer and 
more collaborative working relationships between the police and their 
counterparts in other municipal, state and federal agencies. By 
combining their respective expertise, resources and authority in 
creative ways, the police and other agencies can often accomplish 
more working together than they can working independently. Some 
jurisdictions have extended the principles of problem-oriented 
policing beyond the police to encompass the entire local 
government,146 though I am not aware of any local government that 
has fully adopted a problem-oriented approach. Nonetheless, there will 
be instances in which the respective agencies' independence is 
necessary to protect against overzealousness and abuses of authority. 
Partnerships should not be abandoned because of the possibility of 
overreaching, or even because of occasional incidents of 
overreaching, but administrators and oversight bodies should remain 
aware of the risks. 

146The city of Westminster, Colo., described its 
version of these principles as community oriented 
governance in a brochure developed in 
the late 1990s. The city of Sacramento 
restructured the way it delivered many 
municipal services, to better connect with police 
efforts to practice problem-oriented policing. 


During the early 1990s, when problem-oriented policing was being 
strongly promoted in St. Louis, city building inspectors were 
encouraged to work closely with the police. The inspectors and the 
police frequently found themselves teaming up to close down 
suspected drug houses. In one such incident, to enforce a 
condemnation order, building inspectors (wearing body armor) broke 
into a building with a sledgehammer and ordered the occupants out. 
The occupants complained, and the inspectors were disciplined and 
nearly charged with a crime. The police, who had been working with 
the inspectors to enforce the condemnation order, defended 
themselves by claiming they didn't actually swing the sledgehammer. 
Fortunately, the incident did not end the working relationship between 
the agencies, though it did place some restrictions on it. In this case, 
the building inspectors began to overidentify with the police role and 
lost sight of the limits of their authority. 

There has also been some criticism of the extensive collaboration 
between police and federal prosecutors in their efforts to reduce 
shootings and homicides by aggressively prosecuting offenders under 
federal rather than state law.147 Some critics, including members of the 
federal judiciary, are concerned that such routine and expansive 
collaborations between local and federal authorities undermine 
important principles of federalism and result in some degree of 
unfairness to defendants. 

In Liverpool, England, the local (Merseyside) police have begun to 
work more collaboratively with housing authority agents. The 
agents have wider authority to conduct surveillance on tenants than 
do the police, and the police liaison between the agencies 
acknowledges the potential for abuse and confusion about their 
proper respective roles.148 

147This practice has received considerable 
attention in Richmond, Va., but occurs routinely 
elsewhere, as well. 

148Personal conversation with Chief Inspector 
Simon Byrne, local authority liaison officer, 
Merseyside Police, July 5, 1999.

Similar concerns can and do arise when the police work collaboratively 
with such other government personnel as liquor law agents and 
probation and parole officials. Again, whether these new practices are 
unfair is a matter of opinion (though, sometimes, a legally binding 
one), but they serve as reminders that some novel forms of 
collaboration, however effective they may prove, raise important issues 
about procedural fairness and the checks and balances of government 
power. 

What Should Be the Role of Prosecutors? 

Historically, prosecutors have related to the police almost exclusively 
in terms of the criminal investigation function. From the policing 
 

 

standpoint, prosecutors' interests are just a few of many the police 
must take into account. Much of police work does not result in even 
the consideration of criminal prosecution. However, the police are 
central to almost everything prosecutors do. Prosecutors prosecute 
cases, and few prosecutions are initiated by anything other than police 
work. (This is especially true in local prosecutors' offices, where the 
vast majority of criminal cases are prosecuted.) So while prosecutors 
continue to see their role as narrowly limited to prosecuting criminal 
cases, they also see the police role in similarly narrow terms. The 
police generate prosecutors' workload and make prosecutors' work 
easier by conducting thorough investigations. Understandably, from 
this perspective, prosecutors jealously guard against any diversion of 
police resources away from criminal investigation. Prosecutors exert a 
powerful influence on police practices, despite the reality that only a 
small percentage of police work culminates in criminal prosecution. 
Most prosecutors view themselves as the chief law enforcement 
officer in the jurisdiction, implying some supervisory role over the 
police, and many police officials do not challenge this, having 
themselves adopted a belief that the police function primarily to 
collect evidence for criminal prosecution. At a minimum, prosecutors 
represent a powerful constituency for part of police work. They 
represent a demand for criminal cases, and they set standards for the 
quality of criminal investigations against which the police are 
measured. Supported by popular images of police work as principally 
being an enterprise of catching and convicting criminals, prosecutors 
hold the police both accountable for portions of their work and, to 
some degree, captive to it.149 

149One of the longest-running and most 
critically acclaimed U.S. television shows is 
Law and Order. Every episode begins with the 
police investigation of a serious crime, and 
culminates with the prosecution of the resultant 
case. As each show opens, the narrator says, 
In the criminal justice system, the people are 
represented by two equally important groups: 
the police who investigate crimes, and the 
district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. 

There have been some efforts to reconsider prosecutors' role in the 
larger enterprise of promoting public safety (Coles and Kelling 1999; 
Glazer 1999).150 A few local prosecutors' offices around the United 
States have experimented in what has come to be known as 
community prosecution, borrowing from the notions of community 
policing.151 Typically, in community prosecution, prosecutors are 
assigned to geographic areas and are responsible for prosecuting all or 
most of the crimes that arise out of them. The prosecutors are 
expected to try to learn more about their area's public safety concerns. 
If community prosecution, however, is limited to prosecuting criminal 
cases along geographic lines, it is not a significant departure from 
conventional practice, and does not necessarily reinforce 
problem-oriented policing. If prosecutors actually reconsider their 
function as one of solving community crime, disorder and fear 
problems, rather than just prosecuting individual cases, they reinforce 
problem-oriented policing. 
One of the earliest and best articulations of this shift in the 
prosecutor's role was written by a former organized-crime prosecutor, 
Ronald Goldstock (1991). Goldstock argued that prosecutors should 
see their roles as more than just prosecutors of individual cases, but 


rather as leaders of efforts to reduce crime. He went on to argue that 
prosecutors, even more so than police or elected officials, are in the 
best position to exercise leadership in problem-oriented responses to 
crime. While that particular argument was less than fully persuasive, 
his advocacy for stronger prosecutor involvement in crime reduction 
was welcome. 

150From 1986 to 1990, Harvard University's John 
F. Kennedy School of Government sponsored the 
Conferences on New Directions in State and 
Local Prosecution, a series similar to its 
Executive Sessions on Community Policing. 
Community prosecution and problem-solving 
were among the topics, but the conferences 
have not had the impact on the field of 
prosecution that their counterpart sessions had 
on the field of policing. 

151Among the better-known initiatives in 
community prosecution are those in 
Montgomery County, Md., and Multnomah 
County, Ore. (See Washington Post, Community 
Prosecution: Montgomery relocates law 
enforcement to the neighborhoods, July 11, 
1999. Op-ed piece by Montgomery County State 
Attorney Douglas Gansler.) Coles and Kelling 
(1999) refer to community prosecution efforts in 
Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Oklahoma City; Miami; 
Brooklyn, N.Y.; Kansas City, Mo.; Boston; Austin, 
Texas; and Indianapolis. The U.S. States 
Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia 
has also undertaken a pilot effort in community 
prosecution.

Goldstock's vision of the prosecutor as problem-solver has gone 
largely unfulfilled. There have been a number of experiments with 
community prosecution and diversions from prosecution, including 
such alternatives as restorative justice programs,152 all of which move 
generally in the direction of problem-oriented policing. There are also 
instances in which prosecutors have collaborated in police problem-
solving initiatives, but there are few reports of systematic, policy-level 
problem analysis by prosecutors. Some descriptions of community 
prosecution sound more like commendable efforts by prosecutors to 
aggregate individual cases into larger cases, and to improve the 
coordination of law enforcement responses among various agencies; 
they don't describe the sort of comprehensive problem analysis 
Herman Goldstein proposed. 

152The COPS Office recently published two 
documents describing the links between 
restorative justice and community policing 
(Nicholl 1999a, 1999b).

Prosecutors' failure to fully engage in a problem-oriented approach to 
reducing crime, disorder and fear is unfortunate for two related 
reasons. First, without prosecutors, a valuable perspective on crime 
problems is missing from many police-led initiatives. Prosecutors are 
better-aware of how cases are processed through the court system 
and, accordingly, are more aware of the effectiveness of existing 
means for disposing of cases. Prosecutors also are more aware of the 
range of legal responses that might be used to address a particular 
problem, as well as some of the risks of alternative approaches. 
Prosecutors have access to data and to judges, and research skills the 
police often lack. When prosecutors are open-minded and take a 
broad perspective on their role, they can greatly facilitate problem-
oriented policing.153 The second reason it is unfortunate that 
prosecutors are not more engaged in problem-oriented policing is that 
their absence from the process conveys a powerful signal to the police 
that problem-solving is not valued as highly as criminal investigation. 
This can discourage the police from investing more fully in problem-
solving. Detectives are especially sensitive to prosecutors' signals. 
Prosecutors' general disengagement with problem-oriented policing 
partially explains why so few police detectives have engaged with the 
concept, as well.154 

The emerging movement toward community prosecution is a positive 
development toward advancing problem-oriented policing, but it is far 
from complete. This new orientation toward prosecution remains rare 
among prosecutors' offices, and it will require every bit as much effort 
 

 

to reorient prosecutors to their work as it is taking to reorient police 
officers to theirs.155 It will require some changes in how law schools 
train students, especially those aspiring to become government 
lawyers. Currently, conventional legal training offers little that would 
prepare a prosecutor for problem-oriented prosecution. 


153The prosecutor's office in Mecklenburg 
County, N.C., assigned one of its best 
prosecutors to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police 
Department, where he became engaged with 
problem-oriented policing initiatives. 

154In October 1999, the COPS Office sponsored 
a conference (When the Heat's On: Leadership 
Sessions To Support Problem-Oriented Policing) 
dedicated largely to the matter of involving 
investigators in problem-solving. In preparing for 
this conference, as well as in analyzing the best 
submissions for the Herman Goldstein Award 
for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing (see 
Appendix A), I found it difficult to locate more 
than a handful of problem-solving initiatives led 
by detectives. For further discussion of the 
general lack of detective involvement in 
problem-oriented policing, see Eck (1999). See 
Cosgrove and Wycoff (1999) for a discussion of 
the trends among U.S. police agencies with 
respect to the role of investigations units in 
community policing and problem-solving. 

155Several people with whom I spoke, including 
Dr. Ellen Scrivner, a deputy director of the COPS 
Office and a trained psychologist, and Dr. Mike 
Chatterton, the director of the Henry Fielding 
Centre at the University of Manchester 
(England), hypothesized that the transition to 
problem-oriented policing and prosecution may 
be proving so difficult because it is essentially a 
shift from the predominantly inductive reasoning 
methods of conventional policing and the law to 
the more deductive reasoning methods of 
science.

What Should Be the Role of Local Government Leaders? 

If prosecutors have had limited involvement in problem-oriented 
policing, local government leaders have probably had even less so. To 
be sure, many, if not most, local government officials have found 
reasons to support community policing. At a minimum, it receives 
much federal support in the United States. Unlike those forms of 
community policing that readily translate into highly marketable 
programs whereby extra police officers provide new services to the 
public, problem-oriented policing does not lend itself to sound bites 
and simple political imagery. Consequently, local government leaders 
must first invest their time and energy in understanding problem-
oriented policing's full implications, if they are to support it. They 
must invest in such areas as research and analysis, and information 
technologyinvestments that are not guaranteed to pay off at any 
particular time, but are highly likely to pay off in the long term. 

San Diego provides one of the strongest examples of local 
government leadership in problem-oriented policing. From the police 
department's earliest initiatives in problem-oriented policing, then-
Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory came to understand its value 
and fully supported its implementation. When he subsequently was 
appointed city manager, he provided the strong leadership necessary 
to incorporate problem-oriented principles throughout the structure 
of the city government. 

Police departments are by no means the only government agencies 
susceptible to what Goldstein described as the means-over-ends 
syndrome. Fire departments, building inspection departments, public 
works agencies, social service agencies, and all others can become just 
as complacent as the police about their work. They, too, can easily 
come to understand their work in narrow terms, seeking to make 
themselves ever more efficient, and not necessarily more effective. 
They do not naturally see themselves in broader terms, as problem-
solvers, anymore than do the police. 

Goldstein has long argued that one of the central objectives of the 
police is to identify problems that have the potential for becoming 
more serious problems for individuals, the police or the government 
(1977). He argues that the police are in a position to observe the 


indicators of a wide range of problems affecting the community, not 
just those directly related to crime. This implies that the police might 
identify problems that do not fit squarely or exclusively within their 
domain. Moreover, the processes of problem-oriented policing 
promote the development of police partnerships with other 
government agencies, partnerships that enable all involved to more 
comprehensively understand community problems. Whether the police 
just identify problems for others to address, or address those problems 
themselves, effective collaboration requires strong leadership from 
local government leaders. These leaders must work to overcome the 
traditional divisions of labor and responsibility among the various 
government departments. One of the hazards of the more 
popularized versions of community policing is that other government 
agencies may believe the police can provide more services and assume 
responsibility for more social problems than they did before. Without 
leadership to create new expectations that departments collaborate on 
public safety problems, such collaboration is not likely to happen. 


Problem-oriented policing is not featured prominently in the most 
recent conferences and publications of the major U.S. professional 
associations of local government leaders (the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors, the National League of Cities and the International 
City/County Management Association). Local government leaders 
have other concerns in addition to public safety, and many do not 
directly control police operations. However, given the importance of 
public safety, one would expect these leaders would think more about 
coordinated and systematic ways of improving it. For the most part, 
local government leaders still attribute primary responsibility for 
public safety to the police, fire and ambulance services, despite 
growing evidence that crime, disorder and fear are greatly influenced 
by land-use planning, economic development, business regulation, 
code enforcement, architecture, public housing management, and 
traffic engineering. Police officers have often assumed the roles of 
land-use planners, architects and economic developers, as the literature 
on problem-solving initiatives clearly indicates. It isn't that the police 
should be local government leaders' primary focus, but that the 
responsibility for public safety should be more evenly distributed 
among local government agencies. Were this the case, local 
government leaders would play a primary role in coordinating and 
guiding problem-oriented initiatives to reduce crime, disorder and fear. 

If the public demands better 
police service, the police will 
likely provide it. But demand is 
a very localized thing, and 
demand isn't always expressed 
in a very clear or sophisticated 
fashion. Where there are good 
police leaders, they can help 
translate that demand into 
better policing. 

 John Eck 


Community leaders still cling to 
the idea that government and 
the police can and will solve all 
their problems, and they tend 
not to want to take 
responsibility for solving their 
own problems. 

 Darrel Stephens

Should the Police Be Held More Accountable for Reducing Crime, Disorder 
and Fear? 

Should the experience of the past two decades in problem-oriented 
policing lead us to conclude that the police, in fact, can effect 
 


 

reductions in crime, disorder and fear? Goldstein has long argued that 
problem-oriented policing is an approach that recognizes the limits of 
police authority and the limits of police practices alone to bring about 
significant changes in public safety. Goldstein argues that when the 
police and the community accept that the police are not omnipotent, 
the police can solicit and receive the active support of the community 
and other government agencies to more effectively address the 
problems of crime, disorder and fear. This makes sense, properly 
understood, but in light of how theory gets translated into public 
policy, there is a lot of room for misunderstanding. 

