Commentary on Smart Policing

Police–Researcher Partnerships

The four articles in this special issue represent outcomes of a police and research partnership. For the police departments involved and the police profession more generally, we learned what works; whether it is hot spot policing, problem-solving, or data and technology-driven tactics. Each case advances the practical knowledge for a police executive. The research community also benefited from these efforts by gaining an appreciation for the demands of policing and the challenges of conducting research in the fast-paced world with a public demand for results.

Police–research partnerships are not new and have been promoted as a best-practice since the mid-1990s. While at the Chicago Police Department, we worked with Dr. Wesley Skogan on the development and evaluation of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS). It was through this experience that we gained a valuable insight—researchers, with their standards of practice and proofs of evidence, and police officials, with their demand for action and real-time information, can work together in a mutually beneficial manner. The researchers also learned that there is a legitimate need by police to get preliminary results often and early. The work reflected in this volume illustrates this same insight and demonstrates a core tenet of Smart Policing.

Technology and Information Systems

Smart Policing is concerned with using knowledge, evidence, data, and technology to improve the outcomes of police decisions and operations. The work in Los Angeles showed how combining technology and shared intelligence allowed patrol units to focus their efforts in the right places and on the right people in order to reduce crime. A similar approach was used in Boston. In both cities, the data analyses led to the more effective use of patrol resources. Similarly, both police departments were willing to evaluate their efforts.

Today, police executives have come to realize the essential role research and analysis play in their decision making. They value research and evidence-based approaches. However, fewer police executives are open to assessing whether their strategies achieved the desired outcomes. There is an inherent risk to police executives for opening up a program and a department to researchers. Researchers need to understand that risk and honor it. Frankly, some police executives have gotten “burned” by participating in research efforts. Trust with the researcher has to be built, nurtured, and maintained.

When asked if an initiative made a difference, police executives often rely on the traditional method of counting crime before and after the intervention. But our research partners will tell us that is a minimal measure of outcome. Police officials must become willing to test their operational tactics and decisions through more rigorous research methods. Researchers must become more willing to share findings often and early. It is only through testing and adjusting our approaches that we will continuously learn and improve.

The Value of the Researcher in Problem Solving

Braga et al.’s evaluation of the Boston Police Department’s Safe Street Teams was completed “after-the-fact.” The researchers were asked to evaluate the program after it was already in operation. Much to the credit of the researchers, they were able to structure a meaningful evaluation. However, as they said, the evaluation design could have been much stronger if they were called in during the program development phase.

We learned a similar lesson with Dr. Jerry Ratcliffe of Temple University during our work with his research team on our foot patrol efforts. Our first request to Dr. Ratcliffe was if he would assess whether foot patrols made any difference after we already had them in place (much like the Boston SPI). Dr. Ratcliffe did make that assessment and then he offered to work with us to design a real-time evaluation the next time we implemented foot patrols. We took him up on that offer, and the result was the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment. This work not only gave us needed information about foot patrol but it is now also helping to redefine how foot patrols can be used in violent areas.

The point that both Braga and Ratcliffe made was that researchers can add value not only in the evaluation of an operation or program but also in its design and implementation. Our work with Ratcliffe on foot patrols was the beginning of what has become an integrated collaborative effort between researchers and Philadelphia police commanders. Work in Lowell also illustrates this point. Bond and Hajjar talk about “shallow problem solving,” meaning that officers tend to rely on their personal knowledge, experiences, and connections when implementing the SARA (scanning, analysis, response, and assessment) model. The two weakest areas in problem solving tend to be the analysis and the assessment. These are the very areas in which police can be “smarter” by collaborating with research partners.

Glendale and Boston also used a problem-solving approach. Glendale focused on thefts from convenience stores. As it dug deeper into the problem, it discovered the underlying cause was tied to corporate policies and management practices. Law enforcement alone was not going to reduce this problem. Only a multifaceted approach that included working with the stores’ management, and prevention efforts focused on youth, made the difference. Braga et al. also reported that Boston police responses to the problems they identified tended to either address situational/environmental issues or community outreach and social service interventions, not primarily enforcement. Smart Policing encourages developing a comprehensive understanding of the causes of crime and disorder problems, and working with partners to address those causes. As Boston and Glendale found, most often the police facilitate the responses and are not the only solution.

