Good law, policy and practice depend on reliable information and analysis. Evidence-led policing has been dominated by a narrow methodological and ideological perspective. This excellent collection of essays by many of the UKs leading policing scholars challenges it, demonstrating how policing can be better understood and improved by drawing on methodologically and theoretically diverse research.
Professor David Dixon, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, UNSW, Australia
Science progresses by building on the lessons of the past and incorporating them into the realities of the future a notion fundamental to the growing popularity of evidence-based policing. This is a timely summary of the status quo but importantly, like all good science, takes a constructively critical view of the development. It is a must read for current policing practitioners.
Gloria Laycock, Professor of Crime Science, University College London, UK
This is a must-read book. It is an excellent data-based collection that sets the stage for further careful discussions of the tenuous claims of evidence-based policing. The authors bring evidence to the table! While appreciating the role of evidence, the book questions assumptions of the scheme and the extent to which this has altered policing and its case-by-case situated work.
Peter K. Manning, Elmer V.H. and Eileen M. Brooks Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, USA
Critical Reflections on Evidence-Based Policing
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) has over the last decade made an increasing mark in several fields, notably health and medicine, education and social welfare. In recent years it has begun to make its mark in criminal justice. As engagement with EBP has spread, it has begun to evolve from what might be regarded as a somewhat narrow doctrine and orthodoxy to something more complex and various. Often criminological research has been at odds with the assumptions, conventions and methodologies associated with first generation EBP. In that context EBP poses a challenge to the research community and existing evidence base and is, accordingly, hotly controversial.
This book is a welcome and timely contribution to current debates on evidence-based practice in policing. With a sharp conceptual focus, the chapters provide a critical examination of the recent history of EBP in academic, policy and practitioner communities, evaluate key dimensions of its application to policing, challenge established understandings and pave the way for a much needed change in how research evidence is perceived, generated, transferred, implemented and evaluated.
Nigel Fielding is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests are in criminology (policing, the courts) and research methodology (digital research technologies, mixed methods). Nigel is the author/editor of 24 books and more than 65 peer-reviewed journal articles. In policing, these include publications on police training, community policing, police integrity, intelligence-led policing, injury on duty, police use of social media and the effects of the recruitment of minority officers on crime rates and public confidence. His most recent book is Professionalizing the Police: The Unfulfilled Promise of Police Training (2018).
Karen Bullock is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. She has conducted numerous studies into many aspects of police practice, the impact of the police role on police personnel and the relationship between the police and society. She is also interested in crime reduction theory and practice, evidence-based policy and practice, and evaluation methodology.
Simon Holdaway, Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Sociology at the University of Sheffield and part-time Professor of Criminology, Nottingham Trent University (NTU), School of Social Sciences, left school aged 16 with minimal qualifications. He joined the Metropolitan Police Cadet Force and served subsequently as a constable and, then, sergeant, for eleven years. His early research, based on a unique, covert study of policing, brought the concept of police occupational culture to prominence. Apart from his research about police culture he has also written books and many academic papers about aspects of race relations within constabularies. His work has informed national policies; public inquiries into policing; key industrial tribunal cases involving minority ethnic officers and the work of Black Police Associations across the UK.
Routledge Frontiers of Criminal Justice
Restoring Harm
A Psycho-Social Approach to Victims and Restorative Justice
Daniela Bolvar
Police Powers and Citizens Rights
Discretionary Decision Making in Police Detention
Layla Skinns
Police Corruption in Comparative Perspective
Building Trust in the Police in India and China
George Chak Man Lee
Violence Against Children in the Criminal Justice System
Global Perspectives on Prevention
Edited by Wendy OBrien and Cdric Foussard
The Development of Transnational Policing
Past, Present and Future
Edited by John L.M. McDaniel, Karlie E. Stonard and David J. Cox
Crossover Children in the Youth Justice and Child Protection Systems
Susan Baidawi and Rosemary Sheehan
Critical Reflections on Evidence-Based Policing
Edited by Nigel Fielding, Karen Bullock and Simon Holdaway
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Frontiers-of-Criminal-Justice/book-series/RFCJ
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2020 selection and editorial matter, Nigel Fielding, Karen Bullock and Simon Holdaway; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Nigel Fielding, Karen Bullock and Simon Holdaway to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-59580-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-48815-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
SECTION 1
Evidence-based policing in context
KAREN BULLOCK, NIGEL FIELDING AND SIMON HOLDAWAY
SIMON HOLDAWAY
KAREN BULLOCK
NICK COWEN AND NANCY CARTWRIGHT
