future trends in policing 2014

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FUTURE TRENDS IN POLICING
The department also is developing a network of “smart boards”—video screens in briefing
rooms that display automated information, including predictive crime models, information
about offenders being released back into the community, and recent arrest information.
Schultz describes it as “like having a 24-hour CNN news network.”
CONSIDERATIONS FOR DEVELOPING POLICE PARTNERSHIPS WITH ACADEMIA
Both academics and the police can take steps to improve research relationships.
Academics tend to have an overly enthusiastic sense of the importance of their work. Often they don’t focus
on practical utility. Academics need to think about their work and ask, “Will this disrupt the work of the
police? Has it been tailored for law enforcement use?”
I didn’t think of these questions when I first started working with police, but over time I have developed an
appreciation for the fact that new tools have to fit comfortably within the policing environment. If the tools
we develop make the officer’s job harder, they won’t use it, so we need to develop tools that work seamlessly
in an officer’s environment. Researchers also need to recognize that policing is a person-intensive business;
it is ultimately about the officers, their judgment, and how they work.
For the police, it can be difficult to take a long-term orientation toward research. In my research with LAPD,
I was lucky that the department knew the research wouldn’t lead to immediate results, and they were okay
with that, but undertaking long-term research projects is a very difficult decision for police departments.
Police are responsible for dealing with crime in the here and now, so academics should try to help by
developing research and tools that are useful on a practical, day-to-day level.
I think it would work to the advantage of police agencies if they adopt a more experimental mindset. There
are many academic ideas out there and many vendors who would like to sell their products to the police,
but without experimentation it’s hard to know which ideas work and which do not. There are costs and
risks associated with experiments, but the benefits far outweigh the risks. Law enforcement might follow
the example of the pharmaceutical industry, which routinely completes trials to determine whether new
drugs work better than existing remedies. Evidence based medicine is better than superstition, and the same
concept applies to policing.
—Dr. Jeffrey Brantingham
UCLA Professor and LAPD Partner