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Progress in American Policing? Reviewing the National Reviews

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National Research Council. 2004. Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence, ed. Skogan Wesley and Frydl Kathleen (Committee to Review Research on Police Policy and Practices and Committee on Law and Justice, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education). Washington, DC : National Academies Press. Pp. xvi + 432. $49.95 cloth.

President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. 1967. The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. Washington, DC : US Government Printing Office. Pp. xii + 351. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/42.pdf.

Weisburd David and Braga Anthony A., eds. 2006. Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xx + 388. $37.99 paper.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Abstract

This essay uses three publications—the 1967 President's Crime Commission report on police, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society; the National Research Council's review of research on policing, Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence; and David Weisburd and Anthony A. Braga's edited collection, Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives—as reference points for reflecting on the extent to which the American police institution has moved toward a progressive and professional ideal over the past forty years. I argue that unless the scope and complexity of the policing function is more fully taken into account, and unless the causes of crime and disorder and the police role in controlling and preventing them are reconsidered, the ideals of police reform will remain elusive.

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Type
Review Essay
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2009 

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