Whatever else the experience of the New York City Police 
Department in the 1990s has meant, for a good many political leaders 
and some police executives, it has represented a bold claim to police 
efficacy not heard in many years. The distilled lesson from New York, 
as taught by those who claim credit for its methods, is that the police, 
given sufficient resources, support and latitude, can bring about 
significant reductions in crime and disorder. Many elected officials and 
police executives around the world scrambled to emulate New York's 
methods, whatever they perceived them to be. It is unlikely that 
anyone will ever adequately describe precisely what methods the police 
department used during that time.156 The city and the police 
department are simply too enormous for simple explanations. How 
much the policies developed at police headquarters or the mayor's 
office actually reflected the practices of police officers in the city's 76 
precincts and innumerable specialized bureaus, divisions and units 
might never be known. The broad characterizations of official policy 
emphasize high-volume arrests for even low-level offenses, and 
constant pressure on commanders to respond to emerging crime 
patterns.157 Official policy does not appear to have emphasized 
collaborative problem-solving. 

156For further reading on the strategies and 
tactics of the New York City Police Department 
during the 1990s, see Silverman (1999), Maple 
with Mitchell (1999) and Bratton with Knobler 
(1998). 

157The aggressive stop-and-search and arrest 
strategies used by various task forces and 
street-crime units have come under considerable 
criticism due to abuses of authority, though 
former Commissioner Bratton has publicly 
denounced those practices as being antithetical 
to his intended policies. 

By contrast, the San Diego Police Department is held up as the model 
for a different set of official police policies that yielded statistical 
reductions in crime and disorder that were at least as impressive as, if 
not more so than, New York's during the same time. The department 
stands as the model agency for problem-oriented policing. However, 
broad claims about accomplishments in San Diego do not necessarily 
reflect the daily practices of police officers there either.158 To what 
extent San Diego police officers engaged in New York-style aggressive 
arrest tactics, or New York officers engaged in San Diego-style 
problem-solving tactics, nor what impact these various tactics had on 
crime rates, is not fully known.159 

158Professor Gary Cordner of Eastern Kentucky 
University is currently researching the nature, 
quantity and quality of problem-solving by line 
officers in the San Diego Police Department. He 
hopes to develop an understanding of why some 
officers do effective problem-solving and others 
do not. The research project, Enhancing the 
Analysis and Response Components of Problem-
Solving in Community Policing, is funded by the 
National Institute of Justice. 

159See Greene (1999) for comparisons between 
the New York and San Diego policing models.

So, after two decades of experimentation with problem-oriented 
policing, we are not really much closer to answering the question of 
whether the police should be held more accountable for reducing 
crime, disorder and fear, and if so, what approach would best achieve 


this. Of course, the answers to these questions do not turn exclusively 
on the efficacy of problem-oriented policing. Elected officials and 
media representatives remain bent on having these questions answered 
in simple terms. Their search for simple answers remains in vain. After 
20 years, problem-oriented policing has demonstrated an internal logic, 
has been successfully applied at the project level, and remains a 
promising approach for the foreseeable future. In light of the growing 
contributions to professional knowledge emerging under the 
framework of situational crime prevention and crime prevention 
through environmental design, there is growing reason to believe that 
collaborations of police, governments, businesses, and communities, 
committed to carefully analyzing community problems and developing 
tailored responses, can bring about significant changes to public safety 
levels. Beyond that, claims about the police's capacity to singlehandedly 
reduce crime, disorder and fear at the community or higher 
level are simply not warranted. The greatest promise of problem-
oriented policing may be that it is the approach most likely to maintain 
the delicate balance between freedom and order, and minimize the 
likelihood that police actions will undermine their legitimacy in society. 
This is so largely because the problem-oriented approach rejects the 
very excessive reliance on the enforcement of criminal law, and the 
use of force that accompanies it, that so often leads to abuse and 
consequent erosion of public trust in the police. Achieving that much, 
while incrementally and systematically improving our understanding 
about how police and communities can effectively reduce crime, 
disorder and fear, is a considerable improvement from past 
approaches to policing. 


Public policymakers and the 
uninvolved public develop their 
view of policing from watching 
TV cop shows. We haven't 
communicated the core 
elements sufficiently and 
consistently enough for them. 

 Dennis Nowicki 


Conclusion 

How Will We Know If Problem-Oriented Policing Works? 

The ultimate test of problem-oriented policing is whether it 
proves successful in enhancing police service. One can evaluate 
the progress of problem-oriented policing in several different 
ways. At a minimum, asking whether problem-oriented policing works, 
and asking whether the problem-oriented policing movement has been 
successful, are separate matters. The former relates to the ultimate 
outcomes of policing. It is a search for proof that the problem-
solving methodology reduces crime and disorder, makes communities 
safer, and does so better than any other approach to policing.160 The 
latter relates to the process of implementing problem-oriented 
policing. It is a search for proof that problem-oriented policing has 
become the standard approach to policing. I will address each in turn. 

Asking whether problem-oriented policing works is tantamount to 
asking whether the police are effective in achieving their socially 
mandated objectives. This depends, of course, on what one believes to 
be the objectives of the police. If one uses Goldstein's eight 
objectives, discussed earlier, as a guide, the matter is indeed quite 
complex. Successful policing, in the broadest sense, is policing that 
achieves each objective. If there are competing and, at times, 
conflicting objectives, as Goldstein argues there are, then there can be 
no such thing as maximally effective policing.161 In addressing a 
particular community problem or handling some incident, the police 
often must compromise some objectives to fully achieve others (e.g., 
the police must block traffic to allow for a political demonstration, or 
the police must release a suspect because they cannot obtain evidence 
without violating the suspect's constitutional rights). Thus, there can 
be only optimally effective policing, meaning that the police have 
balanced their objectives. 

At the microlevel, one can determine problem-oriented policing's 
success only in a problem-specific way; that is, the best answer to the 
question of how one measures success in problem-oriented policing is 
one problem at a time (to play on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's 
marketing slogan: We measure success one investor at a time.). One 
should assess police effectiveness with respect to each discrete social 
problem the police are at least partially responsible for addressing.162 

160Sherman et al.'s exhaustive review of crime 
prevention research (1997) concluded that 
problem-oriented policing has proven promising 
as an approach to preventing crime and 
disorder, more so than community policing. 
Sherman correctly points out that problem-
oriented policing is essentially about insight, 
imagination and creativity, and the scientific 
method itself. Thus, it is a fundamentally sound 
approach that does not depend on any one 
crime prevention theory for its viability. 

161Mastrofski (1999) also argues that talk about 
the bottom line in policing is difficult, because 
there are competing and conflicting objectives. 

162Some evaluators of problem-oriented 
policing measure impacts at a level of 
aggregation that does not correspond to the 
level of the problem-solving interventions (for 
example, the police respond to a highly specific 
problem, using a highly specific intervention, 
and the evaluators measure the intervention's 
impact based on the area's aggregate crime 
rate). This was the case in an evaluation of 
problem-oriented policing in Lawrence, Mass. 
(Bazemore and Cole 1994). Rosenbaum and 
Lurigio (1998) attempted to review the 
evaluations of problem-oriented policing and 
draw conclusions from them, but, in my opinion, 
also confused the appropriate levels of 
aggregation and focus of evaluation. Jesilow et 
al. (1998) acknowledged that one should 
measure effectiveness at a problem-specific 
level, but themselves adopted more-abstract 
levels of measurement in their study of problem-
oriented policing in Santa Ana, Calif. Stockdale, 
Whitehead and Gresham (1999) concluded that 
applying economic analyses to policing activities 
made the most sense at the project or initiative 
level, and less so at more abstract levels. 

Because problems of crime, disorder and fear arise and abate through 
a complex interaction of social norms, laws and technology, there 
really can be no end point to policing.163 As one class of problems 
abates, new classes of problems arise. An obvious example is the 


 

entirely new class of problems the police face with the rise of the 
Internet as a means of conducting business and communicating. 
Indeed, police work is always described in the present 
participlepolicingand never in the past tense. A community is never 
considered to have been policed. Thus, while it is appropriate to judge 
problem-oriented policing by the degree to which it is effective in 
addressing society's current problems, one should also judge it by the 
degree to which it prepares the police to identify and respond to 
future problems. 

163It may turn out that the search for definitive 
measures of effectiveness and causation in the 
realm of crime control and policing is in vain if 
conventional social science methods are 
employed in that search. Complex systems, 
which antisocial behavior and the efforts to 
control it surely are, may demand an entirely 
different scientific method than static systems 
that merely react to forces rather than adapt to 
them (Waldrop 1992, Lewin 1992). A full 
exploration of this possibility is well beyond the 
scope of this work, but it is a highly important 
possibility. 

One can claim the problem-oriented policing movement has 
succeeded once police agencies have integrated the problem-solving 
operational strategy of police work into their operations at least as 
completely as they have the other operational strategies of preventive 
patrol, routine incident response, emergency response, and criminal 
investigation. Once integrated, each operational strategy will always 
have room for improvement. One can make this assessment of the 
success of the problem-oriented policing movement with respect to 
particular police agencies as well as to the profession as a whole.164 

164Capowich and Roehl (1994) used problem-
specific measures of effectiveness in their study 
of problem-oriented policing in San Diego, as 
did Hope (1994) in his study of problem-oriented 
policing in St. Louis. Perhaps too many police 
agencies remain focused on measuring the 
quality of their efforts to implement the 
administrative systems that support problem-
oriented policingthe training, information 
systems, supervision styles, performance 
measurement tools, personnel selection 
processes, records systems, etc. and 
insufficiently focus on the quality of their efforts 
to do problem-oriented policingthe quality of 
their problem identification, analysis, response, 
and assessment. Wrote Mark Moore, Thus the 
mark of an effective police department will not 
be how successful it is in implementing the 
most recent national model of a successful 
program, but instead, in how thoughtfully it 
crafts a local solution to a local problem, taking 
into account the local character of the problem 
and the local means of dealing with it (1998).

In addition, one can claim the problem-oriented policing movement 
has succeeded once the imbalance between policing's means and 
ends has been altered to better reflect a direct concern on the part 
of police administrators and researchers with the substantive aspects 
of police business. In his early writings on the concept, Goldstein 
(1981) identified several areas of police administration and research 
where this imbalance needed to be corrected: 

a. police administration texts, 
b. police conferences, 
c. police administration and criminal justice university curricula, 
d. police training programs, 
e. police chief selection criteria, 
f. police chief calendars, 
g. police journal content, 
h. state planning agency agendas, 
i. substantive policymaking participation, and 
j. police research-unit agendas. 


While there has been some move toward a greater substantive focus, it 
is my distinct impression that all the areas listed above still primarily 
have an administrative and organizational focus, to the exclusion of a 
focus on the substantive problems the police confront. 

As is probably true in all fields, the development of an important idea, 
or of several important ideas simultaneously, is not neat and clean. 
There is no central policymaking entity, at least not in American 


policing. Scholars and practitioners alike shift through time in their 
understanding and support of the various ideas. The ideas themselves 
are shaped by factors other than pure theory or tested practice: by 
political and popular interest, available funding and the desire to 
achieve distinction. While the uneven and sometimes contradictory 
way these various movements push and pull the police profession 
frustrates those who are committed to one idea or another, in the long 
run, this is for the best. It is best for society as a whole, and best for 
the problem-oriented policing movement. The diversity of ideas and 
the highly decentralized way they are implemented have ultimately led 
to refinement of the best of them. Were it even possible for the 
development of problem-oriented policing to be centralized and made 
more consistent, it would likely weaken the idea. A single wrong turn 
in centralized policymaking results in many wrong turns in police 
practice. There are risks to promoting homogeneity in the 
implementation of problem-oriented policing, whether through the 
requirements of federal funding programs or through other means. 
An idea such as problem-oriented policing, which has yet to be fully 
developed, needs diversity to grow. And so it is that problem-oriented 
policing competes in the messy marketplace of ideas about how to 
improve policing. 


Problem-oriented policing must pass the rigorous tests of academic 
scrutiny and criticism to prevail as a path for improving policing. To 
be tested properly, it must be implemented with at least basic fidelity 
to the fundamental principles laid out by Herman Goldstein. 
Goldstein never intended that problem-oriented policing, at least as he 
articulated it, be understood as a finished or definitive product. 
Indeed, according to the scholar Jean-Paul Brodeur: [I]t would seem 
as difficult as it is futile to measure with precision the extent to which 
the new strategy has been implemented. Such a measurement implies 
freezing a paradigm that is characterized by its open-endedness 
(1998b). Goldstein intended that problem-oriented policing be 
understood as a basic framework to be tested, refined and 
improved on. 

Problem-oriented policing has come a long way in 20 years, from the 
chalkboards and classrooms of the University of Wisconsin, to the 
squad rooms, community meeting halls and conference rooms where 
modern policing is played out. It has achieved a degree of professional 
interest, and some measure of public and political interest, that must 
be heartening to Herman Goldstein and those who believe in his 
idea.165 The development of problem-oriented policing, however, is 
far from complete. Ironically, the popularity of the idea puts it at risk 
of burning out, and that would be unfortunate.166 It is precisely 
because problem-oriented policing is so deeply rooted in what 
Goldstein calls the basic arrangements for policing in a free and open 



societythe most fundamental challenges for establishing domestic 
tranquility and orderthat police, community and government officials 
can ill afford to rest comfortably on the progress made to date. 

165As Toch and Grant so aptly concluded: 
Problem-oriented policing cannot afford to 
be insensitive to public sentiment, but it 
must have faith in the process whereby its 
solutions are derived. The point of such faith 
is not to ignore popular opinion, but to 
subordinate getting along to doing right, 
where facts and fashions differ. The dangers 
of not doing so are illustrated by past 
experiences, such as the saga of team 
policing, which was often aborted 
(prematurely) because it had been instituted 
as a gambit and not as an intervention 
responsive to an analysis of needs. 
Sentiments (in the case of team policing, the 
fear of riots) are often evanescent, while 
needs (such as the slum conditions that 
sparked riots) stay around and remain 
unmet. The fact that problem-oriented 
policing is now in should please us, but 
we must not confuse this fact with the 
reasons why the reform makes sense, which 
existed before the strategy was inand 
should remain long after drug-related 
pressures subside (1991:285-86). 

166Gilling offered a number of important 
reminders and cautions about using scientific or 
quasi-scientific research methods to make 
public policy as problem-oriented policing 
prescribes. He correctly noted that every step of 
the problem-solving process involves what are 
essentially political judgments about what 
problems are important, what facts are to be 
gathered, and what conclusions are correct. He 
concluded: 
Followed correctly, [the problem-oriented 
approach] provides the best opportunity of 
making a significant and lasting impact upon 
the growing levels of crime that have been a 
characteristic feature of most of the postwar 
developed world, and thus it offers liberation 
from the nothing works pessimism that 
still lies beneath the surface of crime control 
discourse. However, given its tenuous 
position as a relatively new paradigm, the 
problem-oriented approach cannot afford to 
underestimate the strength of the opposition 
manifested in traditional perspectives, 
alternative agendas, and the limitation of 
existing data sources and interpretative 
frameworks. There is a considerable amount 
of pressure being exerted on the problem-
oriented approach to be stretched in a 
particular political direction (1996:21). 


Appendices 

Appendix A: An Analysis of the Best Submissions for the 
Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-
Oriented Policing, 1993-1999 

In 1993, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) created an 
award program in conjunction with its annual Problem-Oriented 
Policing Conference (POP Conference). The award recognizes 
exemplary police projects that address community problems using a 
problem-oriented approach. The award was named in honor of 
Herman Goldstein. It is officially known as the Herman Goldstein 
Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing (hereinafter the 
Goldstein award). 

