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OCR for page 1
Executive Summary
A cross the United States, thousands of local, state, and federal police
agencies work to safeguard communities and ensure justice. Police
are perhaps the most visible face of government, one that most
people recognize and encounter with frequency. They also have special and
awesome powers, as they are authorized to use force in their dealings with
the public. Policing is primarily shaped by two public expectations. First,
the police are called on to deal with crime and disorder, preventing them
when possible, and to bring to account those who disobey the law. Second,
the public expects their police to be impartial, producing justice through the
fair, effective, and restrained use of their authority. The standards by which
the public judges police success in meeting these expectations have become
more exacting and challenging, and police agencies today must find ways to
respond in an effective, affordable, and legitimate way.
In 1968 and 1994, landmark legislation increased the federal govern-
ment's involvement in policing. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe
Streets Act of 1968 created what became the National Institute of Justice,
which has sponsored a substantial body of research on police practice. The
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 encouraged the
adoption of community policing, as well as fostering the hiring of many
new police officers and the adoption of modern information technology.
The 1994 crime act included a mandate to evaluate policing programs al-
ready under way or to be sponsored by funds from the legislation itself.
Because of this investment in law enforcement practice and research
under the 1994 crime act, the National Institute of Justice and the Commu-
nity Oriented Policing Services Office, both in the Department of Justice,
1
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2 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
asked the National Research Council to convene the Committee to Review
Research on Police Policy and Practices. The committee was asked to assess
police research and its influence on policing, as well as the influence and
operation of the community policing philosophy.
In responding to this charge, the committee examined police research
done primarily since 1968, including that sponsored by the 1994 crime act.
The committee developed an analytic framework that embodies the man-
date of the police to effectively control crime and ensure justice. The dual
mandate with regard to effectiveness and fairness forms the cornerstone of
this report. Much of our analysis focuses on the evaluation of police opera-
tions in light of these two dimensions. Evidence from policing research con-
tradicts any concern that an emphasis on policing that is fair and restrained
will necessarily undermine their crime control effectiveness, and vice versa,
for fairness and effectiveness are not mutually exclusive, but mutually rein-
forcing. The work of this committee suggests that policing that is perceived
as just is more effective in fostering a law-abiding society, and that success
in reducing crime enhances police legitimacy.
THE NATURE OF POLICING IN AMERICA
The report traces major themes in the development of American polic-
ing. It describes a policing "industry" that is highly diverse and decentral-
ized, as well as locally controlled and financed. While this is consistent with
America's political tradition, it limits the ability of the federal government
to spark innovation or encourage uniform and progressive police policies.
Instead, such factors as crime, demographic change, local political culture,
the courts, and state legislation play important roles in stimulating reactive
change in this decentralized system. On one hand, fragmentation of the
police industry may hinder the development of coordinated responses to
national threats such as domestic antiterrorism efforts, although there is
almost no research on this topic at present. On the other hand, a highly
decentralized system avoids the risk of nationwide adoption of programs
that have little utility for a given locale. There is no systematic evidence on
what industry structure best promotes effectiveness, innovation, and ex-
perimentation.
At the street level, policing is highly discretionary, and individual offic-
ers work virtually without direct supervision. The discretionary nature of
routine police work increases the difficulty of ensuring the fairness and
lawfulness in everyday policing. Police are authorized to exercise their au-
thority in encounters with the public by issuing citations, making arrests,
and using force. While most encounters are trouble-free, the sheer volume
of police-citizen contact means that a significant number of individual citi-
zens come away dissatisfied with how they were treated. There is also evi-
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
dence of racial and ethnic disparities in these assessments, as well as in
public opinion about the police generally. These disparities contribute to a
lowered sense of police legitimacy among minority groups.
In addition to their enforcement duties, the police provide a broad range
of services to the public, and more recently they have expanded their range
of crime prevention efforts, but there has been little research on these mat-
ters. Most research on detectives is dated, but the committee's review of it
seriously challenges the idea that the capacity of the police to solve indi-
vidual crimes can be substantially improved. Traffic enforcement commands
significant police resources, but it too has escaped the attention of research-
ers. The emergence of racial profiling on the nation's public agenda is chang-
ing that, but the committee concludes that most current data collection
efforts in this area are unlikely to speak to any of the policy issues involved.
