60 Steps Revisited: Step 38 - Embrace Your Key Role At Response

Back in 2009, I did a series of posts covering the excellent book Crime Analysis For Problem Solvers. The book is published by the US DOJ's Problem Oriented Policing Center (POP Center). Because of the value I think this book has for crime analysts, and policing in general, I am going to re-post this series on here on the blog.

In this post in our walk through Crime Analysis For Problem Solvers we’re going to look at Step 38 – Embrace Your Key Role At Response.

Often when a crime problem appears, the first solution offered is to beef up enforcement efforts. In fact, I bet you could get on the Internet and within a couple of minutes find a crime story where a Chief of Police somewhere in the U.S. is promising to flood the streets with officers to battle a crime problem and win back a neighborhood.

Unfortunately, beefed up enforcement efforts are a very short term fix for nearly any problem and they don’t always work. Extra patrols, sting operations and other efforts will only last as long as there is money in the budget for this kind of response and in today’s economy, that’s probably not very long at all. Instead, as a problem solving crime analyst you should always seek more permanent solutions. The authors put it this way:

The bottom line is that you must acquire knowledge of a broad range of solutions, and be prepared to fight for good ideas, if your careful analytic work is to bear fruit.

The next five chapters are going to cover 25 techniques of situational crime prevention which are grouped in five main categories:

1. Increasing the effort of crime
2. Increasing the risks
3. Reducing the rewards
4. Reducing provocations
5. Removing excuses

Next time, we’ll cover Step 39 – Increase The Effort of Crime.