Police as Problem Solvers

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 lively yet scholarly book written by two pioneers of the approach. The authors conducted the legendary 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 traces its impact. 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work reform because it expands the jobs of frontline workers (police officers), showing that authoritarian management is obsolete. This book is a gem that will be prized by social psychologists, criminologists, organizational consultants, and community activists.