These four studies and our experience provide clear and convincing proof that evidence-based policing works. The conditions necessary for a given approach to work vary based on structural, organizational, and environmental factors specific to the location and the agency. Smart Policing means that a jurisdiction must not only learn about the nature of their crime problems but also learn how to adapt successful programs to their specific issues. Problem solving will vary across jurisdictions as these studies illustrate. They have common elements, but their applications are unique.

Reaffirming the Value of Police–Researcher Collaboration

Boston, Glendale, Los Angeles, and Lowell all developed police–research relationships. In Boston, Dr. Braga and Commissioner Davis have a history of working together. Lowell also has a history of working with researchers. However, these departments are the exceptions rather than the rule. Why is this type of collaboration still the exception after 20 years of talking and supporting police–researcher partnerships?

We believe that one possible answer is that police and academia have different views of time and urgency. Police live in a fast-paced, high-stress, high-demand world. A decision can save a life or not, can bring an offender to justice or not, or can make a neighborhood safer or not. Police officials need real-time assessments as tactics and programs unfold. They cannot wait until all the analyses are complete and reviewed. If the researcher discovers issues during implementation that might jeopardize the success of an initiative, then he or she has an obligation to alert the police department. This can be done without jeopardizing the researcher’s ethics. It may confound the study but make a difference in the effort. Police officials must have faith and trust in the researcher to tell the “bad news” early and to them first. We understand that some researchers may find this uncomfortable. We also know that many researchers appreciate the demands of policing. The latter are the ones that make the better partners.

Moreover, we must move beyond partnerships and into collaboration. A partnership is characterized by a sharing of resources and benefits. The partners can and often do work apart from one another and within their own silos. A police department provides manpower and the researcher provides brainpower and both share in the results—an improved police practice and a published article in a respectable academic journal. Collaboration is more, however. It is the police and the researcher working together. It is a joint intellectual effort with no silos, it is a sharing of insights and concerns, it is sharing risks and building trust, it is give and take, and it results in mutual benefits. Through collaboration, we will be able to more effectively integrate research into police operations. Otherwise, the state of police practice will remain the same.

Last, we can no longer afford to treat crime and disorder through saturation patrols or massive amounts of overtime. We must learn exactly what the right dosage of police effort is to treat the chronic problem, and researcher partners can help with this diagnosis. We will not get it right the first time. We must learn from our successes as well as from our failures. With a targeted and research-based approach, we can use our resources more effectively. Leveraging research is a key component to policing smarter. The more we understand, the more we can work toward creating a safer community for us all.

Seamless Integration of the Research Partner and Law Enforcement Agency

In all four sites (and in many of the other SPI jurisdictions) police leaders and researchers formed collaborative problem-solving teams to approach a public safety problem operationally and to carefully assess and evaluate whether the specific decisions, actions, and impacts were directly related to the selected intervention. This is a welcomed approach, since police and academics have entirely different (some would say opposed) worldviews. There are sound reasons for these dynamically different perspectives. Police traditionally function in a highly public and accountable environment with regard to crime threats and their control. They respond to public safety crises and crime spikes that demand immediate attention. Police believe that the public wants immediate action, not lengthy analysis and research. When an unusual spike in crime is reported, police usually decide to form a special team or task force to visibly patrol the affected area until the crisis passes or is surpassed by a different crisis. This reaction to crime seems to have “some effect,” but it is not sustainable and crime typically returns once the “heat’s off.” By contrast, academics are not rushed to drive crime down, nor are they accountable for the operational success of police; rather, they concentrate on methodology, measures, analysis, and development of new knowledge. Despite these differences, both disciplines are needed to effectively prevent crime and to increase knowledge about what works in modern policing.

