Michael S. Scott

Policing and police research: learning to listen, with a Wisconsin case study

David Bradley and Christine Nixon’s paper, ‘Ending the “Dialogue of the Deaf”: Evidence and Policing Policies and Practices, an Australian Case Study’ (Bradley & Nixon, 2009) is the latest contribution to a historic conversation about how research should shape policing policy and practice, and how police scholars and police practitioners should relate to one another. In the USA, since at least the early twentieth century some police scholars and practitioners have been extolling the virtues of research as a means to improving policing. August Vollmer, renowned as both a police executive (police chief in Berkeley and Los Angeles, California) and a police scholar (dean of criminology at the University of California), was a strong advocate of college education for police officers and of research to improve police practice. Police scholars like Bruce Smith employed police research in the campaign to reform the American police (Fogelson, 1977). The US President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice reprised this theme in its seminal report, going so far as to predict that criminal justice research institutes ‘would promote the infusion of the results and attitudes of research into the professional training of ... policemen ...’ (1968, p. 617). In the late 1970s a group of American police chiefs founded a membership organization, specifically to promote the conduct and dissemination of police research to improve police policy and practice, and incorporated the notion into the organization’s name: the Police Executive Research Forum. Indeed, at least in the USA, police reform and the long march to police professionalism have invariably been tied to research (Fogelson, 1977).1 Bradley and Nixon correctly assert that there is room, some 100 years on, to improve upon the current state of affairs with regard to policing and police research, in the UK, the USA, and their native Australia. They contrast two police research traditions: one in which scholars study police as one might study pest insects or mental patients – to understand their curious ways so that they can be made less troublesome; and the other in which scholars work as police allies, helping them improve their institution, organizations, policies, and practices. They then propose a new tradition, built upon the notion of evidence-based policy and practice, that purportedly combines the virtues of the other two and which they report they are pioneering in Australia. That I find myself agreeing with much of Bradley and Nixon’s arguments doesn’t surprise me: I first met Christine Nixon when she was pursuing a graduate degree as a rising Australian police executive in a mid-career program, and I was pursuing a law degree, fresh off an American patrol beat, both of us at Harvard University. It’s unlikely that either of us would have been at that place at that time in our police careers had we not believed that in

Effective Policing through Regulatory Control

Local police have long assumed some responsibility for enforcing state and local government administrative regulations, such as those governing licenses and permits. In recent years, local police have broadened their use of regulatory authority to make it an integral part of their crime and disorder control efforts, doing so either directly or through the cooperation of other local and state regulatory agencies. This shift in police legal orientation, from predominantly criminal toward administrative, has been promoted and supported through problem-oriented policing and situational crime prevention frameworks. This article reviews applications of police regulatory control to specific crime and disorder problems, the mechanisms by which they work, and the possible ramifications for police administration and police intragovernmental and extragovernmental relations.

Pioneers in policing: Herman Goldstein

From among all he has published, the above simple sentence captures the importance and focus of Herman Goldstein’s career. Written as it was thirty-five years ago, it would be as true and important had it been written one-hundred and thirty-five years ago or were it to be written one-hundred and thirty-five years in the future. As one reflects upon democracy’s growing pains in today’s developing world, one is eager to determine the essential elements of a successful democracy. To be sure, well-written constitutions, an abiding respect for the rule of law and for basic human rights, competent bureaucracies, vibrant economies, and balances of internal political power would all be counted among the essential elements. Goldstein reminds us that the quality of domestic policing is also of utmost importance. And yet, this essential element of democracy has largely been overlooked and neglected for much of American history, and at considerable cost to American democracy. The American police were stunted as an institution, born as a working-class occupation, not as a profession. It took a great reform movement to make them something other than foot soldiers of local political machines, although even as that reform movement was underway in the 1960s and ‘70s, it left American police more oppressive, reactionary, ineffective, and unaccountable than was good for a democracy, in part because some police agencies remained largely unaffected by any reforms, and in part because the magnitude and complexity of the needed reforms were so great. Even where vital police reforms were enacted, such as bringing labor-management relations into balance, restraining use of force, insulating police from political interference, improving personnel and training, raising wages and benefits, and establishing written policies and procedures, much remained wanting of the American police institution. In the 1960s and ‘70s, American police seemed at war with the public. For its part, the public, especially minority groups, felt alienated from and oppressed by police. For their part, police felt great frustration in carrying out their duties, as they understood them, without the public support and understanding to which they felt entitled. As these tensions between police and public reached a crescendo, Goldstein offered explanations and prescriptions that remain valid today.