Productive policing: Lessons from preventative police strategies in times of New Public Management

Abstract

Police patrol work intersects the global trends of both crime prevention strategies and New Public Management (NPM). Based on a case study conducted among operative policing units in the Norwegian nighttime economy, we canvass lessons from environments in which the tensions that arise from reactive and proactive police strategies are particularly evident. The emphasis on measurable and quantifiable tasks in line with NPM principles, coupled with the pressures to perform according to an overall strategy of crime prevention, present challenges for proactive policing conducted at street-level. The practical implications of this strategic duality are discussed. We suggest that the notion of productive policing sits at the core of this tension as a way of producing both order and quantifiable outcomes.