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Dennis J. Kenney, Dina Rose, Cristine Maglieri, Tara O'Connor Shelley, Melissa Reuland, and Deborah Lamm Weisel, 1999

ISBN: 1-878734-62-8
368 pp.

This is the first and only publication that discusses the consequences of abortion- related conflict from the perspective of law enforcement. Two thirds of all jurisdictions in the United States with at least one known abortion provider have experienced actual abortion-related incidents - ranging from protests and demonstrations to murder - in the five years preceding publication. But few police departments train their officers or establish guidelines for officers to use when responding to abortion-related conflicts or violence. This project was funded with the support of the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation.

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Police are expected to not only control crime, but also reduce fear, maintain order and manage social crises. Beyond Command and Control is a first step toward establishing a new police management orthodoxy - one that moves away from the traditional military command bureaucracy and toward a structure that fosters change and innovation. This new management philosophy borrows corporate strategies from the private sector to help define the goals of policing.

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As crime affects the economic vitality of cities throughout the United States, the ability of cities to fight and control crime must be improved. With just that in mind, Motorola and PERF engaged in a bold experiment to see how one private sector, quality improvement tool, called "process-mapping", could streamline internal operations in police departments. A Challenge to Change describes how eight police departments participated in the experiment, and the surprising results that came to the fore.

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Chief Concerns: Exploring the Challenges of Police Use of Force addresses many of the core issues surrounding police use of force and addresses the pressing topics of the day. The book offers readers a wealth of perspectives on current use-of-force issues, such as use-of-force policies and training tools, including firearms and less-lethal devices and handling the aftermath of an incident, including communicating with the public, building relationships with the media, investigating police use of force, and officer aftercare.

Also included in the book, which was generously supported by Motorola Inc., are several compelling commentaries and articles that provide a variety of practitioner and other expert perspectives. They include matters related to leadership, agency culture, policy, tactics, training, less-lethal weapons, consent decrees, dealing with controversy, building trust, post-shooting trauma, and international perspectives.

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Chief Concerns: Police Management of Mass Demonstrations - Identifying Issues and Successful Approaches addresses many of the challenges for police officers in a democracy in handling mass demonstrations. From spontaneous disorder after athletic events to highly organized protests against international monetary policies, local law enforcement agencies have encountered demonstrations that require every available resource to contain. In addition, police actions seem to be the subject of increased monitoring by third parties, including news agenies, amateur reporters, and civil rights organizations, all of whom are armed with video cameras. These developments exert sustained pressure on law enforcement to "get it right".

Citizen review of the police has steadily increased in the United States. In Citizen Review of the Police, 1994, authors Walker and Wright examine citizen review in the United States, addressing both its prevalence among cities and jurisdictions of various sizes and types of citizen review procedures.

As more and more jurisdictions, large and small, establish review committees of community members in an effort to hold the police accountable for their actions, it is crucial that police leaders and policymakers be familiar with the policies and procedures in place across the country. In the Citizen Review Resource Manual, author Samuel Walker provides an overview of the state of citizen review, including a section of ordinances and statutes, executive and department orders, and other documents collected from more than 30 police departments nationwide.

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Command Performance: Career Guide for Police Executives is the culmination of a three-year project to bring you the most comprehensive and practical information on successfully competing for police executive positions and understanding the selection process. If you are interested in establishing or maintaining your position as a progressive leader in policing, you will not want to miss this opportunity. Written by a city manager, employment specialist and police researcher, the book provides useful resources, helpful advice and substantive briefings on issues related to career development as a police executive.

Crime Analysis Through Computer Mapping offers a comprehensive view of spatial crime analysis as it is being applied in law enforcement agencies across he country. Published in conjunction with the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA), Crime Analysis Through Computer Mapping consists of 25 essays written by practitioners and scholars for a 1993 computer mapping workshop organized by ICJIA and the sociology department of Loyola University of Chicago. It offers practical advice for both police professionals interested in implementing computer mapping in their agencies and students of spatial analysis interested in learning the detailed applications of this technology. It remains a classic among those interested in computer mapping.