A panel of police supervisors judged the submissions for the award in 
the first few years of the program. Since 1996, a panel of police 
practitioners and researchers has judged the submissions. I have been 
one of the judges since 1996.167 

I read and analyzed the best submissions available to me. These 
comprised the project reports that were awarded top honors from 
1993 to 1995, and all submissions that survived an initial screening by 
the award committee from 1996 to 1999. I analyzed a total of 100 
projects. (I didn't set out to analyze 100 projectsit just happened to 
total to a nice round number, thereby greatly simplifying my 
calculations of percentages.) The total number of submissions for the 
award far exceeds the number I reviewed for this analysis. In recent 
years, the program has received approximately 90 submissions per 
year. This sample of projects is not representative of all submissions 
to the award program, but rather is representative of what the judges 
have deemed to be the best submissions. Accordingly, my conclusions 
do not necessarily reflect an assessment of the state of all problem-
solving as it is currently being practiced, but rather reflect an 
assessment of the state of what is being submitted for recognition as 
high-quality work. Undoubtedly, there is other high-quality problem-
oriented work undertaken by police agencies that, for a variety of 
reasons, is never submitted to any award program for recognition. The 
projects I analyzed, arranged by police agency, are listed below. 

167The judges from 1996 to 1999 have been Ron 
Clarke (criminal justice professorRutgers 
University, and chair of the committee), Gary 
Cordner (criminal justice professorEastern 
Kentucky University, and former police chief), 
Ron Glensor (deputy chief, Reno, Nev., Police 
Department; and adjunct professorUniversity of 
Nevada-Reno), Rana Sampson (police 
consultant; former public safety 
directorUniversity of San Diego; former 
sergeant, New York City Police Department), 
Greg Saville (criminal justice research associate 
University of New Haven, and former police 
constable at the Peel Regional Police in 
Ontario), and the author, Mike Scott (police 
consultant and former police chief). Since 1997, 
Nancy La Vigne (National Institute of Justice) 
has also been a judge. In 1996, Karen Lea 
(sergeant, St. Petersburg, Fla., Police 
Department) served as a judge. 


Project Title 

1. Chronic Truancy Abatement Program 
2. Operation Cease-Fire 
3. San Juan Del Centro Housing Complex 
4. Electric Avenue 
5. Apartment Watch 
6. Carolwood Park Apartments 
7. ABC Enforcement Efforts 
8. Gill Park Project 
9. Raby Rebels Youth Project 
10. Hartlepool School Watch Scheme 
11. Apartment Managers' Hotline Program 
12. Mario's Market 
13. The Elite Arcade 
14. San Jacinto Park Renovation Action Plan 
15. Quality Neighborhoods Program 
16. Transient Enrichment Network 
17. Domestic Violence Revictimization Prevention 
18. El Dorado Park Stone Soup Partnership 
19. Group Homes 
20. Local Ordinances and Conditional-Use Permits: The Empowerment of Law Enforcement 
21. Child Custody Disputes and Court Order Violations 
22. Blue Hole Park Project 
23. Theft Reduction Auto Program 
24. Day Laborer Project 
25. Street Sweeping, Broadway Style 
26. District 4 Thefts From Rental Vehicles 
27. Methacathinone Laboratories 
28. Center Court Apartments 
29. Conflict Resolution in Farragut School 
30. Black Tiger Karate Studio 
31. Creston Apartments 
32. Vehicle Accident Reduction Plan 
33. The M.A.N.E.R.S. Project 
34. Mission: Mission Lake Plaza 
35. Northfields Project 
36. Mental Evaluation Team 
37. Virgil/Burns Area 
38. Hollywood-Area Domestic Violence 
39. Speeding in West Division 
40. Harbor Area's Gateway Neighborhood Recovery Project 
41. MacArthur Park Revitalization Project 


Police Agency 	Year 

1. Baltimore Police Department 1999 
2. Boston Police Department 1998 
3. Boulder , Colo., Police Department 1996 
4. Calgary, Alberta, Police Service 1994 
5. Calgary Police Service 1996 
6. Carol Stream, Ill., Police Department 1997 
7. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., Police Dept. 1999 
8. Chicago Police Department 1997 
9. Cleveland, England, Police 1998 
10. Cleveland, England, Police 1999 
11. Colorado Springs, Colo., Police Department 1998 
12. Delray Beach, Fla., Police Department 1996 
13. Delta, British Columbia, Police Department 1997 
14. El Paso, Texas, Police Department 1996 
15. Fairfield, Calif., Police Department 1997 
16. Fontana, Calif., Police Department 1998 
17. Fremont, Calif., Police Department 1997 
18. Fresno, Calif., Police Department 1996 
19. Fresno Police Department 1996 
20. Fresno Police Department 1997 
21. Fresno Police Department 1999 
22. Georgetown, Texas, Police Services Division 1995 
23. Glendale, Ariz., Police Department 1997 
24. Glendale, Calif., Police Department 1997 
25. Green Bay, Wisc., Police Department 1999 
26. Honolulu Police Department 1998 
27. Indiana State Police 1997 
28. Joliet, Ill., Police Department 1996 
29. Joliet Police Department 1996 
30. Joliet Police Department 1997 
31. Kansas City, Mo., Police Department 1994 
32. Kansas City, Mo., Police Department 1997 
33. Lancashire, England, Constabulary 1999 
34. Lauderhill, Fla., Police Department 1996 
35. Leicestershire, England, Constabulary 1999 
36. Long Beach, Calif., Police Department 1999 
37. Los Angeles Police Department 1993 
38. Los Angeles Police Department 1996 
39. Los Angeles Police Department 1996 
40. Los Angeles Police Department 1997 
41. Los Angeles Police Department 1998 


Project Title 	Police Agency 	Year 
42. 1100 Block, 59th Place 	Los Angeles Sheriff's Department 	1997 
43. Tourist-Oriented Police Program 	Metro-Dade, Fla., Police Department 	1996 
44. Escort Services 	Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, Fla. 	1997 
45. Fifth District, Levis Street 	Metropolitan D.C. Police Department 	1997 
46. Hawthorne Huddle 	Minneapolis Police Department 	1999 
47. Damascus Gardens 	Montgomery County, Md., Police Department 	1996 
48. Dilapidated House in Oceanside, Long Island 	Nassau County, N.Y., Police Department 	1996 
49. Crimes Against the Elderly 	Nassau County Police Department 	1998 
50. Roosevelt Avenue Project 	National City, Calif., Police Department 	1997 
(Anti-Prostitution Effort) 
51. The R.A.I.D. Squad Initiative 	New Zealand Police 	1998 
52. PRIDE Program 	Newport News, Va., Police Department 	1998 
53. The Barrow Temperance Project of Public Safety 	North Slope Borough, Alaska, Department     1995 
54. Tiffany Gardens and Western Hills Apartment Complexes	Overland Park, Kan., Police Department 	1998 
55. The Last-Drink Program 	Peel, Ontario, Regional Police Service 	1996 
56. Turner-Fenton 	Peel Regional Police Service 	1996 
57. Nightclub Problems 	Phoenix Police Department 	1997 
58. Angela/Chanslor Area 	Pomona, Calif., Police Department 	1999 
59. Whitfield Towne Apartments 	Prince George's County, Md., Police Dept. 	1998 
60. Stop Break 	Queensland, Australia, Police 	1999 
61. The Power of Partnerships 	Racine, Wisc., Police Department 	1999 
62. North Side Redondo Gang 	Redondo Beach, Calif., Police Department 	1996 
63. Graffiti Task Force 	Richmond, Va., Police Department 	1999 
64. Vanier Project 	Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Quebec 	1996 
65. Auto Theft 	Royal Canadian Mounted Police, British Columbia 	1997 
66. New Helvetia and River Oaks 	Sacramento, Calif., Police Department 	1996 
67. Prostitution Restraining Order Program 	San Bernardino, Calif., Police Department 	1999 
68. Drag Racing 	San Diego Police Department 	1996 
69. Pallet Project 	San Diego Police Department 	1996 
70. The 501 Blues: The La Fripe International Project	San Diego Police Department  1996 
71. Auto Theft 	San Diego Police Department 	1997 
72. Macho's Nightclub Project 	San Diego Police Department 	1997 
73. Start Smart 	San Diego Police Department 	1997 
74. Mission Valley River Preserve 	San Diego Police Department 	1998 
75. Operation Hot Pipe, Smokey Haze and Rehab	San Diego Police Department 	1998  
76. San Diego Traffic Offender Program (S.T.O.P.)	San Diego Police Department 1998 
77. San Ysidro Boulevard 	San Diego Police Department 	1998 
78. Truancy Control Project 	San Diego Police Department 	1999 


Project Title 
Police Agency Year 

79. Lewd Conduct at San Elijo Lagoon and I-5 Viewpoint	San Diego Sheriff's Department 
	1996 
80. Harbor Plaza 	Santa Ana, Calif., Police Department 	1993 
81. Street Cruising 	Santa Ana Police Department 	1997 
82. Dennis Palmer Elk's Lodge 	Santa Barbara, Calif., Police Department 	1996 
83. Options, Choices and Consequences 	Seattle Police Department 	1996 
84. West First Revitalization Project 	Spokane, Wash., Police Department 	1997 
85. 911 Abuse 	St. Petersburg, Fla., Police Department 	1996 
86. Project Respect 	St. Petersburg Police Department 	1996 
87. Prostitution 	St. Petersburg Police Department 	1997 
88. Repeat Alcoholic Offenders in Downtown St. Petersburg 	St. Petersburg Police Department 	1997 
89. Unsolved Homicides 	St. Petersburg Police Department 	1997 
90. Eighth Street 	Temple, Texas, Police Department 	1996 
91. South Florida Seaports Internal Conspiracy Project 		U.S. Customs Service, Fla. 	1997 
92. Stop Stick Project 		U.S. Customs Service, Texas 	1997 
93. Perception of High Crime on Campus 		University of Alabama-Birmingham Police 	1996 
94. UW Police Response to Alcoholic Vagrants	University of Wisconsin-Madison Police 	1997 
95. Intersecting Solutions 	Vancouver, British Columbia, Police Dept. 	1999 
96. South Central Prostitution Project 	Wichita, Kan., Police Department 	1996 
97. 21st Street Community Renovation Strategy 	Wichita Police Department 	1997 
98. Spectator's Club Project 	Wichita Police Department 	1998 
99. Hilltop Community Project 	Wichita Police Department 	1999 
100.Tropicana Motel 	Yuma, Ariz., Police Department 	1998 


Table 1 lists the number of projects I analyzed  
for each year. 

Table 1
Year 	No. of Projects 
1993 	2 
1994 	2 
1995 	2 
1996 	30 
1997 	30 
1998 	17 
1999 	17 
Total 	100 

Note: Beginning in 1998, the committee decided to reduce 
the number of submissions to be reviewed by the entire 
committee (to approximately 15). They felt this better 
reflected the differing levels of quality of the 
submissions and permitted the judges to review the best 
submissions more carefully. 


I entered the following information from each project report into a 
simple database program: 

a. year of submission, 
b. title of project, 
c. name of police agency, 
d. state or province of police agency, 
e. country and region of police agency, 
f. type of police agency, 
g. nature of problem in terms of behavior, 
h. nature of problem in terms of place, 
i. nature of problem in terms of people involved, 
j. nature of problem in terms of time or event, 
k. scope of problem, 
l. type of responses used to address problem-oriented policing, 
m. references to zero tolerance, 
n. references to restorative justice, 
o. references to crime prevention through environmental design, 
p. position of project leader, 
q. position type of project leader, and 
r. level of recognition in award program. 


These data allowed me to analyze the following questions about 
observable trends among the best submissions to the award program: 

a. Where are the best submissions coming from? Which agencies? 
Which states, provinces or countries? What types of agencies? 
b. What types of problems are the police addressing? In what terms 
do police define problems? What is the scope of the problems the 
police are addressing? Who is leading the projects? 
c. What types of responses are police using to address problems? 
How often are certain popular response types used? 


These are questions of interest to me in assessing observable trends 
over time in the Goldstein award program. I did not capture detailed 
information about the methods used to identify, analyze and assess 
problems, though that information is surely of great interest to others. 

This survey of the 100 best submissions to the Goldstein award 
program from 1993 to 1999 is, of course, limited in scope and 
methodology. Even the best submissions to the program do not 
necessarily reflect the best of problem-oriented policing. In my own 
travels, I have visited a number of police agencies that have claimed to 
be engaged in problem-oriented policing routinely and for several 
years, yet that have seldom, if ever, submitted project reports to the 


program. It takes time and effort to prepare the submissions, and not 
all police officials are prepared to make that investment. There may 
also be good crime prevention initiatives occurring in which the police 
are only tangentially involved. Reports of those initiatives also might 
not find their way into the program. And, as noted earlier, problem-
solving efforts from non-English-speaking countries usually are not 
translated for the program. These qualifications aside, I would 
nonetheless argue that the 100 projects I reviewed represent an 
important portion of the total amount of problem-oriented police 
work occurring. Allowing for some errors in judgment by the program 
judges, these 100 projects generally represent the best of the work 
submitted to the program. 


As to the limits of my methodology, I concentrated more on the 
nature of the problems addressed and the responses to those 
problems than I did on such other important steps in problem-solving 
as problem analysis and assessment. I will reserve that for future work. 
I reviewed only the project reports submitted to the program, reports 
that are limited in length by the program rules. I did not interview the 
problem-solvers or review supporting materials not submitted to the 
program, though doing so would surely improve an understanding of 
the work actually done. I classified elements of the projects in terms 
that make sense to me, though not according to any widely accepted 
analysis framework. Finally, I did not solicit any independent review of 
the projects to control for my own biases and errors. 

So what conclusions, however tentative and qualified, do I draw from 
a review of these best efforts? I offer the following summary 
conclusions, followed by a more detailed description of my findings 
related to each of my research questions. 

Summary of Conclusions 

a. The range of response alternatives used is the best aspect of 
problem-oriented policing being demonstrated in the Goldstein 
award program. The police continue to frequently use the criminal 
justice system, but usually more selectively and in conjunction 
with alternative responses. The police are willing to use informal 
and noncoercive response alternatives in addition to formal and 
coercive measures. This positive development is tempered in more 
recent years by increased resort to stock responses such as zero 
tolerance and crime prevention through environmental design, 
responses that may be sensible, but that too often are crudely 
applied. 
b. Problem-solving initiatives usually use a combination of response 
types to address problems. Multiple interventions, while 



complicating efforts to determine causes and effects, usually 
address problems more effectively than single strategy responses. 

c. Problem analysis remains generally weak, with most analysis 
serving merely to substantiate the existence of the suspected 
problem rather than to develop a more insightful understanding 
of why it is occurring. 
d. Assessment of response effectiveness is typically cursory, lacking 
in precision and certainty, although this aspect of problem-solving 
is improving, with greater attention being paid to such matters as 
control groups and displacement effects. 
e. Inadequate research resources are being dedicated to problem-
oriented policing. Research expertise, technology and funding 
remain in scarce evidence in the Goldstein award projects. 
f. Police executives and mid-level managers are conspicuously absent 
from many good problem-solving initiatives. The good work of 
line-level police officers would likely (though not certainly) be 
improved by stronger involvement of higher-ranking officials in 
the process. 
g. Overall, most of the best submissions to the Goldstein award 
program come from the southwestern part of the United States, 
especially from southern and central California. There are high-
quality efforts from other regions, but no other region produces 
the same amount of high-quality projects. Some states with large 
populations, as well as some police agencies reputed to be 
engaged in problem-oriented policing or community policing, are 
conspicuously absent from representation in the program. 
h. Problems ranging from serious crimes to nuisances, disorder and 
accidents are addressed using problem-oriented policing methods. 
This contradicts some claims that problem-oriented policing is 
applied only to lower-level disorder problems, and not to serious 
crime problems. 
i. Problem-solving initiatives addressed problems ranging from 
highly localized ones to those affecting entire communities. In 
fact, there were more of the latter than the former. This 
contradicts some claims that problem-oriented policing addresses 
problems that are only limited in scope. The level of analysis and 
response to communitywide problems, however, seldom matched 
the scope of the problem. 




