Evidence-based Policing - Essay Example

Running header: EVIDENCED-BASED POLICING Evidenced-based policing Evidenced-based policing The need for evidenced based policing is directly attributable to the desire to ensure that everyone has the same access to a fair and impartial justice system. Evidenced based policing allows law enforcement to suspend judgment until after the facts are made available and verified using scientific testing and evidence gathering technology. According to Lawrence W. Sherman, evidence-based policing is “the use of the best available research on the outcomes of police work to implement guidelines and evaluate agencies, units and officers.

” (Sherman, 1998 pg. 3)The advantages are apparent given the ability when implementing this approach to fix approaches that are non-functional while still ensuring the largest amount of individual freedom in situations that may require law enforcement intervention. Evidenced-based policing The disadvantages of this approach can be seen in the single approach that is statistically the best for the general community. While this allows for the best overall response from a cohesive unit it may not allow for individual communities to pursue different approaches that may in fact be better for that individual community.

In one study in Britain “However, households in projects that had received public education and households that received the follow-up visits were both more likely to report new violence to the police than households that did not receive the treatments.” (Davis, Taylor, 1997 pg. 307-333) This shows that in individual situations the use of the community specific evidence-based policing was ineffective in actually reducing the crimes approached using the model that was seen as most likely to succeed.

Using a general approach is beneficial in some areas however, as can be seen is not beneficial in all areas of enforcement. While the benefits of using evidence-based policing do outweigh the disadvantages it should be noted that this may not be an appropriate approach in every case and the law enforcement agencies involved may in fact wish to reserve individual judgment with regards to certain approaches. More importantly it is necessary to understand that to provide fair and impartial justice it is sometimes necessary to break each case down individually to better provide this for the defendants involved.

Reference page: Davis, R. C., & Taylor, B. G. (1997). A proactive response to family violence: The results of a randomized experiment. Criminology, 35, 307-333. Sherman, L. (1998,). Ideas in american policing, evidence based policing. Page. 3 Retrieved from http://www.policefoundation.org/pdf/Sherman.pdf