More metal detectors, school security personnel and other target-hardening approaches alone fail to make our schools safer. Crime in the Schools provides a student-oriented response that builds on the success of police problem-solving efforts. The authors outline a tested curriculum that empowers students to make creative uses of school, student, faculty and police resources to combat the fear and disorder problems many experience during the school day. The School Safety Program applies the police problem-solving model, used successfully in community policing efforts nationwide, to school situations.

PERF and the National Institute of Justice Crime Mapping Research Center (CMRC) collaborated in this volume to highlight various criminal justice agencies' successes with applying mapping to their problem-solving, prevention and enforcement efforts. The book encourages agencies' use of crime mapping and offers ideas on various ways to apply geographic information systems (GIS) and mapping. Readers have the opportunity to form their own opinions about the efficacy and applicability of these efforts to their own jurisdictions.

This second PERF-CMRC volume of crime mapping case studies meets increasing demands for practical information on how crime mapping technologies can be applied to community and police agency problems. It highlights such issues as gun violence, drug crackdowns, neighborhood watch efficacy, identifying serial suspects, sex offender registrant compliance, gang suppression, police agency redistricting/staffing, and many more. Written by practitioners, this volume is a must-read for students, police professionals, policymakers and others interested in accurate information that supports crime control and community policing aids in suspect apprehension and prosecution and improves law enforcement operations.

By absorbing the lessons learned by national and international policing partners, the work of bomb squads and specialists, and the progressive actions of a number of departments, PERF hopes to provide information to initiate the development of training and policy as well as to foster further discussion on this complex and sensitive topic.

This book is the fourth in the ongoing Critical Issues in Policing series supported by Motorola and focuses on building community trust around issues of force, including the management of high-profile incidents managing police use of force while interacting with people with mental illness, emphasizing specialized approaches and promising training examining less-lethal technology both currently available and future devices as well as discussing how technology relates to less-lethal force decision-making and presenting a glossary of terms on conducted energy devices and proposed national guidelines for their use.

This report summarizes what we learned last year from our members and other policing experts about trends in gang activity and police strategies to reduce the harmful impact of gangs in our cities. PERF conducted a survey of police agencies and convened a Summit in Chicago last May to explore these issues, and this report aims to capture our findings. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our members who completed our survey.

As you will see, police departments across the country are tracking changes in the gangs they are dealing with, such as the emergence of many local, unorganized gangs, and increased use of guns by gang members. The police chiefs quoted in this report also describe the strategies they are finding most effective, such as targeting gang leaders for federal prosecution. There was strong agreement that police need to work with other agencies and develop comprehensive approaches that combine enforcement with gang prevention and social intervention measures.

Published in 1992, Deadly Force remains one of the most comprehensive volumes of information about police-involved shootings, compiling data from hundreds of research studies conducted over the past 30 years. Its 187 detailed graphs and tables highlight the most important findings from prior landmark research and present such previously unpublished information as national FBI data on justifiable homicides by police and data from a dozen major American cities on all shots fired from 1970 through 1991. The book also provides data and practical advice on such critical issues as shootings of cops by "friendly fire," justifying actions to local officials, averting a civil disorder after a controversial shooting, creating sound policies and reducing civil liability.

Today's police are called upon to handle an increasingly diverse array of community problems, some of which they lack the authority or expertise to resolve. Consequently, some law enforcement agencies have turned to dispute resolution as a means for working with professionals from other fields to develop new problem-solving strategies.

In Information Management and Crime Analysis: Practitioners' Recipes for Success, police practitioners from around the country discuss ways to manage police information to meet a variety of needs, from crime analysis to community awareness. Chapters cover crime information, database structures, administrative crime analysis, use of information technologies to assist investigations and tactical planning, how crime analysts can use computer mapping to identify "hot spots," and decentralization of information to beat officers and citizens.

