Stratified Policing

Book excerpt: Implementing effective crime reduction requires deliberate thought and effort to integrate processes into the police organization, its culture, and the day-to-day work. Stratified Policing: An Organizational Model for Proactive Crime Reduction and Accountability provides police leaders a clear path for institutionalization of crime reduction modeled after current police processes. It sets up an organization to more easily incorporate evidence-based strategies into everyday operations with the goal of changing a police organization from reactive to proactive. Stratified Policing incorporates what works for crime reduction and how to realistically make it work in police practice. The book details the specific and adaptable framework that infuses small changes by rank and division into daily activities that build on each other resulting in a comprehensive and focused approach for crime reduction. It also lays out a multifaceted accountability process that is fair and transparent. Importantly, the book dedicates entire chapters to methods for developing crime reduction goals, addressing immediate, short-term, and long-term crime and disorder problems, and implementing a stratified accountability meeting structure. Chapters include specific recommendations supported by research and grounded in what is realistic in police practice for application of evidence-based strategies, assignment of responsibility and accountability, crime analysis products, and assessment measures for impact on crime and disorder. The book is a culmination of the authors' 15 years of work and will synthesize their research, other publications on stratified policing, and provide new material for police leaders and professionals who are seeking an organizational structure to institutionalize crime reduction strategies into their day to day operations.