Research for practitioners : implications for organization and effects

الملخص EN

This paper considers the ways in which research can be made relevant to the police.

It argues that a good police service needs to be a learning organization and this means both carrying out research in the sense in which scientists do this - i.e.

by testing hypotheses about what works in reducing crime - and being familiar with the vast amount of research that is conducted in this country and elsewhere.

The paper lists some well known but perhaps surprising research results of relevance to policing and suggests that increasing police familiarity with this research base would benefit policing.

It discusses community policing in particular and notes that an important part of community policing involves solving community problems rather than just reacting to them as the police normally do.

Although the community police can take on this problem solving role, in other countries this is also carried out by the 'regular' police staff.

Problem solving is similar to research in that it involves assessing the problem and looking at its characteristics in detail, analyzing the problem and really understanding it and then introducing a response which will reduce the extent of the problem.

The final stage requires an assessment of the effect of the response on the scale of the problem.

In this way a body of knowledge can be developed leading to a greater understanding of how to prevent crimes from happening and increasing community safety.