Prevention: Police Role

Modern police organizations were established to prevent and respond to crime. For several decades, evaluation research has cast doubt upon traditional strategies of policing. Police organizations around the world are now experimenting with new methods for controlling and preventing crime. Several crime prevention strategies have also emerged independently of the police. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, police organizations turned to community policing as a method for reducing and preventing crime while improving relationships with their communities. During this period, several streams of crime prevention thought began to converge: environmental criminology, situational crime prevention, community crime prevention, and problem-oriented policing. As the community policing movement continues to spread, these perspectives have had more and more influence on police policy. While crime prevention has emerged from many sources, the police continue to play an important role in its implementation.