One of our recommendations calls for more attention to the measurement
and research design issues involved in the study of traffic enforcement.
EXPLAINING POLICE BEHAVIOR
The committee assessed research on the causes of police behavior.
Among them are studies that address the central issue of the report: how to
ensure the effectiveness and lawfulness of policing. Research in this area
includes observational studies of police operations, analyses of administra-
tive records, and surveys of the public and the police. Almost all of this
research focuses on patrol officers, thus excluding many important elements
of police work.
The committee divided research on the determinants of police behavior
into analytic categories. The first chapter on this topic examines the impact
of situational factors and officer characteristics on police work. Situational
factors include features of the incident itself, the background and demeanor
of suspects, and their immediate context. Many studies of officers engaged
in encounters with citizens contrast the impact of legally relevant factors
with the influence of extralegal factors in shaping their on-street decisions
and actions. The outcomes that have been examined range from making an
arrest to using force, negotiating dispute settlements, or choosing to do
nothing at all. This research finds that the impact of legally relevant factors
is strong. Taking these into account, the class and gender of suspects play a
small role. However, more research is needed on the complex interplay of
race, ethnicity, and other social factors in police-citizen interactions.
Among officer characteristics, neither race nor gender has a direct in-
fluence on the outcome of routine police-citizen encounters, and there is no
clear effect of officer's attitudes, job satisfaction, or personality. The com-
mittee found that research on factors linked to officer recruitment and train-
ing is surprisingly limited. There are few studies of the link between officer's
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4 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
knowledge, skill, ability, or intelligence and actual police practice. There is
no strong research support for police educational requirements, and re-
search on the effects of training on officer effectiveness is unconvincing.
Recruitment and training are among the most important activities of police
organizations, and more needs to be known about their role in ensuring
effective and lawful police conduct; the committee therefore offers a strong
research recommendation along these lines.
The committee also examined the impact of organizational and com-
munity factors on policing. The decisions and actions of officers are situ-
ated within these larger contexts, and they affect the quality of policing.
Organizations exist in order to define the roles of their members and regu-
larize the activities of individuals who fill them. Research indicates, for
example, that the policies and practices of police departments directly affect
the rate at which officers use lethal force. Arrests, citation rates, and mea-
sures of their success in solving cases vary greatly across police organiza-
tions, reflecting differences in their policies, performance standards, and
characteristic styles of operation. The committee notes the limited research
on police leadership and the role of leadership in affecting organizational
change.
Likewise, neighborhood and city-level factors affect both the decisions
of individual police officers and features of their departments. Police-citizen
encounters are situated in a neighborhood context that seems to indepen-
dently affect how they are conducted, and community factors affect police
resource allocation decisions and patrol activities. At the city level, issues
like how many officers the taxpayers are willing to support are locally de-
termined matters that are affected by a range of political, economic, and
crime factors. Local political cultures and the priorities of political leaders
affect policies and spending levels as well.
CRIME CONTROL EFFECTIVENESS
The committee examined research on police effectiveness at reducing
crime, disorder, and fear. There has been a great deal of research on these
topics, and the committee was able to distinguish between studies that em-
ployed adequate methods for studying them and others about which there
is less confidence. The committee assessed all work along two tracks: to
what extent are strategies effective, and to what extent do they utilize a
broad range of tools, including traditional law enforcement powers.
The committee concludes that contemporary policing has relied on an
operating model emphasizing reactive strategies to suppress crime. The
committee's assessment of several decades of research is that there is weak
or, at best, mixed evidence regarding the effectiveness of what we have
defined as the "standard model" of policing. A large body of carefully con-
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5
ducted research has found much evidence of the effectiveness of what we
have called the "focused model" of policing.
The standard model is defined by the more or less across-the-board
reliance on random patrol, rapid response to calls for service, follow-up
investigations by detectives, and unfocused enforcement efforts. Debates
over the proper size of a city's police department also usually hinge on the
standard assumption that larger is better when it comes to crime control.