Detailed Findings 

Where Are the Best Submissions Coming From? 

The Goldstein award program is open to police agencies throughout 
the world. Because the program is run by PERF, a predominantly, 
though not exclusively, American organization, most submissions 
come from U.S. police agencies.168 Due to language barriers, all 
submissions have come from English-speaking countries (including 
the bilingual province of Quebec), even though problem-oriented 
policing is practiced in non-English-speaking countries. Table 2 shows 
from which countries the best submissions have come. 

Table 2 
Goldstein Award Submissions, by Country 

Country 		No./Pct. 
United States 		86 
Canada 			8 
United Kingdom 		4 
New Zealand 		4 
Australia 		4 

Of those projects submitted by U.S. police agencies, the majority 
(58%) were submitted by agencies in what I defined as the 
southwestern region of the country,169 with 41 percent coming from 
California alone (see Tables 3 and 4 on the next page). There are 
several possible explanations for this trend. The award program is 
closely linked with PERF's POP Conference. The award solicitations 
are sent out in conjunction with announcements about the conference, 
and the awards are presented at the conference. Since its inception in 
1990, the POP Conference has been held in San Diego and cohosted 
by the San Diego Police Department. If for no other reason than 
logistics, police officials from southern California and surrounding 
regions have attended the conference in greater numbers than have 
those from other parts of the country. The San Diego Police 
Department is recognized as a leader in the practice of problem-
oriented policing, and has exercised this influence worldwide, but 
especially in the Southwest region of the United States. It is also 
possible that the preponderance of the best submissions' coming from 
the Southwest reflects, in a general way, the high caliber of police 
personnel and management typically found in this part of the country. 
I don't know which of these factors best explains this trend, but it is 
perhaps the most obvious observable trend about the award. Table 3 
lists the breakdown of U.S. submissions by region, as well as the total 
percentage of submissions each region supplied. Table 4 does the 
same, by state. 

168The United Kingdom has recently started a 
new award program to recognize problem-
oriented policing there. It is known as the Tilley 
award, in honor of Professor Nick Tilley of 
Nottingham Trent University, widely recognized 
as one of the premier experts in problem-
oriented policing in the United Kingdom. In 
coming years, the Tilley award program may 
draw away from the Goldstein award program 
submissions from the United Kingdom, although 
that isn't certain. 

169I categorized the states into the following six 
regions: 
Northeast: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, 
New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, 
Vermont 
Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, District of Columbia, 
Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
West Virginia 
Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Tennessee 
Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, 
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, 
Wisconsin 
Southwest: Arizona, California, Colorado, 
Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, 
Oklahoma, Texas, Utah 
Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, 
North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, 
Washington, Wyoming 



Appendix A 

Table 3 
Goldstein Award Submissions From the United States, by Region of United States 

Region 		No. Pct. 
Southwest (Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, 
Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah) 
50 58 

Southeast (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, 
Tennessee) 
12 14 

Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, 
Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin) 
12 14 

Mid-Atlantic (Delaware, District of Columbia, 
Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West 
Virginia) 
6 7 

Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont) 
3 3 

Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North 
Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wyoming) 
3 3 

Table 4 
Goldstein Award Submissions From the United States, by State 

State 			No. 	Pct. 
California 		35 	41 
Florida 		10 	12 
Illinois 		5 	6 
Kansas 			5 	6 
Texas 			4 	5 
Arizona 		3 	3 
Maryland 		3 	3 
Wisconsin 		3 	3 
Colorado 		2 	2 
Missouri 		2 	2 
New York 		2 	2 
Virginia 		2 	2 
Washington 		2 	2 
Alabama 		1 	1 
Alaska 			1 	1 
District of Columbia 	1 	1 
Hawaii 			1 	1 
Indiana 		1 	1 
Massachusetts 		1 	1 
Minnesota 		1 	1 
North Carolina 		1 	1 
Total 			86	97 

Note: Percentages do not total to 
100 due to rounding. 


That so many submissions come from California may be explained by 
the factors mentioned above. Other states are clearly underrepresented 
(or not represented at all) in the program. The San Diego Police 
Department is the source of more of the best submissions than any 
other single police agency (see Table 5). 

Table 5 
Goldstein Award Submissions, by Agency 

Agency No./Pct. 
San Diego Police Department 11 
Los Angeles Police Department 5 
St. Petersburg Police Department 5 
Fresno Police Department 4 
Wichita Police Department 4 
Joliet Police Department 3 
Calgary Police Service 2 
Cleveland, England, Police 2 
Kansas City, Mo., Police Department 2 
Nassau County Police Department 2 
Peel Regional Police 2 
Royal Canadian Mounted Police 2 
Santa Ana Police Department 2 
U.S. Customs Service 2 
Baltimore Police Department 1 
Boston Police Department 1 
Boulder Police Department 1 
Carol Stream Police Department 1 
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department 1 
Chicago Police Department 1 
Colorado Springs Police Department 1 
Delray Beach Police Department 1 
Delta Police Department 1 
El Paso Police Department 1 
Fairfield Police Department 1 
Fontana Police Department 1 
Fremont Police Department 1 
Georgetown Police Services Division 1 
Glendale, Ariz., Police Department 1 
Glendale, Calif., Police Department 1 


Green Bay Police Department 1 
Honolulu Police Department 1 
Indiana State Police 1 
Lancashire Police 1 
Lauderhill Police Department 1 
Leicestershire Constabulary 1 
Long Beach Police Department 1 
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department 1 
Metro-Dade Police Department 1 
Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation 1 
Metropolitan Police Department 1 
Minneapolis Police Department 1 
Montgomery County Police Department 1 
National City Police Department 1 
New Zealand Police 1 
Newport News Police Department 1 
North Slope Borough Department of Public Safety 1 
Overland Park Police Department 1 
Phoenix Police Department 1 
Pomona Police Department 1 
Prince George's County Police Department 1 
Queensland Police 1 
Racine Police Department 1 
Redondo Beach Police Department 1 
Richmond Police Department 1 
Sacramento Police Department 1 
San Bernardino Police Department 1 
San Diego Sheriff's Department 1 
Santa Barbara Police Department 1 
Seattle Police Department 1 
Spokane Police Department 1 
Temple Police Department 1 
University of Alabama-Birmingham Police Department 1 
University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department 1 
Vancouver Police Department 1 
Yuma Police Department 1 
Total 100 


Table 6 
Goldstein Award Submissions, by 
Type of Police Agency 


Type of Agency No./Pct. 
Municipal 75 
County 9 
Regional 8 
Federal 4 
Campus 2 
State 2 
Total 100 

The best submissions are predominantly from municipal police 
agencies (see Table 6). 

What Types of Problems Are the Police Addressing? 

One can identify problems in various ways, and Herman Goldstein 
recommends that the police do so in whatever way best characterizes 
the specific situation being addressed. As a general proposition, one 
can define problems in terms of the offensive behavior, the location, 
the people involved, or the time or event during which the situation 
occurs. Accordingly, I classified the 100 projects according to this 
general framework. I tried to capture the way the project reporters 
described each problem. In all cases, the project reporters could 
readily classify the problem being addressed in terms of the offensive 
behavior. In fewer instances was the location, people involved or 
time/event central to how the project reporters defined the problem. 
This analysis reflects as much how problem-solvers define problems as 
what behaviors, locations, people, and times/events are involved in 
problem-solving initiatives. 

Problems, by Behavior 

Table 7 on page 103 shows the types of problems addressed in the 
projects in terms of behavior, and is further organized by my own 
categorization of generic problem types (traffic-related, drug-related, 
alcohol-related, intimidation/fear, fire-related, sex offenses, assault, 
deadly assault, stealing, disorder/disturbances, other deadly behavior, 
environmental crimes/disorder, youth-related, and miscellaneous). 

My generic categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, the 
problem of sexual assault, which I placed along with other sex 
offenses, can also be defined as a nondeadly assault problem. In most 
instances, I classified the problem in precisely the terms reported in 
the submissions; in other instances, I modified the description slightly 
to fit into an existing category. Most submissions described the 
problem in reasonably specific terms, although some described it in 
more general terms, which I captured by such labels as general 
crime or neighborhood deterioration. Describing a problem in 
such generic terms is not all that helpful from a problem-oriented 
perspective, but I did so when there was no more-specific 
characterization of the problem behavior. Most submissions described 
several discrete problem behaviors within the context of a problem-
solving project. Some submissions described the project in terms of a 
single problem behavior, while others described as many as 14 discrete 
problem behaviors. 


This analysis provides a rough indication of the types of problems 
being addressed in the best projects. The most common problem was 
drug dealing, followed by assault, prostitution, vandalism, 
theft, disorderly conduct, and loitering. The generic categories 
of stealing and drug-related were the largest. 

Table 7 
Problem Types, by Behavior 

Problem Type, by Behavior 
No. 

Stealing 
Thefts 
Robberies 
Burglaries 
Auto thefts 
Thefts from autos 
Fraud 
Carjacking 
Fencing of stolen property 
Telephone fraud 
Theft of metal 
57 
13 
12 
11 
9 
5 
3 
1 
1 
1 
1 
Drug-Related 
Drug dealing 
Public drug use 
Drug smuggling 
Drug manufacturing 
40 
34 
3 
2 
1 
Intimidation/Fear 
Loitering 
Intimidation 
Panhandling 
Extortion 
Fear of crime 
Shots fired 
Bias crime 
Harassment 
Window washing (squeegee) 
38 
13 
8 
6 
3 
3 
2 
1 
1 
1 
Miscellaneous 
Vandalism 
General crimes 
Trespassing 
Mental illness-related problem 
Public health 
35 
14 
12 
7 
1 
1 


Assault (nonsexual, nondeadly) 33 
Assaults 21 
Fights 7 
Domestic violence 5 
Disorder/Disturbance 27 
Disorderly conduct 13 
Noise 7 
Disturbances 3 
Crowd disorder 1 
Domestic disturbances 1 
Juvenile disorder 1 
Vagrancy 1 
Deadly Assault 26 
Shootings 12 
Homicides 10 
Drive-by shootings 2 
Domestic homicide 1 
Stabbing 1 
Traffic-Related 25 
Motor vehicle accidents 6 
Parking 5 
Drunken driving 4 
Speeding 3 
Traffic complaints 2 
Cruising 1 
Drag racing 1 
Illegal public transportation (wildcatting) 1 
Traffic congestion 1 
Unlicensed driving 1 
Environmental Crime/Disorder 24 
Graffiti 11 
Litter 9 
Illegal dumping 2 
Environmental waste dumping 1 
Vehicle dumping 1 
Sex Offenses 23 
Prostitution 17 
Sexual assaults 3 
Escort service (prostitution) 1 
Indecent exposure 1 
Public sexual activity 1 


Alcohol-Related 
Public intoxication 
Underage drinking 
Public drinking 
Alcohol-related offenses 
Alcohol incapacitation 
Sale of alcohol to minors and 
intoxicated people 
15 
4 
4 
3 
2 
1 
1 
Youth-Related 
Truancy 
Child custody dispute 
Missing children 
Runaway 
7 
4 
1 
1 
1 
Fire-Related 
Arson 
Explosion 
Fire hazard 
3 
1 
1 
1 
Other Deadly Behavior 
Suicides 
Drowning 
3 
2 
1 

Problems, by Place 

While project reporters could characterize all the problems in terms of 
behavior, they did not define all the problems in terms of place. Ten 
of the projects did not lend themselves to description by place, largely 
because the problem occurred in various places throughout the 
affected community. Table 8 lists the types of places for the 90 
projects in which the problem locations were specific. For 17 projects, 
the project reporters defined the problem, at least in part, as one of 
neighborhood decline or decay; that is, the general deterioration of a 
neighborhood was at least part of the problem to be addressed. 


Table 8
Problems, by Place


Place Type 	No. 
Apartment complex 12 
Commercial strip/district 10 
Residential neighborhood 10 
Licensed liquor establishment 6 
Park 6 
Roadway 6 
School 6 
Mixed-use neighborhood 4 
Nightclub 4 
Urban neighborhood 3 
Border crossing 2 
Riverbed 2 
Shopping mall 2 
Airport 1 
Apartment building 1 
Car dealership 1 
Clandestine drug laboratory 1 
College campus 1 
Dilapidated house 1 
Entertainment district 
(bars, clubs, taverns) 1 
Indian reservation 1 
Karate studio 1 
Motel 1 
Port 1 
Recreation area 1 
Group home 1 
Retail clothing store 1 
Video arcade 1 


Problems, by People Involved 

As with place, the project reporters did not define all problems in 
terms of the people involved. Obviously, there are people involved in 
or affected by every problem, but project reporters defined the 
problem in terms of people in only 59 of the submissions. For 
example, although 17 submissions cited prostitution as a problem, 
only three defined prostitutes themselves as the focus of the problem. 
Table 9 shows the categories of people who were the focus of the 
problem-solving efforts. The predominant category was gangs. 

Table 9 
Problems, by People Involved 

People Involved 	No. 
Gangs 26 
Transients 7 
Juvenile offenders 5 
Students 4 
Chronic alcoholics 3 
Prostitutes 3 
Car enthusiasts 
(hot-rodders, cruisers) 2 
Merchants 2 
Tourists 2 
Day laborers 1 
Drug couriers 1 
Elderly victims 1 
Indian youths 1 
Homosexual men 1 
Mentally ill people 1 
Port employees 1 
Domestic violence 1 
victims 

Problems, by Time/Event 

Project reporters defined few problems by time or event. Only five of 
the 100 projects lent themselves to a temporal definition. Of those 
five, three related to the times when schools were in or out of session, 
one to bar closing hours and one to postgame victory celebrations. In 
addition to place and people, most problems also have some sort of 
temporal dimension, but the police officials leading the initiatives 
rarely used the time/event element as a way to organize their thinking 
about the problem. 


Table 10 
Projects, by Scope 

Scope of Problem No./Pct. 
Localized 21 
Intermediate 47 
Communitywide 32 
Total 100 

Table 11 
What Is the Scope of the Problems the Police Are Addressing? 

I classified each project in terms of the scope of the problem-solving 
initiative. By scope, I refer to the extent to which the problem affected 
the entire community. I classified each problem as either localized, 
intermediate or communitywide in scope. Localized problems 
typically affected a single residence, building, intersection, etc. 
Intermediate problems typically affected an entire apartment 
complex or neighborhood. Communitywide problems affected the 
police agency's entire jurisdiction (or, in some instances, just the entire 
jurisdiction of an agency subunit). These are rough categories and, 
accordingly, provide only a rough estimate of the scope of problems 
high-quality projects are addressing. Table 10 lists the number of 
projects in each category. 

Somewhat surprisingly, almost one-third of the projects addressed 
problems affecting the entire community. I found it interesting that, 
despite the fact that problem-solvers quite often identified problems 
of considerable scope, the level of resources the agencies dedicated to 
researching and responding to those problems seldom matched the 
scope; that is, quite often, problem-solving officers and supervisors 
found themselves trying to address large problems without the benefit 
of a lot of research assistance or substantial resources. Table 11 
reports the level of police leadership for each scope of problem, and 
partially confirms this conclusion. Only 17 percent of the submissions 
reported significant command-level leadership (typically, lieutenant and 
above). Line officers led almost one-half of the projects (47%). In 38 
percent of the communitywide projects, line officers alone provided 
the leadership. Command-level officers more typically provided direct 
leadership on intermediate-scope projects (in nine of the 47 reported). 
Line officers' being listed as project leaders does not mean that 
supervisors and commanders were disinterested in the projects or did 
not provide indirect leadership and support, but only that they did not 
provide direct oversight and were not closely engaged in the project. 

