Proactive policing

According to a 2017 report by the National Academy of Sciences, there is "evidence that a number of proactive policing practices are successful in reducing crime and disorder, at least in the short term, and that most of these strategies do not harm communities' attitudes toward police. However, the effects of proactive policing on other important outcomes—such as on the legality of police behavior and on racially biased behavior—are unclear because of gaps in research... Moreover, evidence on many proactive strategies is limited to near-term, localized impacts. Little is known about the strategies' long-term effects on crime or other outcomes, and about whether and to what extent they will offer crime control benefits at a larger jurisdictional level—for example, across an entire precinct or city."

A separate report, also from 2017, found that during a period when the New York Police Department was intentionally not practicing proactive policing, major crime reports dropped.

History

Individual officers wield an enormous amount of discretion in enforcing the law (especially non-dispatched runs like traffic enforcement or street crime). What is surprising is the public belief that police are usually eager and motivated to do their job. Thus, when a particular crime problem becomes apparent, it is often approached by monetarily related arguments, such as the need for more police, equipment, training etc.; rather than by non-monetary related approaches, such as recognizing how a high perception of alienation among police officers from the civilians of the community where they patrol reduces morale and spawns police indifference, inactivity, and apathy. The impact of alienation is especially relevant as the contemporary community policing movement emphasizes proactive law enforcement strategies. Effective community policing requires that police officers work closely with local civilians in designing and implementing a variety of proactive crime prevention and control measures. To accomplish these initiatives, it is crucial that officers feel closely integrated with the majority of civilians in the community they serve. Typically, this means that officers perceive themselves as sharing important community values and beliefs and being confident of community support in the decisions they make.

As the perception of community alienation increases among police officers, their sense of confidence or mastery in decision making will decrease, and so too their motivation for proactive enforcement. The impact of highly publicized "pro-police" verdicts of brutality incidents (i.e., Rodney King, Los Angeles 1991; Malice Green, Detroit 1992; O.J. Simpson, Los Angeles 1994; Michael Brown, Ferguson 2014; Eric Garner, New York 2014; and Freddie Gray, Baltimore 2015) are related to the level of perceived alienation experienced by police and thus their willingness to respond proactively to serious crime. FBI Director James Comey and DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg suggested the "Ferguson effect" as the cause to recent spikes in crime in several large cities, especially Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. Essentially a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists, alienation is a condition in social relationships reflected by a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance or isolation between individuals, or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment. Alienation is closely aligned with the concept of mastery. Mastery is typically defined as a state of mind in which an individual feels autonomous and experiences confidence in his or her ability, skill, and knowledge to control or influence external events. The greater the level of alienation an individual experiences in a community or work setting, the weaker will be their sense of mastery.

For police officers, a strong sense of mastery is particularly vital in relation to proactive law enforcement. Proactive enforcement is usually defined as the predisposition of a police officer to be actively involved in preventing and investigating crime. Because police patrol work is highly unsupervised, most officers have considerable discretion or personal initiative regarding their level of proactive behavior on the streets. Again, it would seem logical that the stronger the level of perceived community alienation among police officers, the weaker will be their sense of mastery and motivation to engage in proactive law enforcement behavior.