Problem-Oriented Policing, Goldstein’s Development of

When Herman Goldstein, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), was designing new methods of thought processes for the criminal law course curriculum to challenge his students, he came to understand the broader application this approach could have for policing. With regard to this method of thinking in the criminal law class, Goldstein noted that the police had a generic response to everything they did: Enforce the law. This was without regard to its appropriateness or effectiveness and frequently resulted in their overuse of the authority to search and to arrest when some other less intrusive action could be more effective for dealing with the problem.

This realization led to Goldstein’s 1979 seminal work, “ Improving Policing: A Problem-Oriented Approach. ” This method of ...