The police have been particularly susceptible to the "means over ends" syndrome, placing more emphasis in their improvement efforts on organization and operating methods than on the substantive outcome of their work. This condition has been fed by the professional movement within the police field, with its concentration on the staffing, management, and organization of police agencies. More and more persons are questioning the widely held assumption that improvements in the internal man agement of police departments will enable the police to deal more effectively with the problems they are called upon to handle. If the police are to realize a greater return on the investment made in improving their oper ations, and if they are to mature as a profession, they must concern them selves more directly with the end product of their efforts.

Recent research that has questioned the value of traditional policing methods has led to experiments with new forms of policing. With increasing frequency, these experiments place greater dependence, for police effectiveness, upon redefining the relationship that the police develop with the community. Out of these efforts, a concept of community-oriented policing is beginning to evolve that—when fully developed—could provide the dominant framework to which all future improvement efforts in policing are linked. A number of minimum requirements for moving in this direction are already identifiable. Most important, among these, is the need to assure that the police engage more directly in dealing with the substantive problems of concern to the communities they serve. Full development of community-oriented policing will require that a number of tough questions first be addressed. Four of these are identified and explored in the article.

This paper is an edited version of the speech given upon being awarded the 2018 Stockholm Prize in Criminology. After a brief introduction, the paper describes the concept of problem-oriented policing (POP), first proposed in 1979. It goes on to assess the extent to which the police have adopted POP, and its current status. POP is, in the immediate sense, aimed at a reduction in the incidence or severity of the problem on which attention is focused, and, in the broader sense, at improving the fundamentals of policing in a democratic society.

No abstract

is currently engaged in a program of research and training in law enforcement under a grant from the Ford Foundation. Mr. Goldstein served from 1960 to 1964 as Executive Assistant to the Superintendent of Police in Chicago. Previously, as a Research Associate with the American Bar Foundation's Survey of the Administration of Criminal Justice, he studied police operations in Michigan and Wisconsin. Upon his graduation from the University of Connecticut, Mr. Goldstein embarked upon graduate studies in governmental administration at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his Master's degree. In this article, Mr. Goldstein draws upon his personal experience as an observer of police operations, and as an administrator in a large police agency, to examine some of the complex problems encountered in exerting control over police conduct. As a basis for his analysis, the author distinguishes the several forms of most commonly cited misconduct, noting the quite different problems which each presents. Often-ignored factors inherent in the nature of the police function that complicate review and control of police actions are described. Considering the effect which this range of problems and factors has in limiting the value of existing and proposed methods for exerting control from outside the police agency, the author concludes that improved control over police conduct is primarily dependent upon the willingness of a police administrator to exert tighter and more effective controls over his personnel.