The Skills of Proactive Policing

• In Event: Police Decision-Making

Abstract

Research has suggested that the performance of proactive policing is a domain of practice in which officers’ performance varies. Proactive policing performed expertly may enable police to achieve its crime control benefits with a minimum of adverse community opinion. Insofar as the practices of the high-performers can be described and their expertise codified, their skills can be taught to other practitioners. We identified officers who displayed a high level of performance in proactive policing. Using ride-along observations as occasions for semi-structured interviews with officers, supplemented by brief interviews concerning individual events, we examined the practices of these officers, e.g., in detecting suspicious activity, forming reasonable suspicion, conducting street interrogations, gaining consent or probable cause to search.

Authors

• Sarah J McLean, The John F. Finn Institute

• Danielle L Reynolds, The John F. Finn Institute & the University at Albany

• Caitlin J Dole, The John F. Finn Institute

• Robert E Worden, University at Albany, SUNY