Scope of Problems, by Level of Police Leadership 

Level of Police Leadership 
Number (Percentage of Row) 

Scope of Problem 
Line 
Supervisor 
Command 
Support 
Row Total 

Localized 
13 (62) 
6 (29) 
2 (10) 
0 (0) 
21 
Intermediate 
22 (47) 
15 (32) 
9 (19) 
1 (2) 
47 
Communitywide 
12 (38) 
14 (44) 
6 (19) 
0 (0) 
32 
Column Total 
47 
35 
17 
1 
100 


Looking more specifically at the types of assignments of the officers 
leading the projects, I found that about one-half of them were 
assigned to some sort of specialized unit, or had assignments of 
which community policing or problem-solving was the defining 
feature. [Project reporters variously referred to these officers as 
community policing officers (or teams or units), neighborhood police 
officers, problem-oriented policing units (or POP teams), task forces, 
or some variation thereof.] About one-fourth of the projects had 
leadership from officers (including supervisors and commanders) in 
general patrol assignments. Detective and administrative officers 
exercised far less leadership. Table 12 lists the project leadership, by 
type of assignment. 

Table 12 
Project Leadership, by Type of Assignment 

Type of Assignment 	No. 
Community policing, problem-oriented policing, 
neighborhood, task force, etc. 46 
General patrol 26 
Detective or special investigative unit 6 
Drug or vice unit or officer 5 
Traffic or DUI unit 5 
Administrative command 3 
Crime prevention 3 
Police chief 3 
School officer 2 
Unknown 2 

Note: The numbers do not add up to 100, as some projects had multiple 
leaders working from multiple assignments. 

What Types of Responses Are Police Using To Address Problems? 

The submissions reported a wide array of specific responses to 
problems. This was expected, given the range of types of problems 
addressed, and entirely consistent with Goldstein's insistence that 
police carefully tailor responses to the specific problem. To make 
some sense of the range of responses, I identified each specific 
response reported in the submissions, and classified each response 
according to the descriptive response categories Goldstein developed 
in Problem-Oriented Policing (1990: 104-141). Goldstein described 11 
general categories of responses (three of which have multiple 


subcategories). These 11 categories, along with some specific examples 
of each, are listed below, along with the number of projects in which 
the police used the particular response. (Goldstein's categories are 
listed below followed by specific examples drawn from the 100 
submissions. The number in categories with multiple subcategories 
can total to more than 100; otherwise, the number also reflects the 
percentage of projects for which the particular response was 
reported.) 


Alternative Response Categories in Problem-Oriented Policing 

1. Concentrating Attention on Those Who Account for a 
Disproportionate Share of a Problem (25) 

 Repeat-offender/career-criminal initiatives 
 Repeat-victimization initiatives 
 Repeat-location initiatives 


2. Connecting With Other Government and Private Services (65) 

a. Making Referrals to Other Agencies (10) 
 Counseling and shelter for domestic violence victims 
 Support services for rape victims 
 Dispute resolution for landlords and tenants 
 Counseling and shelter for runaways 
 Demolition of buildings 
 Investigations of child abuse/neglect 




b. Coordinating Police Responses With Other Agencies (33) 
 Joint monitoring of probationers and parolees 
 Joint truancy enforcement with schools and juvenile 
authorities 
 Joint alcohol licensing inspection and enforcement 
 Joint driver's license inspection and enforcement 




c. Correcting Inadequacies in Municipal Services, and Pressing for 
New Services (22) 
 Increased garbage collection and forestry services 
 Increased recreational activities and facilities 
 Increased enforcement of building code and zoning 
violations 
 Improved street lighting 
 Improved public health services 
 Improved transportation systems 







 Creation of refugee assistance facilities 
 Creation of graffiti removal programs 
 Creation of detoxification facilities 
 Creation of job training programs 
 Creation of system for checking on the welfare of the 
elderly 


3. Using Mediation and Negotiation Skills (5) 

 Landlord-tenant disputes 
 Merchant-customer disputes 
 Neighbor disputes 
 Labor-management disputes 
 Gang disputes 
 Political protests 
 Negotiations about rules of the street among users in 
conflict 
 Domestic disturbances 


4. Conveying Information (111) 

a. To Reduce Anxiety and Fear (8) 
 Providing accurate and reliable information 
 Dispelling rumors 
 Calming victims 




b. To Enable Citizens To Solve Their Own Problems (13) 
 Providing instructions on accessing government services 


c. To Elicit Conformity With Laws and Regulations That Are Not 
Known or Understood (23) 
 Explaining liability to liquor vendors 
 Explaining parking regulations 
 Explaining American laws to recent immigrants 
 Explaining liquor laws to juveniles 




d. To Warn Potential Victims About Their Vulnerability, and Advise 
Them of Ways To Protect Themselves (20) 
 Children, about strangers, drugs, sexual assault 
 Shoppers, about thefts from cars 
 Elderly, about con artists 
 Shoppers, about bogus merchandise 
 Car owners, about auto theft 







 Homeowners, about burglary 
 Hotel patrons, about storing valuables and area safety 


e. To Demonstrate to People How They Unwittingly Contribute to 
Problems (14) 
 Contributing to panhandlers 


f. To Develop Support for Addressing a Problem (30) 
 Identifying problems about which the public is unaware 
 Explaining harms of seemingly innocuous offenses 




g. To Acquaint the Community With the Limitations on the Police, 
and To Define What the Community Can Realistically Expect of 
the Police (3) 


 Limitations on ability to remove undesirable people from 
public places 

5. Mobilizing the Community (30) 

 Establishment of neighborhood watches 
 Identification of abandoned vehicles 
 Promotion of community interaction to reduce fear, 
mistrust or tension 
 Installation of telephone notification systems to alert 
potential victims 
 Formation of citizen patrols 
 Solicitation of information on criminal activity 


6. Using Existing Forms of Social Control, in Addition to the 
Community (38) 

 Parents over children 
 Teachers over students 
 Landlords over tenants (residential and business) 
 Employers over employees 
 Contractors over subcontractors 
 Universities over fraternities 
 Friends over one another 
 Neighbors over one another 
 Youth over one another, as members of a club 
 Banks over account holders 
 Bar owners over patrons 
 Motel/hotel owners over guests 
 Businesses over private security companies 
 Military commanders over soldiers 



7. Altering the Physical Environment To Reduce Opportunities for 
Problems to Recur (57) 

 Redesigning buildings 
 Closing streets or rerouting traffic 
 Improving lighting 
 Cleaning up neighborhoods 
 Changing merchandising layouts 
 Erecting barriers 
 Greasing poles and fences 
 Relocating bus stops 
 Demolishing buildings 
 Cleaning graffiti 
 Towing abandoned vehicles 
 Removing or altering pay telephones 
 Installing metal detectors 
 Demolishing buildings 
 Using plastic rather than glass receptacles 


8. Increasing Regulation, Through Statutes or Ordinances, of 
Conditions That Contribute to Problems (21) 

 Establishing minimum standards for locks and lighting, to 
reduce burglary 
 Establishing regulatory and fining schemes for false alarms 
 Establishing specific crime prevention requirements (e.g., 
two clerks in convenience stores) 
 Requiring soundproofing in apartment complexes 
 Restricting merchandising practices that make theft easy 
 Restricting sale of spray paint to minors 


9. Developing New Forms of Limited Authority To Intervene and 
Detain (15) 

 Giving police power to detain without charging 
 Giving police power to make involuntary mental 
commitments 
 Giving police power to make involuntary detoxification 
commitments 
 Giving police power to conduct involuntary transports to 
shelters for homeless in danger 
 Establishing cite-and-release procedures 
 Securing agency authority from private property owners 
to enforce trespassing laws 



10. Using the Criminal Justice System More Discriminately (124) 

a. Straightforward Investigation, Arrest and Prosecution (45) 
 Reactive investigations and arrests 
 Proactive investigations and arrests 




b. Selective Enforcement, With Articulated Criteria (22) 
 Crackdowns (aka zero tolerance) 
 High-volume traffic enforcement at select locations 




c. Enforcement of Criminal Laws That, by Tradition, Are Enforced 
by Another Agency (12) 
 Merchant fraud 
 Environmental laws 
 Building code violations 
 Consumer protection laws 
 Immigration laws 




d. Greater Specification of Behavior That Should Be Subject to 
Criminal Prosecution or to Control Through City Ordinances (4) 
 Aggressive panhandling laws 
 Loitering-for-the-purpose-of-(e.g., prostitution, drug 
dealing) laws (efforts to refine the law to focus on specific 
harm, without being overbroad) 




e. Intervention Without Making an Arrest (26) 
 Stopping, warning, educating offenders 
 Giving conspicuous warnings to offenders 
 Confiscating contraband without charges 
 Setting up DUI roadblocks 




f. Use of Arrest Without the Intention To Prosecute (2) 
 As a means to get drug users into treatment 
 As a means to get batterers into counseling 




g. Attachment of New Conditions to Probation or Parole (13) 
 Mapping offenders out of an area 
 Prohibiting contact with specific individuals 







11. Using Civil Law To Control Public Nuisances, Offensive Behavior 
and Conditions Contributing to Crime (44) 

 Liquor licensing 
 Zoning 
 Conditional-use permits 
 Business licenses 
 Asset forfeiture 
 Padlock laws 
 Nuisance abatement 
 Restraining orders and injunctions 
 Vehicle impoundment 
 Health inspection 
 Fire code inspection 
 Building code inspection 


Tables 13 and 14 list the frequency with which each of these general 
response categories and subcategories was reported in the projects. 

Table 13 
General Response Categories, by Frequency 

Category No. 	General Response Category 	No. of Times Response Was Used 
10 Using the Criminal Justice System More Discriminately 124 
4 Conveying Information 111 
2 Connecting With Other Government and Private Services 65 
7 Altering the Physical Environment To Reduce Opportunities 
for Problems to Recur 57 
11 Using Civil Law To Control Public Nuisances, Offensive 
Behavior and Conditions Contributing to Crime 44 
6 Using Existing Forms of Social Control, in Addition to the 
Community 38 
5 Mobilizing the Community 30 
1 Concentrating Attention on Those Who Account for a 
Disproportionate Share of a Problem 25 
8 Increasing Regulation, Through Statutes or Ordinances, of 
Conditions That Contribute to Problems 21 
9 Developing New Forms of Limited Authority To Intervene 
and Detain 15 
3 Using Mediation And Negotiation Skills 5 

Note: The totals can exceed 100 because the police could use multiple subcategories in any given project. 


Table 14 
Response Subcategories, by Frequency 

Response Subcategory No. 	Response Subcategory Description 
	Percentage of Projects in Which Response Was Used 
7 Altering the Physical Environment To Reduce Opportunities for Problems to Recur 57 
10a Straightforward Investigation, Arrest and Prosecution 45 
11 Using Civil Law To Control Public Nuisances, Offensive Behavior and 
Conditions Contributing to Crime 
44 
6 Using Existing Forms of Social Control, in Addition to the Community 38 
2b Coordinating Police Responses With Other Agencies 33 
4f Conveying Information To Develop Support for Addressing a Problem 30 
5 Mobilizing the Community 30 
10e Intervention Without Making an Arrest 26 
1 Concentrating Attention on Those Who Account for a Disproportionate Share 
of a Problem 
25 
4c Conveying Information To Elicit Conformity With Laws and Regulations 
That Are Not Known or Understood 
23 
2c Correcting Inadequacies in Municipal Services, and Pressing for New Services 22 
10b Selective Enforcement, With Articulated Criteria 22 
8 Increasing Regulation, Through Statutes or Ordinances, of Conditions That 
Contribute to Problems 
21 
4d Conveying Information To Warn Potential Victims About Their Vulnerability, 
and Advise Them of Ways To Protect Themselves 
20 
9 Developing New Forms of Limited Authority To Intervene and Detain 15 
4e Conveying Information To Demonstrate to People How They Unwittingly 
Contribute to Problems 
14 
4b Conveying Information To Enable Citizens To Solve Their Own Problems 13 
10g Attachment of New Conditions to Probation or Parole 13 
10c Enforcement of Criminal Laws That, by Tradition, Are Enforced by 
Another Agency 
12 
2a Making Referrals to Other Agencies 10 
4a Conveying Information To Reduce Anxiety and Fear 8 
3 Using Mediation And Negotiation Skills 5 
10d Greater Specification of Behavior That Should Be Subject to Criminal 
Prosecution or to Control Through City Ordinances 
4 
4g Conveying Information To Acquaint the Community With the Limitations on 
the Police, and To Define What the Community Can Realistically Expect 
of the Police 
3 
10f Use of Arrest Without the Intention To Prosecute 2 

Note: Frequency is expressed as a percentage because each subcategory 
was recorded only once per project, even if the police used several different 
responses of the particular type. 


As the tables above indicate, the most commonly reported type of 
response was some use of the criminal justice system. This was not 
surprising, given the police's longstanding function as enforcers of 
criminal law. Within that general category, straightforward 
investigation, arrest and prosecution was the predominant specific 
response category. In reading the submissions, I had the impression 
that, in most instances in which the police used straightforward 
investigation, arrest and prosecution, they used it more as the 
backdrop to other, more carefully developed interventions than as the 
primary intervention itself. It served as a reminder, both to the people 
whose offensive behavior was being addressed, and to the police 
themselves, that the most restrictive response alternativearrest and 
prosecutionremained available if less-restrictive measures failed to 
correct the behavior. The next most common specific response 
category within this general category was selective enforcement, with 
articulated criteria. I was generous in classifying these sorts of 
responses in that the articulated criteria were not often explicit. This 
response category contained all references to zero tolerance criminal 
law enforcement; 15 submissions reported zero tolerance as a 
response strategy. 

Within this general criminal justice system category were two of the 
least frequently reported specific response typesdefining with greater 
specificity that behavior that should be subject to criminal prosecution 
or to control through city ordinances, and using arrest without the 
intention to prosecute. The police rarely reported drafting new 
legislation to target specific forms of behavior. Rather, they creatively 
used existing laws to fashion a response strategy. They also rarely 
reported making arrests without intending to prosecute, most likely 
because this practice appears, on the surface, to be ethically and legally 
problematic. In fact, carefully considered, with appropriate safeguards, 
this response can be effective. Drug courts and domestic violence 
courts frequently use this strategy to compel offenders to seek 
professional treatment. The unwillingness either to use this response 
or to admit to using it may also be attributable to the low level of 
prosecutor involvement in these problem-solving initiatives. For police 
to use this response appropriately, prosecutors should be involved in 
the process. 

The second most frequently reported general response category was 
conveying information, followed by connecting with other 
government and private services. Like the category related to using the 
criminal justice system, these categories are quite broad, and so 
naturally encompass many of the police's specific responses. Their 
breadth is reflected by the subcategories Goldstein developed to better 
convey what these sorts of responses entail. 



I found it more instructive to look at the frequency of the 
subcategories described in Table 14 than at the frequency of the 
general categories in Table 13. The frequency with which the specific 
response categories were reported in the submissions better reflects 
the degree to which the police used responses other than criminal law 
enforcement. The more specific breakdown reveals that the single 
most frequently used type of response was altering the physical 
environment to reduce opportunities for problems to recur. 
Situational-crime-prevention and crime-prevention-throughenvironmental-
design advocates will be heartened by this finding. The 
police in these problem-solving initiatives demonstrated a willingness 
and capacity to modify the environment in which problems occurred 
as an effective means of modifying the behavior of offenders and 
potential victims. Fifteen of the submissions specifically referred to 
crime prevention through environmental design. 