The new Smart Policing approach (as demonstrated in the four described sites) combines the skills of both police and academics in mutually supportive roles and acknowledges that focusing on what works is important to both police and academics. In Boston, for example, when the newly appointed commissioner was designing the Safe Streets Team (SST) approach to deal with a serious spike in violent crimes and street robberies, he planned that the SSTs would remain in micro places for 12 months. However, several vocal commanders questioned that resource commitment as unwarranted for a single geo-location. It was their belief that crime moves around, especially when the police increase visible patrols. The Commissioner did not have time, resources or evidence to the contrary; nonetheless, he moved ahead but insisted on data analysis to carefully monitor SSTs and reported crime activity bimonthly. Two years later, noted researcher Anthony Braga, with support from a U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Smart Policing award, conducted a longitudinal analysis that demonstrated, contrary to conventional command wisdom, the stability of violent crime at specific micro-locations. The resilience of crime in micro places endured for 30 years even with highly visible Boston Police “crackdowns.” In addition, the researchers demonstrated that even with suppression patrols there was no detectable displacement into surrounding neighborhoods. These findings contradicted conventional police wisdom and highlighted the importance of high-quality research for police practice. Accordingly, without rigorous evaluation police commanders cannot know whether their intuitive decisions are “right” or whether new knowledge could be developed to better inform their decisions and lead to more effective police responses.

Dynamic, Multidimensional Responses

Within policing circles, it has long been held that the best police intervention is enforcement. Simply put, it is an accepted professional axiom that police enforcement (e.g., arrest) is the most effective and direct intervention to deal with crime. Nevertheless, the experiences in several SPI sites challenge this axiom. For example, the Boston SSTs, after advanced training in police problem solving, used the support of analysts to unravel the nature of violence in each micro-place. Working with the research team the SSTs developed and implemented 396 distinct problem-oriented strategies that formed three broad categories: situational/environmental, enforcement interventions, and community outreach/social service intervention. Contrary to traditional police thinking, the data reveal that enforcement accounted for the fewest number of interventions—far outnumbered by the other two response categories.

In Glendale, where the SPI addressed crimes (theft) at convenience stores, the SPI Team worked closely with analysts to identify intervention strategies. The team developed a three-pronged response: engagement of corporate leadership, prevention, and suppression. Again, enforcement was not the most prescribed intervention strategy; rather, the other two were more frequently employed. Thus, in Glendale we find a reaffirmation of the principles of problem-oriented policing. Herman Goldstein conceived of problem-oriented policing as a more effective means to deal with problems. Goldstein held that the professional policing model lacked specificity with regard to problem identification and analysis. He posited that crime problems demand specificity based on comprehensive analysis and that interventions require evaluation to determine impact. Otherwise, police are unable to customize an intervention that will effectively target the specific characteristics presented by the problem.

Deep Analysis

Comprehensive problem analysis is another overarching theme embedded in these cases that sets SPI sites apart from non-SPI jurisdictions. Police traditionally engage in reactive strategies because they lack advanced analysis and rigorous evaluation skills. As a result, most police engage in “shallow” problem solving. The difference in SPI sites is found in combining researchers and police professionals in mutual supportive roles that are complementary. In Lowell for example, the researchers and police worked on problem solving through organizational congruency modeling. SPI provided a mechanism to address the fact that most police organizations do not have the time to engage in deeper analysis. Lowell has a long history with problem solving and evidence-based interventions. But they realized that police did not have the time, skills or methodological rigor to engage in the research required to conduct authentic problem solving. In addition, the engagement of researchers in SPI sites goes beyond assessment and evaluation. In SPIs, researchers are engaged early on in the process, so that they contributed significantly to scanning and analysis, thereby helping police agencies refine and strengthen their understanding of the nature and extent of the problem(s) identified, and they participate in the crafting of solutions to those problems (response). Thus, more than in almost any other jurisdiction, researchers in the Smart Policing paradigm are fully integrated into the problem-solving process.