The nation's elderly population is expected to steadily increase. Police will be asked to serve this growing population, including elder abuse victims. Developed through a grant from the Office of Victims of Crime, PERF's training package provides practical information about the police response to domestic elder abuse, from the initial call for service to the closing of the case. The training package includes instructors' and participants' training manuals, a model roll-call training bulletin, model procedures, a model response and investigative protocol, a model policy, a review of previous research and an assessment of other training materials. All materials can be adapted to the needs of individual jurisdictions. The package has been used in statewide trainings.

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PERF, November 2009
ISBN: 978-1-934485-09-5
152 pp.

This book is based on interviews with 25 experienced police chiefs regarding the lessons they have learned about performing the job of police chief. The book consists almost entirely of chiefs’ quotations about the real-world pitfalls they have encountered, the sources of job satisfaction they have found, and the ways they deal with the stresses of the job.

Topics include: preparing for the job of police chief how to decide whether a chief’s position in a particular city is a good “fit” for you the challenges involved in applying for a chief’s position making the transition to chief developing and empowering your command team working well with your mayor and other “bosses,” the community, and your employees the elements of an effective news media strategy stepping up to racial issues the challenges faced by female police chiefs and measures of success.

Also included are short biographies of the 25 chiefs who contributed to the book, as well as findings of PERF’s 2009 survey of approximately 300 police chiefs regarding salaries, benefits, and other aspects of their jobs.

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The conventional wisdom holds that middle managers are almost inevitably obstacles to strategic innovation, including community policing. In Managing Innovation in Policing, however, authors Geller and Swanger argue that, when properly motivated and supported, police middle managers have been and can be key players in policing reform. This book includes case studies of successful middle managers and suggestions for how police senior leaders, city officials and others can help position middle managers to voluntarily, proactively and effectively help implement community policing. Managing Innovation in Policing has become a popular text for community policing and command-level training courses.

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Mapping Across Boundaries: Regional Crime Analysis addresses the obstacles and answers in developing regional crime mapping. The 130-page report is a primer for police agency personnel and students of mapping who want to enhance crime control and prevention efforts. The book discusses how cross-boundary mapping can better reveal hot spots of crime that occur along jurisdictional boundaries or identify serial crimes by offenders operating in neighboring jurisdictions.

The book provides guidance through case studies on a range of regional mapping models from central archiving systems to ambitious multi-agency consortia with common database structures and GIS platforms. This practical guide outlines for each case model how the mapping effort began how it was implemented decisions regarding software, hardware, data sharing and privacy agreements and how the cross-agency mapping has been used in practice. It highlights issues to consider in cross-agency collaborations and provides sources for additional resources, information, sample Memoranda of Understanding and other guidance on emerging regional crime analysis efforts.

In The Nature of Community Policing Innovations, Authors Jihong Zhao and Quint Thurman use James Thompson's theory of organizational change as a theoretical framework to investigate the core mission of American policing. They first examine the prioritization of police functions and go on to address the relationship between these priorities and the means used to achieve them, particularly as they relate to community policing.

As drug dealers' operations become more sophisticated, law enforcement personnel must respond with new strategies to stop them. With funding from the National Institute of Justice, PERF offers Police Antidrug Tactics, which addresses the evolution of drug enforcement and provides in-depth descriptions of the tactics police agencies have considered the most effective.

This volume provides a comprehensive review of important issues facing police administrators in the 1990s. More than a dozen noted researchers and police administrators contributed to this unique anthology, including George Kelling, Elizabeth Watson, Larry Hoover, Victor Strecher, Dennis Kenney and Darrel Stephens. Police Management: Issues and Perspectives, used increasingly as a management text and required reading for promotional exams, systematically addresses the underlying, intractable problems that police agencies face.

Today law enforcement officials are challenged with balancing the daily responsibilities of maintaining public order and safety with the need for emergency preparedness—often with fewer resources than they have had in the past. As law enforcement executives spend more time thinking about increases in violent crime, the threat of terrorism, and other issues, the threat of an influenza pandemic may not be high on the list of planning priorities. However, a pandemic flu has the potential to cause more death, illness, and social and economic disruption than most other threats faced by law enforcement.