The police also relied heavily on informal social relationships as 
leverage to modify behavior (reflected in category 6), and use of civil 
law to regulate conduct (reflected in category 11). Somewhat 
surprisingly, there were few reports of the use of mediation, either by 
the police themselves or through trained professional mediators 
(category 3). Only one submission reported use of a strategy 
sometimes referred to as restorative justice. Restorative justice, like 
mediation, is a form of alternative dispute resolution that is growing 
in popularity. I expected it to be more widely used in the projects. 

While I did not record response types other than those in Goldstein's 
categories, I did note that the police frequently used increased 
surveillance as a response to many problems. Increased surveillance 
includes extra or conspicuous police patrols, video surveillance, police 
satellite offices in the problem areas, or covert police surveillance. I 
estimate the police used some form of increased surveillance in at 
least one-third of the projects, with some form of electronic 
surveillance (typically, through video cameras) being the most 
common. 

The submissions reported as few as one category of response to as 
many as 15 categories of responses per project. Table 13 lists the 
distribution of the number of response categories per project. The 
average number of response categories used per project was five.170 
This finding partially confirms the idea that the most effective 
problem-solving initiatives are those that combine several types of 
responses. The use of multiple responses does complicate the 
assessment of effectiveness, as it becomes increasingly difficult to 
isolate the effective interventions as the number of interventions 
increases. This tension requires greater consideration by those 
interested in determining which are the best practices for various types 
of problems. 

170The mean was 5.68, the median was 5 and 
the mode was 5. 


Appendix A 

Table 15 
Number of Response Categories, by Number of Projects 

No. of Response Categories Reported 
No. of Projects 
1  5 
2  10 
3  16 
4  8 
5  17 
6  10 
7  13 
8  4 
9  4 
10 3 
11 0 
12 3 
13 3 
14 2 
15 2 
Total 100 

Conclusion 

I am not the first to analyze the Goldstein awards. In 1997, Ron 
Clarke, the chair of the award committee, reported on an analysis of 
the 88 submissions to the 1995 program.171 Clarke and his research 
assistant explored the type and quality of problem analysis and 
assessment in greater detail than I did. In those aspects, they found 
the projects largely to be lacking, a finding I cannot dispute. Clarke 
classified projects differently than I did in several respects. First, he 
used somewhat different response-type categories than I did, although 
they, too, incorporated most of Goldstein's categories. Second, he 
classified the scope of problems only as either beat level or 
jurisdiction-wide, whereas I added an intermediate category. Third, 
he classified projects as either problem types or place types. I 
made no firm distinction, classifying each project in multiple ways. 
Finally, he classified responses as either enforcement or 
situational, a classification I did not make. 

171Clarke reported his findings in an appendix to 
his report to the National Institute of Justice, 
Problem-Oriented Policing and the Potential 
Contribution of Criminology, Feb. 26, 1997, and 
expanded on them in a chapter in Problem-
Oriented Policing: Crime-Specific Problems, 
Critical Issues and Making POP Work, published 
by PERF in 1998. Several other studies have 
analyzed various collections of problem-solving 
projects, including a study of POP projects in the 
San Diego Police Department (Capowich and 
Roehl 1994), and a study of POP projects in the 
Leicestershire and Cleveland, England, police 
forces (Leigh, Read and Tilley 1998). While the 
precise methods and categorization schemes of 
the studies vary, many of the general findings 
are consistent. Together, the studies provide 
insights into the actual practice of problem-
oriented policing. 



Many of Clarke's findings are consistent with mine, although he 
expressed more disappointment in the quality of the projects than do 

I.172 (This may be partly because he analyzed only one year's worth of 
submissions, including many that did not survive an initial quality 
screening. I analyzed only the best submissions from all years.) Clarke 
found the same average number of responses used per project as I 
didfive.173 He found similar patterns in the frequency of response 
typesfrequent use of the criminal justice system, coordination with 
other government agencies and private services, and provision of 
information. Interestingly, he found exactly the same percentage of 
instances in which the police altered the physical environment to 
reduce opportunities for problems to recur (57%), and similar levels of 
the use of surveillance. 

One must put both my analysis and Clarke's in their appropriate 
context. It is easy to find deficiencies among the projects when they 
are being compared to an ideal model of problem-oriented policing. 
What is more remarkable, in my opinion, is the high level of 
dedication, innovation and apparent effectiveness demonstrated by the 
police officers who undertook these projects. They confirm for me 
the real potential that lies in the problem-oriented approach to 
policing, an approach that, after all, is a mere 20 years old. 

Each year, one or two projects are designated as winners, and several 
others as finalists or honorable mentions.174 There are many 
interesting and high-quality projects, among both those formally 
recognized and those not so recognized. Each judge has his or her 
favorites, and although the program coordinators report that the 
judges' scores are becoming increasingly consistent, there will always 
be a degree of personal preference in the judging.175 Every one of the 
100 projects I reviewed has something interesting and valuable to 
offer readers, and collectively, as well as individually, these projects 
make an important contribution to the developing body of knowledge 
about effective police practice. 

172Clarke and I integrated some of our findings 
in a chapter in a volume on problem-oriented 
policing (Scott and Clarke 2000). 

173Capowich and Roehl (1994) found that San 
Diego police officers used an average of seven 
responses per problem-solving project. Their 
counting rules were not necessarily the same as 
either mine or Clarke's, but their result is 
generally consistent with ours. They, too, found 
heavy use of environmental redesign and 
informal social control as response strategies. 

174In the first few years of the program, projects 
were divided into individual and team 
projects, a distinction that has since been 
abolished. The honorable mention designation 
of early years has been replaced with a 
finalist designation. 

175Among my personal favorites over the years 
are the Blue Hole Park project (Georgetown, 
Texas, 1995); the Barrow temperance project 
(North Slope Borough, Alaska, Department of 
Public Safety, 1995); the New Helvetia and River 
Oaks project (Sacramento, Calif., Police 
Department, 1996); the Elite Arcade project 
(Delta, British Columbia, Police Department, 
1997); the domestic violence revictimization 
prevention project (Fremont, Calif., Police 
Department, 1997); the day laborer project 
(Glendale, Calif., Police Department, 1997); the 
street cruising project (Santa Ana, Calif., Police 
Department, 1997); Operation Cease-Fire 
(Boston Police Department, 1998); the Transient 
Enrichment Network (Fontana, Calif., Police 
Department, 1998); Operation Hot Pipe, 
Smokey Haze and Rehab (San Diego Police 
Department, 1998); and Street Sweeping, 
Broadway Style (Green Bay, Wisc., Police 
Department, 1999). 


Appendix B: A Partial List of Problem-Focused Literature 

The following is a partial list of problem-focused publications that 
were published either by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of 
Justice Programs (OJP), or by police research organizations, with 
funding from OJP agencies. By the term, problem-focused, I mean 
only that the subject matter of the publication is a substantive 
community problem, not that it was necessarily a product of 
Goldstein's model of problem-oriented research. Some of these 
publications describe actual problem-oriented policing efforts; some 
merely provide information about the nature and scope of a problem, 
without assessing any intervention efforts. It is not a comprehensive 
list, but rather reflects a review of recent publication lists put out by 
these agencies. The list is meant to illustrate, in a general way, the sort 
of research publications that reflect the kind of substantive focus that 
Herman Goldstein advocates in problem-oriented policing. 

U.S. Department of Justice-Sponsored 

Bureau of Justice Assistance 

Addressing Community Gang Problems: A Model For Problem-Solving 

Addressing Community Gang Problems: A Practical Guide 

The BJA Firearms Trafficking Program: Demonstrating Effective Strategies To 
Control Violent Crime 

Developing a Strategy for a Multiagency Response to Clandestine Drug 
Laboratories 

Strategies for Reducing Homicide: The Comprehensive Homicide Initiative in 
Richmond, California 

National Institute of Justice 

Arrestees and Guns: Monitoring the Illegal Firearms Market 

Batterer Programs: What Criminal Justice Agencies Need To Know 

Confronting Domestic Violence: A Guide for Criminal Justice Agencies 

Controlling Drug and Disorder Problems: Oakland's Beat Health Program 

Crime, Grime, Fear, and Decline: A Longitudinal Look 


Crime in the Schools: Reducing Conflict With Student Problem-Solving

The Crime of Stalking: How Big Is the Problem?

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in Parking Facilities

The D.A.R.E. Program: A Review of Prevalence, User Satisfaction and
Effectiveness

Designing Out Gang Homicides and Street Assaults

Evaluation of Violence Prevention Programs in Middle Schools

The Expanding Role of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in
Premises Liability

Fraud Control in the Health Care Industry: Assessing the State of the Art

Juvenile Gun Violence and Gun Markets in Boston

The Kansas City Gun Experiment

Modern Policing and the Control of Illegal Drugs: Testing New Strategies in Two
American Cities

Police Problem-Solving Strategies for Dealing With Youth and Gang-Related
Firearms (ongoing study)

The Police Response to Gangs: A Multisite Study (ongoing study)

Police Response to Special Populations (Handling the Mentally Ill, the Public
Inebriate and the Homeless)

Policing Drug Hot Spots

Preventing Gang- and Drug-Related Witness Intimidation

Proceedings of the Homicide Research Working Group Meetings, 1997 and
1998

Reducing Crime and Drug Dealing by Improving Place Management: 
A Randomized Experiment

Reducing Violent Crimes and Intentional Injuries

Revictimization: Reducing the Heat on Hot Victims



Solving Crime Problems in Residential Neighborhoods: Comprehensive Changes in 
Design, Management and Use 

Stalking in America: Findings From the National Violence Against Women 
Survey 

Threat Assessment: An Approach To Prevent Targeted Violence 

Trends, Risks and Interventions in Lethal Violence: Proceedings of the Third 
Annual Spring Symposium of the Homicide Research Working Group 

Understanding and Preventing Violence 

Violence Among Middle School and High School Students: Analysis and 
Implications for Prevention 

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

Environmental Approaches to Reducing Underage Drinking 

Strategies to Reduce Underage Alcohol Use: Typology and Brief Overview 

Promising Strategies To Reduce Gun Violence 

Safe StartChild DevelopmentCommunity-Oriented Policing 

Police Executive Research Forum 

A Time for Dignity: Police and Domestic Abuse of the Elderly 

Dispute Resolution and Policing: A Collaborative Approach Toward Effective 
Problem-Solving 

Fighting Fear: The Baltimore County COPE Project 

Finding and Addressing Repeat Burglaries 

Illegal Money Laundering: A Strategy and Resource Guide for Law Enforcement 
Agencies 

Improving the Police Response to Domestic Elder Abuse 

Mental Illness: Police Response 

Police and Drug Control: A Home Field Advantage 

Police Antidrug Tactics: New Approaches and Applications 


The Police Response to Gangs: Case Studies of Five Cities 

The Police Response to People With Mental Illnesses: Trainer's Guide 

The Police Response to People With Speech and Hearing Disabilities: Trainer's 
Guide 

The Police Response to the Homeless: A Status Report 

Problem-Oriented Policing: Crime-Specific Problems, Critical Issues and Making 
POP Work 

Problem-Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News 

Special Care: Improving the Police Response to the Mentally Disabled 

Strategies for Success: Combating Juvenile DUI 

Tackling Drug Problems in Public Housing 

Take Another Look: Police Response to People With Seizures and Epilepsy 

Toy Guns: Involvement in Crime and Encounters With Police 

Under Fire: Gun Buy-Backs, Exchanges and Amnesty Programs 

Police Foundation 

Arresting Shoplifters: An Experiment in Lesser Crimes and Sanctions 

Creating the Multidisciplinary Response to Child Sex Abuse: Implementation 
Guide 

Domestic Violence and the Police: Studies in Detroit and Kansas City 

Drug Enforcement in Public Housing: Signs of Success in Denver 

Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment: A Summary Report 

Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment 

Newark Foot Patrol Experiment 

The Police and Interpersonal Conflict: Third-Party Intervention Approaches 

Reducing Fear of Crime in Houston and Newark: A Summary Report 


Spouse Abuse Research Raises New Questions About Police Response to 
Domestic Violence 

Other Publications Listed by the National Criminal Justice Reference 
Service 

Case Studies of Community Antidrug Efforts 

Mental Illness and Violent Crime 

National Evaluation of G.R.E.A.T. 

A Policymaker's Guide to Hate Crimes 

Stopping Hate Crime: A Case History From the Sacramento Police Department 

British Home Office-Sponsored 

Alcohol and Crime: Taking Stock 

Armed Robbery: Two Police Responses 

Arresting Evidence: Domestic Violence and Repeat Victimisation 

Burglary Prevention: Early Lessons From the Crime Reduction Programme 

Clubs, Drugs and Doormen 

Hot Products: Understanding, Anticipating and Reducing Demand for Stolen 
Goods 

Keeping Track? Observations on Sex Offender Registers in the U.S. 

Missing Presumed? The Police Response to Missing Persons 

The Nature and Extent of Construction Plant Theft 

The Nature and Extent of Light Commercial Vehicle Theft 

New Heroin Outbreaks Amongst Young People in England and Wales 

Opportunity Makes the Thief: Practical Theory for Crime Prevention 

Police Antidrugs Strategies: Tackling Drugs Together Three Years On 

Policing Drug Hot Spots 


Policing Problem Housing Estates 

Preventing Repeat Victimisation: The Police Officer's Guide 

Preventing Residential Burglary in Cambridge: From Crime Audits to Targeted 
Strategies 

Repeat Victimisation: Taking Stock 

Tackling Local Drug Markets 

Tackling Street Robbery: A Comparative Evaluation of Operation Eagle Eye 

Theft, Stolen Goods and the Market-Reduction Approach: Operation Radium 
and Operation Heat 

Vehicle Crime Reduction: Turning the Corner 


Appendix C: A Summary of Interviews With Selected 
Problem-Oriented Policing Practitioners and Researchers 

To inform my writing of this report, I interviewed selected experts 
with extensive knowledge about, and experience with, problem-
oriented policing. I initially identified 44 people who, in my estimation, 
have a thorough grasp of the concept of problem-oriented policing 
(hardly a complete list). Over the course of a year, I spoke with 30 of 
them at varying lengths about problem-oriented policing, and 
conducted a structured interview with 12 of them. The following are 
excerpted responses to my questions regarding problem-oriented 
policing, quoted from the following: 

John Eck: Currently an associate criminal justice professor at the 
University of Cincinnati. Formerly the evaluation coordinator for the 
Washington, D.C./Baltimore High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, 
vice president of the Crime Control Research Corp. and associate 
director for research at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). 
Has published extensively on problem-oriented policing. 

Bob Heimberger: Currently a sergeant and special assistant to the 
chief of police in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Has 
provided extensive training and technical assistance in problem-
oriented policing, and has directed problem-oriented policing 
initiatives in St. Louis. 

David Kennedy: Currently a senior researcher at the Program in 
Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the John F. Kennedy 
School of Government, Harvard University. Oversees the National 
Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) Strategic Approaches to Community 
Safety Initiative. Has published on problem-oriented policing, and 
directed the research component of Operation Cease-Fire, a 
collaborative effort with the Boston Police Department to reduce 
youth gang violence. 

Gloria Laycock: Currently the director of the Jill Dando Institute of 
Crime Science, School of Public Policy, University College London 
and recently a visiting fellow at NIJ. Formerly head of the Home 
Office Policing and Reducing Crime Unit in London. Has conducted 
extensive research on police practices, particularly crime prevention 
strategies and tactics, and has edited the Home Office's police research 
papers for a number of years. 