Technology

Technology was an essential piece of all four SPI projects described here. The LAPD, in addition to traditional police resources, created the criminal intelligence detail (CID) in the Newton Division to develop special criminal bulletins on high-rate, persistent violent offenders. The Real-Time Crime Center (RACR), utilizing newly acquired “open architecture” analysis software, transformed the police response through integration of multiple databases and high-speed analytic capability. The police in Newton Division were equipped with more comprehensive information about violent crime, place and suspects than ever before. This real-time intelligence led to more effective, “laser-like” responses.

Technology was also important in Lowell, Glendale, and Boston. These SPI jurisdictions used sophisticated spatial analysis, time-series analysis, and geo-mapping to plot crime and translate incidents into clusters that led to the identification of priority micro-places. These mapping technologies are now available in desktop applications permitting access to analysts and police officers. This technology provides innovative and interesting ways to convey complex information, allowing officers to better visualize problems and facilitating the development of targeted and efficient solutions.

Training and Technical Assistance

The SPI also allows for “reach back” by every site to specialized training and technical assistance from subject matter experts (SMEs) who are recognized authorities in both police operations and police research. In programs such as the SPI, there are always unexpected events that can derail the best-designed methodologies and operations. For example, many SPI sites during the 2009–2010 fiscal year faced severe budget shortfalls. Many SPI agencies had cuts to personnel and staffing levels—several reported losing civilian analysts and specialists. The technical assistance and training offered by BJA (through the training and technical assistance provider, CNA) provided a bridge for these agencies. Options were developed, and after some delays all were able to complete implementation. Fidelity to methodological rigor and to the operational requirements of the police agencies was maintained. In addition, special web-based seminars have offered the latest evidence-based information on crime reduction and evaluation. Communities of interest were formed, and sites shared their capabilities with other interested SPI partners. Several regional training workshops were convened around such topics as advanced crime analysis, place and person profiles, and new techniques to access multiple databases from a single terminal. This process helped to produce a mutually supportive community of police and researcher teams engaged in advanced problem solving.

Final Thoughts

The enduring question that needs to be answered is, “Can SPI be sustained once the grant money is exhausted?” Clearly, the evidence is not in yet and will not be for some time. But the progress that has been made is impressive. SPI decision-making has stretched from the commissioner’s board room to the street team ready rooms. Police operations have been informed by research partners in new and innovative ways, and officers are evolving into new roles that value problem analysis, intelligence, and comprehensive responses. On the research partner side, the investments made in SPI will help inform other researchers engaged in the pursuit of knowledge. These new roles can change the ways research is carried out and can extend the academic field beyond the university setting. Researchers can be effective partners who inform decisions about evidence-based strategies and interventions, and police can be contributors to the research design and identification of measures of effectiveness. But this is still uncharted territory that needs the best thinkers and doers—academics, practitioners, policy makers, and stakeholders.

This is reminiscent of the medical field a few decades ago, when university researchers and medical practitioners began to collaborate in meaningful ways. Medical problem solving required a comprehensive array of specialists, researchers, technologists, engineers, scientists, and committed practitioners willing to innovate and evaluate the impacts of new techniques. To accomplish this, problem analysis focused on specificity rather than general terms of disease, pain, discomfort and nausea. A similar problem analysis process has occurred in the four SPI sites described in this volume. In Boston, Los Angeles, Glendale, and Lowell there was no shallow problem solving. Rather, the researchers and police analyzed the data, made site visits to engage stakeholders and communities in specifically understanding the underlying causes contributing to crime in micro-places, designed evidence-based interventions, and carefully evaluated the impacts and outcomes. Like an elegant public health intervention, the SPI police–researcher teams use science and operational expertise to interrupt the cycle of crime and violence that had demonstrated remarkable stability over generations. There was a time when medical professionals concluded that there was little anyone could do to eradicate disease and chronic epidemics, until a comprehensive problem-solving approach was developed with researchers and practitioners. The SPI sites highlighted in this special feature of Police Quarterly have accomplished a similar goal. Police and researchers have employed advanced problem solving analysis, and they have designed evidence-based strategies that accomplished something very special: They have effectively reduced crime and violence in identified micro-places that heretofore have resisted police interventions for generations.