Strategic Approaches

to Advancing

Evidence Based Policing

Lorraine Mazerolle

University of Queensland

Sydney Summit

December 17, 2015

1

Why Evidence Based Policing?

The principle of DO NO HARM

Shrinking police budgets

Greater external scrutiny on police performance (from the

media, politicians, the public, oversight commissions)

Legitimacy of police & policing

The rise (and rise) of Evidence-Based Policing

Overall…police can’t afford to use practices

that have no evidence of success

What is Evidence Based Policing??

“Evidence-based policing is a method of

making decisions about “what works” in

policing: knowing and using practices and

strategies that accomplish police missions

most cost-effectively” (Sherman, 2013).

Three Principles of EBP

• Targeting – requires systematic ranking and

comparison of levels of harm associated with

problematic places, people and situations

• Testing – requires police to review existing evidence or

conduct new experimental tests of police methods to

help chose what works best to reduce harm

• Tracking – requires police to generate and use internal

processes to track the daily delivery and effects of police

practices, including tracking the impact of the practices

on perceptions of police legitimacy

Source: Sherman, L. W. (2013). The rise of evidence-based policing: Targeting, testing, and

tracking. Crime and justice, 42(1), 377-451.

What research shows….

• 80-20 rule – Pareto Principle

• 20% of people, places and situations generate 80% of the

problems

• In fact, 3% of places generate 80% of the problems

• 15% of people generate 80% of problems

• Concentrations of problems are predictable, to a degree

• Concentrations of problems don’t tend to vary from one week

to the next, one month to the next, one year to the next

TAKE HOME MESSAGE: Deploying resources need to be

targeted to the places, people, situations that need them most;

tested to see that they work; and tracked to make sure the

service is delivered as intended

Body Worn Videos (BWV)

• Cost to the police agency to

purchase, train, deploy, store

• Deploy them in the high risk

places, in high risk situations,

with high risk people

• Not all shifts are equal, not all

police beats are equal, not all

officers on the frontline

WHY DO WE NEED TESTS??

A Police Minister recently told a local

newspaper….

“This Body Worn Video technology puts police

safety first and also has benefits for the criminal

justice system and the wider community,” Police

Minister said.

“These benefits include a better conviction rate

[more guilty pleas], a reduction in the number of

assaults on police, a reduction in police

paperwork which means more time on the beat,

increased police transparency and

professionalism.”

The Claims The Evidence

Better conviction rate

[more guilty pleas]

Not measured

Reduction in the number of

assaults on police

Not measured

Reduction in police

paperwork

Not measured

More time on the beat Not measured

Increased police

transparency

Not measured

Increased professionalism Not measured

What we DO know from the one published

randomized field trial….

1. Conducted with the Rialto Police Department

2. 988 police shifts randomly allocated to control (no BWV)

and experimental conditions (BWV)

3. Use of force is reduced by 50% - control shift officers used

twice as much force as experimental shift officers

4. Complaints against police fell by 88% in the year of the

study period compared to the previous year…BUT

5. No difference between the control and experimental shifts

Source: Ariel, Farrar and Sutherland, 2014

Things we still don’t know…1. Is there a better conviction rate? More guilty

pleas?

2. Is there a reduction in the number of assaults on

police?

3. Does it reduce police paperwork?

4. Does it give officers more time on the beat?

5. Does it increase police transparency?

6. Does it increase police professionalism?

Probably.

Imagine this dialogue with a non-

evidence based officer….

Reporter: Your department is spending $4 million on BWV.

Does Body Worn Video reduce the amount of force used by

police?

Police Manager: We have been using Body Worn Videos for

the last year and we think its working pretty well.

Reporter: But how do you know that?

Police Manager: Ummmm…our officers say they feel safer.

Evidence based policing dialogue….Reporter: Your department is spending $4 million on BWV.

Does Body Worn Video reduce police use of force?

Police Manager: We have run a randomized field trial. In that

trial we found that BWV reduce the amount of force used by

police by 50%. That’s good value for money.

Reporter: How can you be sure?

Police Manager: A randomized field trial isolates the unique

effects of the intervention. With 95% confidence, we know that

implementation of the BWV directly reduced the amount of

force used by police by 50%.

When it comes to building your

evidence base, police have been

sold a lemon…

League Table of Scientific Methods

• Experiments - random allocation

• Quasi-experiments - matching, but no random

allocation

• Comparing two groups – one with the intervention and

one without, but with no matching of the groups

• Before-after comparisons, with or without matching

groups

• Correlation between a program & crime

outcome at one single point in time

• All qualitative studies (observations,

interviews, focus groups)

So…

where does a police agency start?

1. Knowing the evidence…where do you go

to get existing evidence?

