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OCR for page 327
9
The Future of Policing Research
T he future of policing research will depend heavily on federal policy
decisions. Will police be able to reduce violence, including the grow-
ing threat of global terrorism? Will police be able to enhance democ-
racy, by ensuring fair and equal treatment of all people in a diverse society?
The answers to these questions may depend on how much, and how well,
research can address them. Police research depends heavily on public fund-
ing, and, given severe constraints on state and local budgets, such funding
seems possible only at the federal level.
Since the Safe Streets Act of 1968, federally sponsored research on po-
lice has contributed to the substantial accumulation of knowledge that is
reviewed in this report. Federal interventions of a variety of kinds have
helped make American policing far more receptive to the use of scientific
research in the advancement of their mission. They have created a demand
for even more knowledge about what works and what doesn't to prevent
crime and promote fairness and justice. Policing stands in first place among
all criminal justice agencies in the use of the tools of social science, includ-
ing surveys, sophisticated statistical analysis and mapping, systematic ob-
servation, quasi-experiments, and randomized controlled trials. Neither
prosecutors nor prisons nor courts can match the intensity with which po-
lice have embraced social science.
However, the test of success of any program of police research is not
the methods it uses, but what it accomplishes. This report includes a num-
ber of specific research and policy recommendations that reflect what we
have learned via a variety of methodologies. Also reflecting the field as a
whole, they represent a mix of operational and theoretical concerns.
327
OCR for page 328
328 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
ENHANCING CRIME CONTROL EFFECTIVENESS
Among the central questions in police research are how the police can
prevent crime and injury, how they can more effectively foster desistance
once it has developed, and how they can minimize the damaged caused to
victims, their families, and the community. The committee concludes that
there is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of focused and specific
policing strategies. The more strategies are tailored to the problems they
seek to address, the more effective police will be in controlling crime and
disorder. Crime control strategizing should consider the specific locations,
crimes, criminals, and facilitating community factors that are linked to
crime hot spots. The strategies themselves should be diverse and carefully
targeted.
The committee's review of research also suggests that police should
look beyond reactive law enforcement strategies in their search for ways to
reduce crime, disorder, and fear of crime. Criminologists have long recog-
nized that rates of crime and fear are affected by many powerful social
forces. Although the role of the police among these forces is not entirely
clear, community factors doubtlessly weigh more heavily in the long run.
The police should seek ways to engage the broader community in the task
of securing safety. Such approaches have promise and should be the subject
of more systematic investigation.
ENHANCING THE LAWFULNESS OF POLICE ACTIONS
When the authority of the state is evoked, the public has a right to
understand its use and to query whether it has been used fairly and justly.
However, not enough is known about the extent of police lawfulness or
their compliance with legal and other rules, nor can the mechanisms that
promote police lawfulness be identified. Modern police research had its
origin in the study of police lawfulness in the exercise of their discretion.
The committee recommends renewed research on this topic, as well as a
coordinated research emphasis on the effectiveness of organizational mecha-
nisms that foster police rectitude.
To advance this, the committee recommends legislation requiring po-
lice agencies to file annual reports to the public on the number of persons
shot at, wounded, and killed by police officers in the line of duty. The
committee also recommends an emphasis on measuring citizen views of the
quality of police service, through support for the Bureau of Justice statistics
to develop and pilot test in a variety of police departments a system to
document the nature and extent of police-citizen encounters and informal
applications of police authority.
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THE FUTURE OF POLICING RESEARCH 329
ENHANCING THE LEGITIMACY OF POLICING
By legitimacy we mean the judgments that ordinary citizens make about
the rightfulness of police conduct and the organizations that employ and
supervise them. The report reviews what is known about the factors that
help build trust and confidence in the police. However, given the regular
recurrence of allegations of racial injustice by the police and the inconclu-
sive nature of the available findings, the committee judges it a high research
priority to establish the nature and extent to which race and ethnicity affect
police practice, independent of other legal and extralegal considerations.
