To what extent do Canadian police professionals believe that their agencies are ‘Targeting, Testing, and Tracking’ new policing strategies and programs?

Abstract

Some researchers suggest that police professionals see little value in adopting evidence based approaches to tackle policing challenges. To examine this issue, 586 Canadian police professionals were surveyed. We explore responses to one particular question, which caused 353 respondents to reflect on whether they think their agencies enact evidence based policing (EBP) principles in daily operations; specifically, the principles of targeting, testing, and tracking the implementation of new policing strategies. Mixed views were expressed by respondents in relation to their agency’s ability to target high priority policing problems and to test strategies for fixing these problems. However, views were overwhelmingly negative when respondents reflected on how well they thought their agencies track the effectiveness of strategies over time. If these views accurately describe how agencies target, test, and track the implementation of policing strategies, they underline potential challenges associated with the adoption of EBP in Canadian police organizations.

Keywords:

• Police
• evidence based policing
• program evaluation
• target
• test
• track

Notes

1. The journal Police Science, published by the Australia–New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing began in 2016. A second journal, based at the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, will release an inaugural issue in 2017.

2. This topic is the subject of another paper from this research and not the focus of the current study.

3. The changes followed consultation with a large Canadian police organization.

4. We note that the questionnaire and protocols were vetted first by a University Research Ethics Board.