Nancy McPherson: Currently an administrator at the Portland, Ore. 
Police Bureau and formerly the director of the Community and 
Information Services Bureau for the Seattle Police Department, the 
manager of neighborhood policing for the city of San Diego, and a 


field advisor to the San Diego Police Department for PERF. Has 
provided extensive training and technical assistance in problem-
oriented policing. Received the Gary P. Hayes Award for innovation in 
policing in 1999. 


Dennis Nowicki: Currently the director of the Center for Public 
Service and Leadership at Pfeiffer University in Charlotte, N.C. 
Formerly the chief of police at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police 
Department and the Joliet, Ill., Police Department. Has published on 
problem-oriented policing, and has implemented problem-oriented 
policing practices in police agencies. 

Dan Reynolds: Currently a deputy chief at the Savannah, Ga., Police 
Department. Has provided extensive training and technical assistance 
in problem-oriented policing, and has implemented problem-oriented 
policing practices in a police agency. 

Rana Sampson: Currently a police consultant, operating as 
Community Policing Associates in San Diego. Formerly the director of 
public safety at the University of San Diego, a senior researcher at 
PERF, and a sergeant with the New York City Police Department. 
Has published on problem-oriented policing, and has implemented 
problem-oriented policing practices in a public safety agency. 

Malcolm Sparrow: Currently a professor of practice at Harvard 
University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Formerly a 
detective chief inspector in the British Police Service. Coauthor of 
Beyond 911: A New Era for Policing. Author of Imposing Duties: 
Government's Changing Approach to Compliance, and The Regulatory Craft: 
Controlling Risks, Solving Problems and Managing Compliance (forthcoming). 

Darrel Stephens: Currently the chief of police at the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg Police Department. Formerly the city administrator of 
St. Petersburg, Fla.; the chief of police at the St. Petersburg Police 
Department; the executive director of PERF; and the chief of police 
at the Newport News, Va., Police Department and the Largo, Fla., 
Police Department. Has published on problem-oriented policing, and 
has implemented problem-oriented policing practices in police 
agencies. 

1. Do you still consider problem-oriented policing a viable 
approach to improving police service? 

John Eck: Yes, there really is no alternative. The problem-oriented 
policing label will come and go, but if the police don't embrace 
problem-oriented policing, they risk becoming a marginalized public 
service agency, as has happened to other agencies. The police need to 


get on board with problem-oriented policing, or some of their 
functions may be taken over by other sectors, leaving only a narrow 
role of report taking and patrolling. 


David Kennedy: Yes. Seemingly intractable crime and disorder 
problems remain that way because we continue to do the same things 
that don't work. Sustained thinking works. The basic framework of 
the President's Crime Commission of 1968 remains in place todaythe 
use of the criminal justice system as the main crime control 
mechanism. Most major reform efforts are merely efforts to improve 
the functioning of that system. The criminal justice system may be 
suited for individual justice, but it is not well-suited for reducing crime. 

Gloria Laycock: Yes. I've seen it work, so, de facto, it's viable. We 
now know it's deliverable at some level in policing. Whether that 
means it's deliverable across a whole agency, as I originally thought it 
would be, I'm not sure, at least not in a short time frame. 

Dennis Nowicki: Yes, definitely. In some ways, all the attention given 
to the problem-oriented policing movement is much to do about 
nothing. Despite the fanfare, problem-oriented policing is really just a 
common-sense approach to policing. I don't see any other way of 
doing our business. It results in a much clearer purpose for the 
activities police officers should be and are engaged in. Most social 
services should be done this way. 

Dan Reynolds: The problem-solving process is universal, and has 
been throughout time. It's logical and rational. It should always have 
been used in policing. The education system perhaps has not done a 
good job inculcating problem-solving as a mental process. The sense 
of emergency in policing has crowded out our capacity to think about 
problems in the long term. I am seeing changes in the style of 
discussion in policing, even in our staff meetings. We talk in terms of 
problem-solving all kinds of issues. 

Rana Sampson: Yes. Problem-oriented policing is not a panacea to all 
public safety problems, but it is more effective than what we've been 
doing. Research has demonstrated the success of using analysis to help 
the police develop and use less-blunt instruments for addressing 
problemsif not for the total elimination of problems, at least to 
reduce them. Problem-oriented policing is a larger concept than mere 
problem-solving. It has tremendous ramifications for the structure of 
police organizations. 

Malcolm Sparrow: Yes, absolutely. I see how difficult it is to 
implement, but I see it as critical to improving police operations, and 


to controlling a whole range of large public safety problems. The 
problem-oriented approach has rich potential, but still, little of that 
potential has been discovered. 


Darrel Stephens: Absolutely. The rationale underlying it is just as 
sound as it ever was. Most of police work is repetitive, and the 
experiences applying a problem-oriented approach to repetitive 
problems have so far been positive. Problem-oriented policing is more 
effective than mere reliance on the criminal justice system. 
Adaptations to the concept have been made. Herman Goldstein's 
original concept was more centralized. I don't think he saw police 
officers making direct contributions to problem-solving; he saw them 
more as resources to analysts and researchers. Newport News and 
Baltimore County showed that police officers can do problem-solving 
themselves. I know Herman has had mixed feelings about this. 
Problem-oriented policing hasn't progressed as much as I would have 
hoped, though. 

2. What aspect of the problem-oriented policing movement 
over the past 20 years has most impressed you? 

John Eck: It's sort of like the talking-horse phenomenon: It's not 
how well it talks, but that it talks at all, that's impressive. The fact that 
we still talk about problem-oriented policing at all is a testament to its 
staying power. Many people are still interested in and still struggling 
with the concept. It has had a lot of subtle influences on police 
thinking. The police are more likely to look outside their departments 
for help today, and more interested in using data to make decisions. 

Bob Heimberger: The national attention the process has received. 
Problem-oriented policing has given communities hope that their 
police can be effective. But all the federal money and the popularity of 
community policing have also hurt the movement; they have led to 
lots of small, poorly implemented programs that may be determined 
to have failed. 

David Kennedy: The string of wins since the early to mid-1980s. 
There have been good, concrete examples of effective problem-
solving that came out of such places as Newport News, Houston and 
Tampa. Tough problems were addressed using this model. It has 
always been clear there was juice behind the concept. 

Gloria Laycock: Its ability to deliver outcomes, bottom-line outcomes 
such as the reduction of crime. Problem-oriented policing is an idea 
that was ahead of its time. Twenty years isn't the relevant period of 
time in the United Kingdom, because Herman Goldstein didn't 
become relevant until more recently. Engagement with problem



oriented policing in the U.K. really came about after the Harvard 
Executive Sessions on Community Policing, and then, only in the 
Metropolitan Police Department in London. It was not widespread. 
Independently, we in the Home Office were developing something 
called the preventive process, which paralleled the SARA model and 
had been developed from the early 1980s, although we applied it only 
to crime prevention. After I read Herman's book, I saw we were doing 
some of the same things. This reinforced many of our ideas related to 
crime prevention. 


The SARA model has been very useful, even though I recognize its 
drawbacks and limitations. The police like formulas and acronyms that 
guide them toward action. The SARA model and the crime triangle are 
now used widely in the U.K. 

At its best, problem-oriented policing engages police officers at the 
front end, and gets them excited about their work. It gives them a 
whole new perspective on their job, such that the job can become 
exciting instead of routine, and that's important. Some of the junior 
officers are way ahead of their superiors in their comprehension of 
the concept. It isn't necessary to have the entire agency embracing 
problem-oriented policing at this point. One can find good 
applications of it at the individual level in just about any agency. It's 
really not at the agency level, but at the individual level where one is 
impressed by the development of the idea. 

Nancy McPherson: The concept provides a clear focus on crime and 
disorder, as opposed to administrative matters or politics. But many 
police agencies haven't really focused on this. Few police organizations 
have really made the organizational changes necessary to support 
problem-solving. Two of the most positive impacts of problem-
oriented policing have been the inspiration it has provided to police 
officers to do good workthey see the positive results from their 
problem-solvingand community members see it as more than fluff, 
as an approach that actually makes a difference on problems they care 
about. 

Dennis Nowicki: The way the concept has been embraced by the 
community. Problem-oriented policing is not just a police initiative. In 
some cities, there is a critical mass of support for this way of policing 
that didn't exist 20 years ago. Although the concept is not always well-
understood by most elected and other government officials, its essence 
is increasingly clear to neighborhood residents who step forward to 
work with the police officer. Because of the lack of understanding by 
politicians, problem-oriented policing is vulnerable; those who co-opt 
the label and turn it into something else can kill it. 


The relationships built through working with the community to solve 
problems have allowed the police to survive some tough times as a 
result of things like controversial shootings, etc. 

Dan Reynolds: Developing a relationship with the public, sharing 
information, working with others. Problem-oriented policing has 
enabled these things because the problem-solving process requires 
these things be done in order to gather information. And this process 
of gathering and sharing information has helped break down some 
stereotypes the police had of some members of the public. Many 
police officers began to realize that dispatchers aren't the only or best 
source of information about what's happening on the street. We are 
now sharing information with the community more freely than we 
ever did. 

Rana Sampson: Problem-oriented policing has made police officers 
and administrators think more about the substance of their work. 
That sounds obvious, but we've been so blinded by so many other 
things that happen in the community, and by administrative 
responsibilities, that we haven't developed the expertise needed to 
address problems. Our conventional instruments were so 
bluntcitations, arrests, etc. The potential is immense. The analysis of 
problems by police officers in some projects is impressive, and their 
responses, creative. Herman Goldstein recognized how creative 
officers are. Problem-oriented policing allows for that creativity; it is 
no longer just something that is exercised when the sergeant isn't 
looking. When a police department takes a problem-oriented policing 
approach, it turns police work upside down by asking whether the 
current response is working. It calls for a constant reexamination of 
what we do, including our relationship with the community. So much 
of police work previously was bluffing. Problem-oriented policing 
professionalizes policing in a real sense. 

Problem-oriented policing has the capacity to redefine policing away 
from the view that it's merely the entry point to the criminal justice 
system. That's incredibly significant, and recognizing it helps us have a 
real impact on problems. This hasn't occurred to any great extent yet, 
but it is beginning. Police chiefs and the U.S. Department of Justice 
haven't fully engaged with this fact. It also calls for a whole new 
education of judges and prosecutors about the role of the police. 

Malcolm Sparrow: The visible successes have been at the beat level, 
where problem-solving appears as a natural companion to community 
policing. Compared with other regulatory professions, the police have 
led the way in the early articulation and implementation of the 
problem-oriented approach. The police, however, have since run into 


a specific obstacle, which is their general failure to construct the 
managerial systems that are required to run problem-solving at higher 
levels, and as the core of police operations. 


Darrel Stephens: I'm impressed with even the small proportion of 
police officers who have made problem-oriented policing part of their 
work. A lot of good work has been done. The concept is broad-based 
in some police departments, and the results have been impressive. It's 
been demonstrated in lots of different departments. The 
implementation of the concept at present is wide, but not deep. 

3. What aspect of the problem-oriented policing movement 
over the past 20 years has most disappointed you? 

John Eck: As Gary Cordner has pointed out, the linkages between 
analysis and response are the weakest. Many people have difficulty 
conceptualizing information. This problem is not restricted to the 
police; it's a human problem. Other professions have similar difficulty 
translating research knowledge into practice. 

Some efforts, like exploring the proper structure for a police agency, 
are likely to have only a marginal impact on problem-oriented policing, 
and on improving police service. 

I am also very much disappointed with the police profession, national 
organizations and academia for not advancing problem-oriented 
policing beyond where we were in 1985. We have many more police 
agencies and officers involved in problem-solving, and there are many 
exceptional efforts at addressing problems. But for the most part, no 
one has taken what was done by Herman Goldstein or by the 
Newport News Police Department and expanded upon it in any 
substantial manner. Academics have criticized various ways problem-
oriented policing has been implemented, and this is good, but with 
rare exception, they have not attempted to build a better mousetrap. 
National agencies have promulgated much of the original work, but 
have not looked for ways of improving problem analysis. Police 
agencies have adopted aspects of a problem-oriented approach, but 
have focused more on the management of the organization than on 
trying to understand the problems their officers face. 

Bob Heimberger: The lack of understanding of the concept, 
including what outcomes are desired. The concept often gets confused 
with efforts to improve community relations. The follow-up in 
training programs didn't occur. We needed more resources from 
funding agencies to help with evaluation. But many auditors from 
funding agencies knew less about the methodology than the 
department receiving the funds. Anything can be made to look 
successful. It has been too easy to get and keep the money. 


David Kennedy: Since the early 1990s, it has been frustrating that, 
after 10 years, most problem-solving efforts remained small local 
efforts by line officers, not intermediate or communitywide sorts of 
problems. Not much has been done on serious crime, mostly on 
disorder and fear. There has been little engagement by police 
management, and little structural change in police agencies. There is a 
strong need to improve agencies' data gathering and analysis capacities. 
There is a need to get mid-managers more involved. With the 
exception, perhaps, of the San Diego Police Department, problem-
oriented policing has not become normal policing yet. These 
frustrations prompted many of the features of the Boston funding 
proposal to NIJ (Operation Cease-Fire). We wanted to raise the bar. 
Some of these things are changing a bit, but they remain largely true 
today. 

Gloria Laycock: The time frame it takes to get these ideas developed 
and implemented in police agencies. One of the strengths of the 
concept is its simplicity, so it's hard to understand why it's so difficult 
for some people and agencies to do it. Some police agencies are very 
unimaginative, and that's disappointing. Those who struggle with the 
concept tend not to appreciate the value of data, the time it takes to 
make use of it, and the patience required to reflect on the real nature 
of problems. That's largely a product of police trainingthey want to 
get on with things quickly. Police chiefs have been slow to take this up, 
and they have fewer excuses than line officers. It's hard to get chiefs to 
concentrate on the concept long enough to make it work; they seem 
preoccupied with local political problems, which is in itself 
understandable, but points to a fairly basic problem in the whole 
system of policing. 

Problem-oriented policing is fundamentally rational; it is the scientific 
method applied to policing. It should be self-evident that it is needed. 
Unfortunately, there isn't enough fundamental rationality in policing. 

Nancy McPherson: The lip service paid to the concept for political 
reasons, and lack of a real commitment to the principles of problem-
oriented policing. There has not been enough technology developed 
or implemented to support line people in their problem-solving 
efforts. 

Dennis Nowicki: The lack of understanding of what this is all about. 
Public policymakers and the uninvolved public develop their view of 
policing from watching TV cop shows. We haven't communicated the 
core elements sufficiently and consistently enough for them. Our 
deficiencies in selling the concept mean that even many police officers 
don't have a common understanding of what is expected of them. 


Dan Reynolds: I thought we would be doing more problem-oriented 
policing projects, that there would be more outcomes. Problem-
oriented policing is harder to sustain than I imagined, to get beyond 
the sense that this is a fad. When we started into problem-oriented 
policing in the early '90s, I thought implementation would take one 
year. Yet we're still teaching it. We measure our progress, in part, by 
how many problem-oriented policing projects we've undertaken, 
though I realize this is a dubious measure. We probably 
underestimated the resistance of the police culture, and we should 
have attended more to changing the culture before seeking complete 
implementation of problem-oriented policing. 

Reactive policing is so much easier. Police officers are trained to prefer 
order to disorder, and problem-solving seems, to some officers, to be 
creating disorder, to be upsetting the balance of things. 

My expectations of problem-oriented policing have changed over 
time. I'm not as frustrated about the pace of change now. It's 
interesting to hear how new these ideas are still to some people, and in 
some places in the country. Some of us sort of assumed that if we 
knew this stuff, everyone else did. That just isn't true. In a strange way, 
perhaps the complexity of the drug problem has forced the police to 
become more sophisticated in analyzing the related problems and 
looking for new solutions. It certainly has fueled the money that has 
gone into training, research and technology, much of which has 
supported problem-oriented policing. It may have been a blessing in 
disguise for the police profession. 

