Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers in 60 Small Steps

his is a revised and extended version of a manual, Become a Problem-Solving Crime Analyst, that we wrote for the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London, with financial support from the Home Office. We are most grateful to the Institute and to the Home Office for allowing us to produce this version for the United States. We are also grateful to the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for commissioning the work. In the Acknowledgements page of the earlier version we thanked many colleagues and friends on whose work we had freely drawn. Those who have materially assisted us in completing this version by supplying material for inclusion, commenting on drafts, or in other ways, include: John Eck is professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati. He has contributed to the development of problem-oriented policing since 1984 when he studied the first full-scale attempt to implement the concept in the United States at Newport News, Virginia. He helped to develop a number of now standard techniques in problem-oriented policing, including the SARA model and the problem analysis triangle. O ne of the primary concerns in policing in the United States today – and for the foreseeable future – is the severe constraint on spending. The lion's share of police budgets is consumed in personnel costs. As a result, many police agencies are already operating significantly below their authorized strength. Funds to hire new officers to meet growing needs are hard to obtain. And, of special relevance here, traditional forms of policing, because they are so heavily dependent on personnel, are being curtailed. Calls cannot be handled as completely and quickly as in the past. Personnel cannot be as freely assigned to increasing the police presence on the streets in labor-intensive tactics, such as crackdowns, sweeps, and special task forces. This reality is a powerful new force for rethinking the way in which we police. It connects with prior efforts to promote greater concern for the effectiveness of the police. And it lends fresh impetus to meeting a long-standing, neglected need – the need to equip the police with an institutionalized capacity to examine its work product; to routinely ask, before committing to more of the same, what it is that the police are expected to accomplish and how they can more effectively accomplish it. Rethinking current methods requires a new understanding of the role …