2. Generating the evidence…how do you

target, test and track?

3. And strategically, what can police agencies

do to re-orientate their organizations into

evidence based policing agencies?

Theme 1:

Accessing Existing

Evidence

Finding existing evidence

• Campbell Collaboration

• Global Policing Database

• Lum-Koper Matrix

• What Works for Crime Reduction

Campbell Collaborationwww.campbellcollaboration.org

• Problem Oriented Policing

• Hotspots Policing

• Interview and Interrogation

Methods

• Stress Management

Methods

• Carrying Firearms

• Focused Deterrence

• Neighborhood Watch

• CCTV

• School Based Programs

• Legitimacy Policing

• DNA Testing

• Second Responders

• Drug Law Enforcement

• Restorative Justice

Conferencing

• Corporate Crime

Deterrence

To come…

Body Worn Cameras

From the Campbell Library…

Doesn’t Work

• Rapid response

• Random patrols

• DARE

• Automatic Number Plate

recognition

• Gunshot detection

technologies

• Mandatory arrest for DV

offenders

• DV second responders

• ‘Scared Straight’

Works

• Hotspots policing

• Police-led restorative

justice

• RBTs

• Legitimacy policing

• Problem oriented policing

• Third Party Policing

• Foot patrol

• COMPSTAT

• Drug Courts

OVERVIEW OF THE GPD

• Web-based and searchable database

• Compiled using systematic review techniques

• Designed to capture all published and unpublished

experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of

policing interventions conducted since 1950

• No restrictions on type of policing technique

• No restrictions on type of outcome(s) measured

• No restrictions on language

Acknowledgements to: Angela Higginson, Elizabeth Eggins

and Betsy Stanko

POLICING FOCUS

Broad definition of ‘policing intervention’

• Police as primary implementers→ POP, order maintenance policing, hot-spots policing

• Police as intervention partners→ Third Party Policing, Pulling Levers, Community Policing

• Police as recipients of the intervention→ Training and development programs, interventions for officer wellbeing

• Police-related factors and their impact on outcomes→ Organisational structure, HR policies, department size

• Police tools, techniques and technologies

→ Forensic techniques, line-ups, interview protocols and strategies

CRICOS Provider No 00025B

GPD projections

Go to: www.gpd.uq.edu.au

CRICOS Provider No 00025B

Grab of cases in the database

CRICOS Provider No 00025B

Summary per case

CRICOS Provider No 00025B

Output

CRICOS Provider No 00025B

Lum-Koper Matrix

Source: http://cebcp.org/evidence-based-policing/the-matrix/

What Works for Crime Reductionhttp://whatworks.college.police.uk/toolkit

Theme 2:

Producing Your Own

Evidence

Community Engagement Trial

Crime Scene Investigators Trial

Voice 4 Values Recruit Trial

Theme 3:

Organisational Reform

Four Eras of Policing(Adapted from Kelling and Moore)

• Political Era - failure

• Reform/Professional Era - failure

• Community Era – mostly failure

• Evidence-Based Policing Era – knowing

what works, and what doesn’t…and

doing something about it

CRAFT SCIENCE INNOVATION

Building an EBP Agency – Part 1

Sherman’s Ten Ideas1. Evidence Based Policing Unit (EBPU)-20+ FTE and Executive Leadership

2. EBP training at recruit, in-service and leadership levels

3. Leaders to undertake Masters level training

4. Central Registry of EBP Projects

5. Regular, internal invitations for experiments to be conducted

6. Peer review process for policing experiments

7. Embedded criminologists, with PhD level EBP expertise

8. Public EBP website of evidence

9. “Evidence Cops” who make sure QPS practice in line with evidence

10. Annual EBP prizes

Source: Adapted from Sherman, L. W. (2015). A Tipping Point for “Totally Evidenced Policing” Ten

Ideas for Building an Evidence-Based Police Agency. International Criminal Justice Review.

Building an EBP Agency – Part 2

Ten More Ideas11. Facilitate research internships within work units co-ordinated by the EBPU

12. Require Commissioned Officers to contribute to publish their science

13. Systemize the relationship between the EBPU and operational units

14. Create Data Labs & recruit high-end quantitative analysts

15. Identify an ‘EBP Ambassador’ (rock star status e.g Prof Brian Cox)

16. Engage external change auditors to design & manage change management

17. Establish a change agent network via existing Talent Identification Program

18. Embed EBP in everyday business - experiments tied Performance

Development Agreements and/or OPR-like processes

19. Network nationally and internationally with other EBP agencies

20. Initiate, stimulate, foster community demand for EBP

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Lorraine Mazerolle

l.Mazerolle@uq.edu.au