There is strong research evidence that the more focused and specific the
strategies of the police, the more they are tailored to the problems they seek
to address, the more effective police will be in controlling crime and disor-
der. Research on police effectiveness in attacking chronic concentrations of
crime, widely known as "hot spots," has found that well-managed investi-
gations and crackdowns can suppress crime, deter its future reappearance,
and avoid simply displacing a similar number of crimes elsewhere. Discov-
ering hot spots and tracking the effectiveness of policing efforts against
them has been facilitated by the widespread adoption of new computer
mapping and crime analysis technologies by the police, another new devel-
opment awaiting careful evaluation and analysis.
The committee reviewed evidence of the effectiveness of two widely
discussed alternatives to the standard model of policing: community and
problem-oriented policing. Problem-oriented policing stands in sharp con-
trast to the standard model because of its focus on developing highly local-
ized responses to the diverse problems that plague different communities.
Community policing always involves some form of public involvement, fre-
quently in the identification of priority problems and often with some role
for the community and for city service agencies in helping solve them. This
approach also adopts a problem-oriented stance that emphasizes develop-
ing local solutions to locally identified problems. Both are examples of what
the report dubs "tailored" responses to crime and disorder. In addition,
both seek to look beyond the traditional exercise of the law enforcement
powers of the police to reduce crime, disorder, and fear. Our review sug-
gests that such approaches have promise and should be the subject of more
systematic investigation.
LAWFULNESS AND LEGITIMACY
The committee also reviewed research on the criteria by which people
make judgments about the police: their lawfulness, that is, their compliance
with constitutional, statutory, and professional norms, and their legitimacy,
defined by the public's beliefs about the police and their willingness to rec-
ognize police authority. These beliefs transcend mere popularity, which can
vacillate quite a bit. Rather, legitimacy as it used in this report means the
degree to which citizens recognize the police as appropriate and justified
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6 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
representatives of government. Many controversies regarding policing fall
under these broad criteria of lawfulness and legitimacy; the current crisis of
racial profiling is only the most recent example of the challenge police agen-
cies face in balancing the demands of effective crime control, lawfulness,
and legitimacy. Research in this area includes studies of the implementation
and impact of court decisions and administrative policies on police behav-
ior in the field, and survey studies of the public that examine their attitudes
and experiences with police in their community.
Research has examined police compliance with the rules governing po-
lice interrogations, searches and seizures, and the use of excessive and lethal
force. Compliance has been found to be variable, but it can be enhanced by
the actions of determined police administrators. Research on corruption
finds that, like other forms of misconduct, police corruption can be traced
in part to lax administrative arrangements and a supportive informal peer
culture. The solutions to both problems are generally the same: determined
leadership, enforcement of department policies and rules, and the creation
of new mechanisms for monitoring problem behavior. There is only limited
research on the impact of formal legal efforts to control misconduct, through
criminal prosecution and civil suits against individual officers and federal
"pattern and practice" actions against police departments. Another area
about which more needs to be known is the effectiveness of civilian over-
sight bodies and review commissions that have been created to bring exter-
nal accountability to the police.
The committee concludes that the more lawful police are, the more
likely the outcomes produced by their actions will be accepted and em-
braced by the public. Lawful policing increases the stature of the police in
the eyes of citizens, creates a reservoir of support for police work, and
expedites the production of community safety by enhancing cooperation
with the police. In the end, policing in a democracy must be accomplished
by consent; that is, citizens must agree to the exercise of police power.
Research has found that people obey the law not just because they are
afraid of being punished or because they believe the law is morally right,
but also because they believe that the law and its enforcement are fairly
administered. The public's judgment can be heavily influenced by the con-
duct of the police, one of the most visible representatives of law and govern-
ment in most citizens' lives. This suggests the need to extend theories of
police effectiveness beyond the communication of a deterrent threat of pun-
ishment to encompass police engagement with communities.