Rana Sampson: Most chiefs have not taken the time to understand 
Goldstein's concept. Most chiefs probably haven't even read 
Goldstein's book once, and it is worth reading many times. So police 
organizations haven't invested in learning it. Many have taken the 
easier path of community policing projects and Compstat. 

Malcolm Sparrow: The practice of problem-solving seems to have 
stalled, partly because it has not been sufficiently distinguished from 
its frequent companion (community policing), and has therefore been 
viewed by many police agencies as a question of professional style for 
beat-level officers, and not a central challenge for the departmental 
management structure. So larger problems tend not to get addressed 
in a problem-oriented fashion. Problem-solving can be done at the 
field level without making systematic or structural changes to the 
police organization, or to its various administrative and managerial 
systems. There has been a tendency to simplify and reduce the 
problem-solving concept, and to focus on particular innovations 
rather than the systems and managerial behaviors that produced them. 


This tendency is by no means unique to the police. 

Some problems that the police must address don't lend themselves to 
the sort of community partnership responses envisioned by 
community policing, and for those kinds of problems, problem-
solving has been less well-developed. Those problems nonetheless are 
amenable to problem-solving interventions. 

Problem-solving seems to happen more naturally at both the bottom 
and top levels of police organizations. But it's not satisfactory that it 
happen at only these levels, since most problems we care about are 
intermediate-size problems, calling for intermediate-level responses, 
organized and coordinated within the middle layers of police 
organizations. 

Darrel Stephens: I'm fairly disappointed it hasn't become more of 
what police officers do on a daily basis. Most problem-solving that 
gets done is additional activity. Both the community and the police see 
the criminal justice response as the primary one to crime problems, 
and other matters are viewed as mere annoyances. The public has 
maintained a high level of confidence in the criminal justice system. 
Police work is still defined narrowly, in spite of efforts to expand it. A 
few chiefs have gone very far in implementing problem-oriented 
policing, but most have been more limited in their efforts. It is still not 
mainstream policing. It remains a small proportion of the total 
investment in policing. 

Community leaders still cling to the idea that government and the 
police can and will solve all their problems, and they tend not to want 
to take responsibility for solving their own problems. There have been 
a few exceptional efforts. On the whole, most city managers and 
mayors remain ignorant of this concept. In some places, good 
problem-solving occurs outside of, and in spite of, the local 
government framework. In such places, there is little political buy-in. 
Buy-in tends to be tied to the energy and commitment of the police 
chief, not the elected officials. 

Problem-oriented policing likely will remain concentrated among 
certain kinds of police chiefs, and in certain communities. A good 
economy has relieved some of the pressure to do policing differently. 
There is less fiscal pressure on the criminal justice system. The New 
York experience has been detrimental to the concept; it's had a bigger 
impact than I imagined it would. They are doing some analysis of 
problems in New York, but then applying conventional 
responsespresence, pressure, intimidation by the police. 


4. What information technology have you seen that has 
enhanced problem-oriented policing? 

John Eck: There is lots of information technology, now that industry 
has discovered marketable products. Mapping software is abundant. A 
lot of this information technology will not be particularly helpful, but 
some will be. I can't predict where this development will go. I love 
maps and feel that computer mapping can improve the way police 
address problems. However, the major barriers to improving problem-
oriented policing are not technological. They have to do with how we 
conceptualize crime and disorder problems. The risk with technology 
is that it often allows us to continue doing what we always did poorly, 
rather than spurring us to new ways of seeing things. 

Bob Heimberger: The websites of the COPS Office and the 
Community Policing Consortium made research and the exchange of 
information easier. Laptops in police cars raised the awareness that 
police officers need data on the streets. But there has been too much 
flying by the seat of the pants in developing this technology; there is 
no good central repository of information. 

Gloria Laycock: Computer technology like computerized mapping 
can help the police manage the enormous volumes of data they 
possess. This has been the best contribution of technology. Mapping, 
however, is actually a bit of a red herring. It can even be unhelpful. I 
worry that people are becoming obsessed with maps and their pretty 
colors, without thinking much about what information they contain or 
what can be learned from them. The technology itself becomes what 
is fascinating, rather than the knowledge to be gained from it. So 
technology can at times inhibit the development of problem-oriented 
policing, because it stops people from thinking. 

Nancy McPherson: Crime mapping, at least to get people focused 
on hot spots and series-of-crime analysis. The Seattle Police 
Department is now trying to get some recently declassified Central 
Intelligence Agency technology that will enable things like link 
analyses. 

Dan Reynolds: The Internet, with its many websites that allow us to 
share and gather information about common problems, and potential 
strategies and solutions. The National Criminal Justice Reference 
Service's website, for example, is a good source of information. 

Every police officer in our department now has access to computer 
technologyif not for all functions, at least to be able to gather data 
from our records systems and from other information databases. 


Malcolm Sparrow: I don't think information technology has been 
used the way it needs to be. Geographic mapping has helped in hot-
spot analysis, as have software programs like STAC (Spatial and 
Temporal Analysis of Crime), but they are specific and limited forms 
of analysis. We need a much broader array of analytical techniques, 
built on top of flexible data access systems such as data warehouses. I 
describe in greater detail the needs and the possibilities for applying 
information technology to problem-solving in my book Imposing Duties, 
particularly chapter 4. 

Darrel Stephens: There have been lots of attempts, but not much 
result. Computerized mapping and data systems to allow police to 
assess calls for service have been useful. There's been far more 
promise than delivery. 

5. How well has research supported problem-oriented policing? 

John Eck: This is highly variable for individual researchers and 
institutions. Some are very good. Few researchers are genuinely 
interested in applied policing, though. It's difficult for a young 
academic to balance a research agenda with a firm grounding in reality. 
Research contributions likely will have to come from the academic 
community, or they won't come at all. Private industry has a stronger 
history of engaging in sound in-house research than does the public 
sector, including the police. 

We need to preserve diversity of thinking in policing. To some degree, 
the federal funding programs have promoted homogeneity of 
thought, and that's something to be careful of. We shouldn't expect 
brilliant ideas to come out of government. It isn't what it does best. 
Tying federal money to ideas about policing tends to promote fads 
more so than it promotes solid ideas. Smaller experiments with a 
variety of ideas that others can adopt voluntarily tend to work better. 

Bob Heimberger: The real influence has come from individuals 
rather than research institutions. Bill Spelman and John Eck's writings 
have been very influential. Lots of researchers are engaged in the 
subject more for personal and financial interests than to improve 
policing. 

David Kennedy: First, one must distinguish the research on problem-
oriented policing from the research in problem-oriented policing. 
There has been some good operational research on substantive 
problems done out of universities such as Rutgers. Among the SACSI 
sites funded by NIJ, most are new to this methodology. I don't see 
much research relevant to problem-oriented policing coming out of 
some of the other top criminology schools, however. Among 


researchers, this sort of work is not professionally valued. This is true 
more for cultural than principled reasons. Policy analysis is looked 
down on by the social sciences. There is no place to publish it in the 
respected journals. Some see this type of research as too basic. It 
requires field research to gather relevant data, rather than relying on 
existing data sets. There remain cultural barriers between scholars, 
cops and the community. Doing problem-oriented policing well 
requires a level of understanding of problems and agencies' capacities 
that is often lacking. This is needed for researchers to understand what 
value might realistically be produced. What many researchers know 
how to do isn't always useful to problem-oriented research. Basic 
social science training and the social science mindset are about two 
fundamental questions: How did this happen?which explores causal 
factorsand, What does this look like?which is descriptive. Problem-
solving research is about useful interventions. 


Gloria Laycock: I'd like to think the work we've done in the Home 
Office in the U.K. has been useful, even though all of it wasn't always 
done under the rubric of problem-oriented policing. In the United 
States, NIJ and the COPS Office have led the way, though in those 
agencies, problem-oriented policing has become muddled with 
community policing. They've spent lots of money in the area, but 
haven't yet produced the results out the other end. PERF has 
supported the POP conference, but I think they could have done a lot 
more. 

6. What are the next steps the profession should take to 
advance problem-oriented policing? 

John Eck: If the public demands better police service, the police will 
likely provide it. But demand is a very localized thing, and demand 
isn't always expressed in a very clear or sophisticated fashion. Where 
there are good police leaders, they can help translate that demand into 
better policing. 

The police need to take criminology more seriously, and criminologists 
need to shift some of their focus away from explaining why people 
become criminals, and toward reducing criminal opportunities. 
Environmental criminology has a lot to offer the police. 

Bob Heimberger: We need to improve our understanding of the 
concept, including the management issues for police commanders. I'm 
hesitant, however, to say just provide more training. We need closer 
follow-up by funding and research agencies to keep initiatives on 
track. There needs to be more research on substantive community 
problems to improve the police understanding of complex problems. 


There remains a lot of misunderstanding among police about 
problems like homicide. More money for more police on the streets 
isn't necessarily the answer. 

David Kennedy: The profession needs to promote examples and 
models of what it wants done. So it needs a deliberate process of 
supporting, assisting and guiding this work. SACSI is such an effort, 
and the COMPASS program incorporates information technology. We 
need to create the next round of stories. We should create a list of 
substantive problems we want addressed, like domestic violence, 
robbery, burglary, and child abuse, and then target the best agencies 
and researchers in the problem-oriented policing field, and provide 
them with lots of coaching. We need to think about the desirable 
institutional features of police departments, like their internal research 
capacity and their problem identification abilities. We need a journal to 
publish this kind of work. The Journal of the American Medical 
Association started out as doctors writing stories. There has been a large 
failure of leadership among police executives. 

Gloria Laycock: Documentation of what works is needed, teasing 
out the specific mechanisms by which certain interventions to certain 
problems have proven effective. A more systematic training effort is 
needed to get the concept into the consciousness of police officers. 
There also needs to be a valid and reliable performance regime 
developed. Measuring what matters is crucial here. I do not think the 
current trend in focusing at the individual officer level will work. I 
would look at the precinct or district level, and hold district 
commanders accountable for reducing the number or seriousness of 
hot spots in their areas. Solving trivial problemssingle issueswould 
be discouraged. 

Nancy McPherson: Focus on accountability at the commander level. 
While New York's Compstat and Los Angeles' FastTrack models are 
not the direction the Seattle Police Department wants to go, we are 
looking at command accountability processes. We need processes that 
get beyond just Part I crimes and the public humiliation of 
commanders. Organizations need to carefully craft these processes; 
they can take them down the wrong path quickly. Line officers often 
say they are not supported by higher-ups, so this needs serious 
attention. 

We need to get police investigators more engaged in problem-solving. 
Performance evaluations should emphasize collegial, coaching 
feedback. We need improved training for police supervision. We 
should promote integrated criminal justice systems, including linked 
records and data with courts and other police agencies. 


Dennis Nowicki: We need to aggressively educate the public on what 
effective policing has come to be. We need to give police officers and 
the community the information tools they need to do problem-
oriented policing. All local governments need to develop a problem 
focus. This evolution is underway; we're starting to see neighborhood 
services, prosecutors, and probation and parole get involved. We need 
problems to become the basic units of work in policing and other city 
services, and to make that idea real. We need organizational structures 
and systems to become better aligned with the problem-oriented 
policing concept. Remember, this process of change toward problem-
oriented policing has not been sustained for 20 years within any one 
agency. There is lots of inconsistent change within police departments. 
We don't have critical mass yet throughout the country, but it does 
exist in a few departments. The organizational structure of police 
agencies tends to reflect the individual personalities of the chiefs. The 
potential end of COPS Office funding will create a small crisis in the 
field; it will give some people and agencies an excuse not to engage in 
problem-oriented policing. This may not happen, but if it does, it 
could be devastating. 

Dan Reynolds: There is a need to focus on reorganizing police 
departments more substantially. We should consider creating units and 
functions we might not have had before. We need to continue to 
decentralize police operations to enable officers to work more closely 
with the community. We need stronger information technology units 
within police departments. We need to exploit technological means by 
which we can get information out to the public about crime and 
problems, to solicit their support and assistance. Reverse-911 
technology, through which we can place directed automated phone 
calls to residences or businesses about specific crimes or problems, is 
an example of this sort of technology. 

Rana Sampson: There is a need to do things on several different 
levels. We need more victimization research. We need to collect a body 
of research on how to affect particular problems. The National 
Institute of Justice needs to rethink how to research problems and get 
information out in a timely fashion. There are people who can do this. 
The federal government needs to invest in situational crime 
prevention research, and make it accessible to police officers. Ninety-
nine percent of police officers have never seen a Research in Brief. 
There is a need to better understand the research audienceline police 
officers. We need more written about how the police are not just the 
entry to the criminal justice system. 

Police departments need to invest in their internal research capabilities. 
Smaller agencies should pool resources toward this end. Research units 
can't and shouldn't do all the work in problem-oriented policing, but 


they should do problem-solving of a different type than beat-level 
problem-solving, and should engage in some experimentation. There 
is a need to do work on situational crime prevention and victims. We 
don't even know how many crimes occur, because most aren't 
reported. We need to take a broader view of police responsibilities, in 
addition to solving reported crimes. 


There is a need for more research into criminals' perceptions of their 
worklike Scott Decker and Richard Wright's work on burglars. We 
need better research on deterrence and opportunity reduction, picking 
up on the work of Marcus Felson and Ron Clarke. We need to better 
understand criminogenic places. Urban planners know very little about 
crimepolice and urban planners need to get better connected. 
University faculty need to get more engaged in local crime problems. 

Police, social service, code enforcement, and mental health agencies 
must learn to share information, especially regarding the repeat nature 
of people and places. 

Cities need to develop an understanding of, and an explicitness about, 
the responsibilities of businesses that consume a disproportionate 
volume of police serviceslike convenience stores and shopping 
mallssocial responsibilities of companies not to create crime 
opportunities. 

There is a need for more and better training for crime analysts, to 
make them more than people who input data, and better training for 
officers to analyze the data. 

Malcolm Sparrow: We need to prescribe more definitively what 
administrative arrangements work best to support problem-oriented 
policing above the beat level. 

I would like to see problem-oriented policing draw more from the 
fields of intelligence analysis. The concept of intelligence-led policing, 
which one finds primarily in the United Kingdom and Canada (and 
emerging in some places in the United States), represents some 
movement toward organizing police operations around analysis of the 
issues they face, but this movement still remains somewhat 
disconnected from the development of problem-oriented policing. 
The International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence 
Analysts, led by Marilyn Peterson, is trying to connect problem-
oriented policing with intelligence-led policing. 

I have been studying the operations and management of a number of 
other risk control operations, such as environmental protection, 
customs, occupational safety and health, and tax collection. Like the 


police, these agencies are essentially regulatory enterprises. 
Unfortunately, the police don't view themselves as regulators, so 
they miss some opportunities to connect with and learn from a broad 
range of colleagues in other regulatory bodies. I focus on those 
parallels in The Regulatory Craft [Sparrow, forthcoming]. The central 
thesis of that book is that problem-solving has enormous potential 
across the entire regulatory side of government, including policing, 
and, for reasons we are only beginning to understand, this 
extraordinary potential has not yet been realized. 


Darrel Stephens: I'm not sure. The concept will advance among 
those who have had positive experiences with problem-oriented 
policing. Without external pressure, though, it may not happen, 
especially if doing conventional police work is easier. When the 
economy turns down, and crime goes back up, there may be more 
pressure to adopt the problem-oriented approach. External pressure is 
more powerful than internal desire. 


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