This document describes the efforts of four very different police departments—in London, England Toronto, Ontario Fairfax County, Va. and Overland Park, Kansas—to develop plans for dealing with a flu pandemic. All four departments recognize that the challenge has two basic parts: responding to the increased demand for services that a pandemic would cause and doing so with a reduced workforce, as some of their own officers become ill or need to stay home to attend to sick family members. Two chapters (“Summary of Findings” and “Lessons from the Field”) contain practical tips that readers can apply to public health emergency planning strategies in their own departments.

It's a challenge police professionals face daily - how to determine if programs and tactics are effective. Meaningful program evaluation often requires going beyond piecemeal observations or simple "before and after" comparisons. Police Program Evaluation, an edited volume from PERF and the Sam Houston State University, provides substantive articles covering various aspects of police program evaluation such as evaluating tactical patrol and criminal investigations. The authors present valuable information on types of evaluations and different ways of collecting and analyzing data, all in language accessible to both experienced researchers and those engaging in program evaluation for the first time.

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Police Pursuits: What We Know is based on extensive data from four diverse sites and a national survey, and examines the issue not only from the police perspective, but from the perspectives of the public and offenders as well. The book also summarizes and builds on some key prior research, examines liability and risk-management issues, and makes specific policy recommendations for police agencies. With this book in hand, police professionals and policymakers will have the information they need to create policies that truly serve the best interests of the public, and further the police mission to protect citizens' lives and safety.

The Police Response to the Homeless elaborates on the various conflicts police officers face in trying to fulfill their obligations to protect individual rights and provide for the needs of those living on the nation's streets, while also responding to the demands of the community at large. Authors Plotkin and Narr report the findings of surveys and on-site studies of police departments across the country, clarifying current police attitudes toward and responses to he homeless.

Police Use of Force focuses on both purposeful and accidental firearms discharges in the Metro-Dade, Fla., Police Department between 1988 and June 1994. Presented largely in tabular format, the data are organized to compare variables such as the weapons used, training of officers involved, the situations in which shootings occurred, and characteristics of involved officers and suspects. The study not only provides a detailed picture of police shootings in one metropolitan area, but also illustrates the value of statistical research in helping police departments to make policy decisions.

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As the cultural make-up of cities changes worldwide due to migration, economics and other forces, police are often called on to respond to conflict among ethnic groups. The authors of Policing a Multicultural Community - a part of PERF's "Fresh Perspectives" discussion paper series - first examine some of the factors that influence the ethnic composition of communities, as well as interethnic conflict. They provide numerous examples, from the United States and elsewhere, of such well-documented conflicts as the 1992 riots in Los Angeles and violence between Korean merchants and African Americans in urban neighborhoods. Finally, they outline steps that police agencies can take to better equip police officers to effectively respond to, or even help prevent, such conflicts.

Problem Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News remains one of the only publications available on how problem-oriented policing was first implemented on the local level. This book shows how the police in Newport News, Va., implemented problem-oriented policing by focusing on resolving problems that led to crimes, as well as on the public's dissatisfaction with its safety. The book also makes recommendations for implementing the problem-oriented approach in other departments. It remains a popular classroom text as well.

BUY ALL THREE POP BOOKS FOR: Member: $65 and Nonmember: $75 The second in the problem-solving series, this book focuses on practical problem-solving efforts that resolve long-term issues in addressing community problems. It focuses on such issues as domestic violence, repeat burglaries, the role of investigators in community policing, crime mapping and other concerns of police professionals and community problem solvers. It is an excellent reader for classroom and training forums.

