Over the last three decades American policing has gone through a period of significant change and innovation. In what is a relatively short historical time frame the police began to reconsider their fundamental mission, the nature of the core strategies of policing, and the character of their relationships with the communities that they serve. This volume brings together leading police scholars to examine eight major innovations which emerged during this period: community policing, broken windows policing, problem oriented policing, pulling levers policing, third party policing, hot spots policing, Compstat and evidence-based policing. Including advocates and critics of each of the eight police innovations, this comprehensive book assesses the evidence on impacts of police innovation on crime and public safety, the extent of the implementation of these new approaches in police departments, and the dilemmas these approaches have created for police management. This book will appeal to students, scholars and researchers.

Reviews innovations in policing over the last four decades, bringing together top policing scholars to discuss whether police should adopt these approaches.

Police Innovation and Control of the Police: Problems of Law, Order and Community brings together an impressive array of scholars and analysts to examine the impact of the development of crime control strategies on problems of police corruption and abuse. The text provides an historical overview of the development of legal control of the police, and examines the challenges that recent innovations, such as community or problem oriented policing present to the traditional, historical mechanisms for maintaining control of the police. Additionally, a comparative perspective is featured that draws upon the experiences of the Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union as well as on the history of European law enforcement over the last century. This book is instrumental for encouraging discussion and debate of police innovation and its impact on the ability of society to control the police abuse. In light of the Los Angeles riots of the Spring of 1992, scholars, practitioners, and students of crime prevention studies, criminology, and psychology will find this volume timely, topical, and provocative.

"This paper urges the police to take ownership and make use of science in the policing task. The authors commend the police industry for embracing innovative management strategies and crime control and prevention policies over the last two decades, but argue that as a whole, the profession has been hesitant to adopt scientific, evidence-based policies and practices resulting in a fundamental disconnect between science and policing. The authors discuss existing research that supports their contention and lay out a proposal for a new, science-based policing paradigm. They describe the adoption this paradigm as necessary if the police industry is to "retain public support and legitimacy, cope with recessionary budget cuts, and ... alleviate the problems that have become part of the policing task." Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm is one of a series of papers that are being published as a result of the second "Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety," a collaboration of NIJ and Harvard Kennedy School's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management."--Publisher's website.