| Description |
xviii, 353 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
The idea of problem-oriented policing -- Policing in the United States before the advent of the problem-oriented approach -- Pioneering efforts -- Organizational change issues -- The Oakland project -- Defining a problem : first-generation change agents -- Addressing the problem : inventing the peer review panel -- Documenting the solution -- A decentralized problem-oriented activity -- Top-down problem solving : the Compstat paradigm -- Community policing and problem-oriented policing -- Commitment and community in problem-oriented interventions -- Extending the approach to interagency problem solving |
| Summary |
"This book is about an innovative approach that lets members of progressive organizations function as applied scientists and problem solvers. This means that in such organizations work becomes more mindful. Decisions can be made based on inventories of information and analysis of data-couched tentatively, to be sure, subject to ratification through additional study. At the working level, planning and action can become linked, and the organization thereby becomes problem-oriented rather than crisis-reactive. It is ironic that this problem-oriented approach has evolved most explicitly and self-consciously in policing. We tend to think of police in terms of brawn rather than brains, and we may conceive of police officers as spending time wrestling with suspects and engaged in hot pursuits of fleeing felons. Police are perceived as the embodiment of blind reactivity, and yet an applied social-scientific focus on work has sprung up and taken root within the ranks of police. This book is addressed to those interested in the process of organizational change in settings in which a problem-oriented focus may be relevant. I am interested, therefore, in making the process of problem-oriented activity come alive and in conveying some sense of what such activity means to those who engage in its exercise"--Introd. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved) |
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"Faced with the problems associated with grinding poverty and a no-win drug war, police departments are adapting and changing. Foot patrol officers again walk the streets and talk to citizens, and neighborhood crime watches are valued as the eyes and ears of enforcers. Most seminal is the "quiet revolution" that has been called problem-oriented policing. This revolution makes police officers pioneering professionals who systematically study and address social problems in their localities. Cops become social scientists who work with other agents in the community to address root causes of crime." "Police as Problem Solvers is a book written by two pioneers of the approach. The authors conducted the first experiment in which police officers became researchers and "agents of change." Using verbatim transcripts of officers working through problems both in the community and among their own ranks, they recount highlights of the experiment and trace its impact." |
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"This revolution has implications not only for social policy and criminal justice but also for work reform because it expands the jobs of frontline workers (police officers), showing that authoritarian management is obsolete."--BOOK JACKET |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-342) and index |
| Subject |
Police.
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Problem solving.
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Police social work.
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Police -- United States.
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| Author |
Grant, James Douglas, 1917-
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| LC no. |
2004006035 |
| ISBN |
1591471508 |
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