RECOMMENDATIONS
A scientific knowledge base exists for helping communities to decide
what strategies to use to reduce crime and disorder while increasing police
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7
legitimacy. Relative to other institutions of criminal justice, the police are
very open to innovations and evaluations in collaboration with universities
and other research institutions. This is a remarkable transformation, and it
creates the potential for creating an even more effective, fair, efficient, and
accountable police in the 21st century. Our specific recommendations build
on these findings to provide specific guidance to communities, to state and
national lawmakers, and to police themselves.
Recommendation 1: Enhancing crime control effectiveness. The com-
mittee recommends that police continue to turn their attention from pro-
viding standardized levels of police resources and activities to achieving
measurable results related to focused effectiveness and fairness issues that
reflect community goals. Research demonstrates that the more police focus
on achieving localized and specific results, the more effective they will be in
controlling crime and disorder. Because one-size-fits-all requirements re-
strict the police's ability to match resources to priorities, communities will
be safer holding police accountable for results rather than resources. This
new management philosophy, coupled with advances in information sys-
tems that support more rigorous monitoring and evaluation of the effective-
ness of policing strategies, promises to stimulate further innovation in po-
licing in the United States.
Recommendation 2: Enhancing the lawfulness of police actions. The
committee recommends research on the fairness and lawfulness of police
practices and a coordinated research emphasis on the effectiveness of orga-
nizational mechanisms that foster police rectitude. In its review of police
research, the committee noted that early research focused to a significant
degree on lawfulness. That research examined the exercise of police discre-
tion, the use of police authority, violence and corruption by police, and the
use of lethal force. More recently, a new emphasis on crime control effec-
tiveness has emerged. While this is important, one of the findings of this
report is the importance of police fairness and restraint in the use of force
and of equity in the allocation of police resources. Research on the contrast-
ing roles played by legally relevant and extralegal factors in shaping on-
street police behavior has continued and plays an important role in this
discussion. We note some new approaches to the study of police integrity
and the processes that promote an environment less tolerant of police cor-
ruption, and this line of research should be encouraged.
The committee also recommends legislation requiring agencies to file
annual reports to the public on the number of persons shot at, wounded, or
killed by police officers in the line of duty. Few communities are prepared
to understand fully the causal context and mechanisms for minimizing the
rate of lethal and nonlethal shootings by police. A reporting system, compa-
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8 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
rable to that created for reporting crime statistics, would help local agencies
monitor their own levels of weapon use, in relation to such risk factors as
community violence, gun carrying, and arrest rates. Such benchmarking
may further contribute to the declining frequency of legally justifiable ho-
micide by police, which has proven to be greatly affected by organizational
controls.
Recommendation 3: Enhancing the legitimacy of policing. Research on
public opinion documents the profound gulf between the races in the United
States in people's views of the legitimacy of the police. The committee calls
for more research on the experiences of crime victims, individuals stopped
by the police, and the public, focusing on practices in policing that support
or undermine public confidence. To support this, the committee recom-
mends conducting a regular national survey to gauge the extent and nature
of police-citizen contacts, including items that address public assessments
of the quality of police service in their community.
Current efforts to collect data on public encounters with police that are
intended to inform judgments on whether police agencies engage in racial
profiling are not very effective. The committee calls for more research on
the collection of reliable and valid encounter data under field conditions
that can then be analyzed in ways that point unambiguously to policy rec-
ommendations and personnel decisions.
The committee also recommends research on mechanisms for ensuring
lawfulness. A number of programs have emerged for collecting data on
officer performance for the purpose of identifying problem behavior and
providing a basis for corrective action. Some early intervention or early
warning programs collect data on a broad range of officer performance
measures. They have been adopted voluntarily by many law enforcement
agencies and have been imposed by consent decrees in other agencies. Rig-
orous evaluations are required to determine if these programs effectively
produce police accountability.
