Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Welcome to Week 5 of CJ501.
This week we're going to talk about the police innovation of
evidence-based policing.
Evidence-based policing uses what works and
abandons what does not.
By now you have realized this class and the pursuit of your
graduate degree is based on understanding and implementing
evidence-based practices.
We gather evidence while investigating crimes.
The same should be said for police tactics.
As scholars, we gather our evidence from experience,
theory, research, experimentation, and
evaluation.
I challenge each of you to implement evidence-based
practices no matter what level you serve.
The chief of police should use the evidence in choosing
policies and procedures that are the most effective.
The patrol officer should also use the most effective methods
based on the research.
This requires more effort than just having an idea.
Your idea may have been attempted before and the
research may support or condemn it.
If it has not been attempted before, try and evaluate it
for effectiveness.
You should go outside the police context in areas such
as the military and the corporate world to identify
the best practices and theories.
This is especially important in leadership methods.
The research suggests traditional authoritarian
leadership models practiced in many police organizations are
ineffective compared to more contemporary theories, such as
transformational leadership.
Policing organizations hold on to ineffective methods only
because they have not subscribed to
evidence-based policing.
We know the outcome of traditional
random patrol policing.
While action-packed at times, it fails to allow an agency to
reach its full potential.
What is important are the units of
measurement in policing.
We consider success the reduction of victims, lives
saved, and public safety in general.
It is our ethical obligation to identify and use the most
effective policing methods at every level of an
organization.
By now you have probably discovered that police
innovations often have similar characteristics and may even
be combined and used interchangeably.
These police innovations may work in some areas and be
completely ineffective in others.
While we all have our own opinions and personal bias,
the evidence should guide our methods.
I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to the
lectures for CJ501 and wish you the best of luck as you
continue the pursuit of your graduate degree at Texas A&M
University Commerce.