The committee recommends the launching of a periodic national survey to
gauge public assessments of the quality of police service in their commu-
nity. The committee recommends expanding data collection to encompass a
wider range of policing outcomes, to enable the monitoring of the quality of
police service and not just its quantity. The committee also recommends
that research on police service delivery be expanded to include the metro-
politan areas of cities as a relevant domain of concern.
IMPROVING PERSONNEL PRACTICES
In the end, policing policies are implemented by the men and women
serving in the field, and, as a service organization, the police depend heavily
on the quality of their recruitment and training practices. In the case of
recruitment, a prominent point of discussion in policing circles is educa-
tional requirements for aspiring officers. However, the committee finds the
available evidence inadequate to make recommendations regarding the de-
sirability of higher education for improving police practice and strongly
recommends rigorous research on the effects of higher education on job
performance. The committee also recommends more research on police
training, including the following questions: What should training be? What
methods work best? Who makes the most effective instructors? At what
point should an officer receive training of a given type? What is the appro-
priate duration/intensity?
FOSTERING INNOVATION
In its report the committee describes many innovative ideas that have
influenced American policing but notes that important features of the polic-
ing industry may serve to retard their adoption. The committee recommends
a special study of innovation processes in policing, one that includes factors
that can be influenced by federal and state governments. To monitor the
status of policing, the committee recommends that the Bureau of Justice
Statistics continue to conduct an enhanced, yearly version of its current
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330 FAIRNESS AND EFFECTIVENESS IN POLICING
Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Survey. To
support this and other organizational research, the committee recommends
that the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Agency Directory Survey be improved
and updated on a regular basis, and that it conduct a special study of the
validity of responses to surveys and experiment with methods to ensure
accurate reporting of agency characteristics.
The committee further recommends that the National Institute of Jus-
tice support a program of rigorous evaluation of new crime information
technologies in local police agencies. To better understand the nature of the
policing industry, the committee recommends a special study of the dimen-
sions of the private security industry, and that the Current Population Sur-
vey be used to secure an estimate of the size and characteristics of the labor
force in this sector.
ASSESSING PROBLEM-ORIENTED AND COMMUNITY POLICING
Problem-oriented and community policing, two recent innovations in
policing, receive special scrutiny in this report. To better understand their
nature and extent, the committee recommends that the Bureau of Justice
Statistics develop measures that provide a more accurate indication of the
extent to which community liaison and mobilization activities, as well as
other community oriented programs, are adopted by police agencies. The
committee also recommends development of measures that better docu-
ment at the jurisdiction level the nature and extent of nonenforcement
services delivered by police. This program of development should consider
the variety of current measures available to U.S. police agencies, pilot test a
system at several sites, and then propose a large, multiagency data collec-
tion system.
RESPONDING TO TERRORISM
The committee recommends research on the organizational demands of
responding to terrorism. The committee strongly encourages using the re-
sults of recent research on terrorism to develop a long-term national pro-
gram for tracking and evaluating the performance of local police depart-
ments' efforts in gathering an handling intelligence on terrorism.
ORGANIZING RESEARCH
Federal support for police research has been highly variable from year
to year, posing great obstacles to the institutionalization of research as a
central element of American policing. Given the importance of the goals of
police research, the committee recommends that careful attention be given
OCR for page 331
THE FUTURE OF POLICING RESEARCH 331
to the extent and stability of research funding. Research conducted in police
agencies could be coordinated with other studies of crime causation and
patterning, extending basic criminological research as well.
Police chiefs, communities, police officers and crime victims all need
answers to the research questions posed here--and to many others. What
has been accomplished so far demonstrates that many police departments
are willing hosts for researchers and consumers of their findings. What can
be accomplished in the future depends heavily on the organization and fi-
nancing of police research, for in the work of the police, there has rarely
been any doubt that evidence matters.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
police agencies