Recommendation 4: Improving personnel practices. The committee rec-
ommends research on personnel practices that will help them ensure the
crime control effectiveness and legitimacy in the eyes of the public. This
includes strategies for police recruitment, personnel development, and job
assignment; and research on police performance monitoring, officer assess-
ment, and incentive systems. The committee found research inadequate to
address two key personnel questions: the utility of requiring college credits
for new applicants and what training is most effective in promoting good
performance. Recruitment and training are among the most important ac-
tivities of police organizations, and more needs to be known about their
role in ensuring effective and lawful police conduct.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9
Recommendation 5: Fostering innovation. The committee recommends
research on police organization, innovation processes, and organizational
change. Although several federal agencies are charged with encouraging
innovation in law enforcement, the committee found little research about
the innovation process or how it can be facilitated. There is likewise little
systematic, cross-agency research on the extent and effectiveness of organi-
zational change strategies in policing, or on the role of police leadership in
securing lawful policing. To support this research, the committee recom-
mends that the Bureau of Justice Statistics regularly conduct an enhanced
version of its current Law Enforcement Management and Administrative
Statistics survey. The report makes several suggestions to increase the utility
of the data for research and policy analysis, as well as for potentially fruit-
ful research topics. These include the need to monitor the broad range of
nonenforcement activities performed by the police, many of which fall un-
der the rubric of community and problem-oriented policing.
Recommendation 6: Assessing problem-oriented and community polic-
ing. These are two of the most widely discussed innovations in policing
today. Each involves complex packages of programs and organizational
adaptations, and each calls for indicators of efficiency and effectiveness that
currently are not well measured by most police information systems. The
organizational structures and practices that comprise these innovations are
highly varied, making it difficult to form general conclusions about their
effectiveness on the basis of existing research. Police employ tactics under
each of these strategies that can be rigorously evaluated, but the committee
found generally that there was not yet enough evidence to document their
successes or failures. Future research should do more to advance knowledge
about the effectiveness of these innovations by focusing on their key ele-
ments. The organizational arrangements that foster effective community
and problem-oriented policing and the effectiveness of police training in
this area are also not well understood.
Recommendation 7: Responding to terrorism. The committee recom-
mends research on the demands of responding to terrorism, a topic of ur-
gent national interest. There is little research on this topic in the domestic
context of the United States, but what exists suggests that responding to
terrorism places new demands on municipal police agencies. It requires them
to coordinate their efforts with multiple levels of government; to plan in
coordination with public health and medical organizations and with the
military; and to learn to safeguard their own employees from new chemical
and biological risks. They must continue to maintain open communication
with the communities they serve and their commitment to lawful conduct,
while they are faced with new information and intelligence needs. From the
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10 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
perspective of local departments, more research is needed on how to re-
spond to these organizational challenges.
Recommendation 8: Organizing research. The committee recommends
that the National Institute of Justice take the steps necessary to ensure the
growth and stability of its policing research portfolio. In reviewing past
research, the committee was impressed by the record of growing police
openness to investigations of all aspects of their work. They serve as an
example for all the institutions responsible for public safety. However, de-
spite this support by practitioners, the committee identified significant gaps
in what is known about contemporary policing. There are many important
subjects about which there is virtually no scientific research. By any met-
ric--whether lives lost to crime, the costs and benefits of government ex-
penditures on law enforcement, or the moral obligation embedded in the
use of coercive authority--police research deserves more serious attention
than it has received. Local communities and the states bear the costs of law
enforcement, but the federal government is particularly well situated to pro-
vide them the findings of research on police and the communities they serve.
A major impediment to advancing policing through research is the need
for consistent funding and research planning and administration. Support
for police research has been episodic and historically low, given the impor-
tance of the institution itself and the vast gaps in knowledge of what works
in this area. Organizational changes in the National Institute of Justice
providing for an office devoted to research on policing and communities
might well resolve the problems of erratic funding and noncumulative de-
velopment of research. Whether or not a separate office is formed, the
police research portfolio requires stable, long-term research funding man-
aged by a professional staff, which could implement broad strategies of
knowledge development. The development of the policing portfolio should
be under the direction of an official recruited from senior ranks of the
scientific community.
Finally, funding for the policing portfolio should be balanced between
questions of police lawfulness, legitimacy, and crime control effectiveness,
to support a research program that reflects the highest standards of science
applied to empirical questions of great national concern.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
law enforcement