BUY ALL THREE POP BOOKS FOR: Member: $65 and Nonmember: $75

This publication reflects the collective knowledge from police officers, academicians and other experts about problem-oriented policing. It is the first in a series that highlights information shared at previous annual POP Conferences by practitioners and academicians with expertise in three areas: crime-specific problems, critical issues and practices, and the challenges of making problem-solving work. Authors include such national leaders as Scott Decker, Malcolm Klein, Sam Walker, Jack Greene, Ron Clarke and Gary Cordner.

BUY ALL THREE POP BOOKS FOR: Member: $65 and Nonmember: $75

The second in the problem-solving series, this book focuses on practical problem-solving efforts that resolve long-term issues in addressing community problems. It focuses on such issues as domestic violence, repeat burglaries, the role of investigators in community policing, crime mapping and other concerns of police professionals and community problem solvers. It is an excellent reader for classroom and training forums.

BUY ALL THREE POP BOOKS FOR: Member: $65 and Nonmember: $75

The third in the problem-solving series, this book focuses on emerging issues in addressing community problems. It focuses on such issues as hate crimes, stalking, crime in public housing, public disorder and other issues of concern to police problem solvers.

As police resources are being stretched to their limits, there is renewed pressure to evaluate what our police agencies are doing well, and whether we are using the right measures to determine their effectiveness. Mark Moore and his colleagues, with support from the Sloan Foundation, provide researchers, policymakers, police professionals and citizens the insight and tools to better assess what they should value in law enforcement services, and how to better measure police performance. Recognizing Value in Policing explores seven valuable goals of policing and demonstrates how traditional measures have been inadequate to assess police effectiveness on so many dimensions. The publication provides very concrete advice to those thinking about strategic reforms for their police agency - reforms that will improve how the department's professionals do their jobs and better serve individuals and society. Working with numerous criminal justice practitioners and conducting research in several cities, Moore has created a framework that represents the latest thinking about measuring police performance. This publication has been used in PERFÆs Senior Management Institute for Police and other classes and trainings.

Solving Crime and Disorder Problems: Current Issues, Police Strategies and Organizational Tactics is dedicated to innovations in police problem solving. The 11 chapters each use a case study to identify effective problem-solving strategies to deal with issues such as racially biased policing, sexual assaults, drug and disorder problems, field training, crime mapping, response to people with mental illness, and more. This book is written for police professionals, criminal justice academicians and students looking for innovative ways in which the problem-solving model has been applied. Broken into three sections that deal with applying problem-oriented policing to current issues, police strategies and organizational tactics, each case study offers a successful approach law enforcement departments have used to address seemingly intractable problems within their communities. Reviewed and edited by problem-solving experts, Solving Crime and Disorder Problems is appropriate for police professionals interested in community problem solving and for classroom, promotion exam and training uses. This publication was supported in part by a grant from Global Software Inc.

This report describes a study of the activities patrol officers and detectives perform to investigate burglary and robbery, and explains how police can improve investigations of these crimes. A detailed list of policy recommendations for the investigation process, based on this and other studies, is provided in the report. These recommendations include specific techniques police should use and suggested ways for police to manage investigative case flows, supervise investigative units and measure performance.

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Police fatigue is a common and potentially lethal problem that largely has been ignored until now. In Tired Cops, Bryan Vila, Ph.D., a prominent police researcher with 17 years of law enforcement experience, reports important findings from his NIJ-sponsored research with PERF on police fatigue. Vila explores potential links between fatigue and officer accidents, injuries, illnesses and misconduct. The PERF publication, supported by the National Sleep Foundation, also provides police executives with the background they need to start managing fatigue, and gives officers and their families insight into this long overlooked occupational hazard. This book is recommended for agencies reviewing their shift work, overtime and other problems exacerbated by the events of September 11, 2001.

Frustrated by gun violence, communities nationwide have turned to gun buybacks, exchanges and amnesty programs to address gun-related crime. But are these programs effective? What outcomes should be measured to determine their success? How do they fit into the larger issue of violence prevention? Under Fire brings together the views of researchers, community organizers, police practitioners, and public health professionals to assess how gun buybacks, exchanges and amnesty programs are promoted, implemented, evaluated, and perceived.