Smart Policing Initiative: Institutionalizing and Sustaining an Evidence-Based Approach in the Suffolk County Police Department

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

This panel showcases a BJA Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) involving a collaboration between the Suffolk County (NY) Police Department and George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (PIs: Cynthia Lum and Christopher Koper). The overarching goal of this SPI has been to institutionalize and sustain proactive, problem-solving, and evidence-based approaches into the daily routines of patrol deployment. Rather than focus on a specific problem-solving project, this SPI is attempting agency-wide transformation of evidence-based practices across the various deployment, information-technology, analytic, supervisory, and managerial systems in the police agency. Although the initiative is still active, this panel shares what has been accomplished thus far and the challenges in translating, building receptivity, and institutionalizing the evidence base for policing into everyday patrol deployment.

Sub Unit

• Area VI. The Criminal Justice System / 41. Police Strategies, Interventions, and Evaluations

Individual Presentations

• Institutionalizing and Sustaining an Evidence-Based Approach in the Suffolk County Police Department - Cynthia Lum, George Mason University; Christopher Koper, George Mason University

• Assessing Receptivity and Proactive Tendencies in an Agency Seeking to be More Evidence-Based - Kevin Petersen, University of North Carolina, Charlotte; Cynthia Lum, George Mason University; Christopher Koper, George Mason University

• Prospects and Challenges in Institutionalizing “Case of Places” and the Evidence-Based Policing Playbook into Everyday Police Deployments - Christopher Koper, George Mason University; Cynthia Lum, George Mason University; Kevin Petersen, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Chair

• Thomas Woodmansee, CNA Corporation

Organized by a Division or external group?

Division of Policing