1829:

Robert Peel’s Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 is enacted by UK Parliament; he becomes well known for his view that “the police are the public, and the public are the police.”

1840s to 1930s:

U.S. policing is in its political era.

1844:

Full-time, preventive police force is initiated in the United States in New York City.

1905:

August Vollmer is elected town marshal in Berkeley, California; as part of many “firsts,” he soon began arguing that policing is multifaceted and should be viewed from multiple social science and medical perspectives.

1919:

August Vollmer’s article, “The Policeman as Social Worker” (Proceedings, 26th Convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, pp. 32–38), encourages police to develop programs to attack youth crime at its roots.

1930s to 1980s:

U.S. policing is in its reform era.

1931:

The Wickersham Commission issues 14 reports, including many recommendations that address police and politics, officers’ standards and salaries, and use of women in policing.

1955:

National Institute on Police and Community Relations (NIPCR) is founded at Michigan State University.

1965:

St. Louis (Missouri) Police Department initiates the first computer-aided dispatch (CAD), which enhances its communications operation and improves patrol deployment.

1967:

National Center on Police and Community Relations at Michigan State University begins to conduct national surveys on police-community relations.

1970s:

San Diego (California) police, as part of several research projects in the department, conduct the first empirical study of community policing.

Early 1970s:

Police patrol is redesigned based on motivators, leading to team policing, which was adopted by many agencies as a means of focusing on addressing community concerns and increasing police effectiveness by permanently assigning a group of police officers to a particular small geographic area or neighborhood; the team of officers was responsible for providing patrol and investigative services as well as developing appropriate police strategies and programs for that neighborhood.

1972:

National Neighborhood Watch Program is founded within the National Sheriffs’ Association.

1973:

Oscar Newman coins the term defensible space.

1973:

Team policing is examined in seven U.S. cities by Sherman, Milton, and Kelly in Team policing: Seven case studies.

1974:

George Kelling and colleagues Pate, Dieckman, and Brown report their findings of the Kansas City preventive patrol experiment in The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment: A summary report.

1975:

RAND Corporation publishes The criminal investigation process, Volume I: Summary and policy implications, a report by Greenwood and Petersilia examining the role of detectives, concluding that the single most important factor in solving a case was contained in information supplied by the victim to the initial, responding patrol officer.

1977:

Split-force patrol experiment is conducted in Wilmington, Delaware.

1977:

C. Ray Jeffery refines and expands the crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) theory.

1978:

Police Foundation begins evaluating foot patrol in 28 New Jersey cities, with Newark as the primary evaluation site.

[Page xvi]1979:

Twelve police chiefs meet at a three-day seminar in Madison, Wisconsin, to explore the problem-oriented policing concept; emphasis is placed on examining policing’s “means over ends” syndrome and to become more concerned with the “end product” of their efforts; the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) subsequently includes further development of the concept in its research program.

1979:

Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson espouse their routine activities theory (which seeks to explain how physical and social environments create crime opportunities by the intersection of a “likely” offender, a “suitable” target, and the absence of a “capable guardian” against crime, such as a police officer or security guard) and the problem analysis triangle (which postulates that in order for a crime to occur, three elements, which form the crime triangle, are required: an offender, a victim/target, and a location).

1979:

Herman Goldstein publishes “Improving Policing: A Problem-Oriented Approach” in Crime & Delinquency, advocating for problem-oriented policing: that police proactively identify and address root causes of problems.

1980s to present:

Policing in the United States is in the community era.

1980:

Situational crime prevention theory is espoused by Ronald V. Clarke in the British Journal of Criminology article, “Situational Crime Prevention: Theory and Practice.”

1980s:

Fear reduction studies in Houston, Texas; Newark, New Jersey; and elsewhere provide empirical data on the effectiveness of key community policing tactics.

1980:

Response time analysis is conducted in the Kansas City (Missouri) Police Department.

1981:

Analysis of Newark (New Jersey) Foot Patrol Experiment suggests several positive outcomes if police spend more time on foot in their neighborhoods.

1982:

National Neighborhood Foot Patrol Center is established at Michigan State University.

1982:

National Crime Prevention Council is founded.

1982:

Research is conducted on experimental foot patrols in Flint, Michigan.

1982:

Robert Trojanowicz conducts an evaluation of the Neighborhood Foot Patrol Program in Flint, Michigan, finding that it was a distinct success: crime and calls for service were down in the 14 experimental areas; with certain functions, foot patrol officers were more efficient than were motorized officers; and residents of the experimental foot patrol areas reported feeling safer in their neighborhoods.

1982:

James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling coauthor “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety” in the March issue of Atlantic Monthly.

1983:

The first Executive Session on Policing is convened, cosponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, to consider policy recommendations for policing.

1983:

The National Center for Community Policing is founded at Michigan State University.

1984:

New York City Police Department launches its Community Patrol Officer Program (CPOP) to identify neighborhood problems and develop strategies.

1984:

Evaluation of the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment is conducted by Sherman and Berk in “The Specific Deterrent Effects of Arrest for Domestic Assault” in the American Sociological Review; they conclude that batterers who are arrested are less likely to re-batter than those batterers who are not arrested.

1987:

Newport News (Virginia) study finds problem-oriented policing to be an effective approach to addressing many community problems; officers and researchers develop the SARA (scanning, analysis, response, assessment) problem-solving model.

1987:

Evaluation commences of the Madison (Wisconsin) Police Department’s new organizational design (both structural and managerial), intended to support community-oriented and problem-oriented policing in an Experimental Police District.

1988:

George L. Kelling publishes “Police and Communities: The Quiet Revolution” in Perspectives on Policing, No. 1; he and Mark H. Moore also publish “The Evolving Strategy of Policing” in Perspectives on Policing, No. 4.

[Page xvii]1988:

Houston (Texas) Police Chief Lee P. Brown describes the development of Neighborhood Oriented Policing in the Houston Police Department; he later authors a “practical guide” for adopting community policing.

1989:

Sherman, Buerger, and Gartin examine the Minneapolis’ Repeat Call Address Policing (RECAP) program, indicating that police could identify the “hot spots” of repeat calls in a community and thereby devise strategies to reduce the number of calls for service.

1990s:

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) is developed as a strategy in Great Britain, where crime levels had risen sharply.

1990:

San Diego, California, is selected to host the first national conference on problem-oriented policing.

1990:

Herman Goldstein’s Problem-Oriented Policing is published by McGraw-Hill and Temple University Press.

1990:

Robert Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqueroux’s Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective is published by Anderson Publishing Company.

1991:

The U.S. Department of Justice launches Operation Weed and Seed, a key strategy of their antiviolence, antigang, and antidrug community revitalization programs with primary focus on high-crime neighborhoods; enforcement is used first to “weed” out crime, violence, and gangs and to stabilize the conditions in high-crime communities; then resources are identified and mobilized to “seed” the revitalization of the communities.

1993:

Community Policing Consortium is founded, composed of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the Police Foundation.

1993:

The Herman Goldstein Award is first offered, recognizing innovative and effective problem-solving efforts by police officers and agencies in the United States and abroad.

1993:

Studies of repeat victimization and its implications for crime prevention are initiated in London (UK) by Graham Farrell and Ken Pease.

1993:

“Tipping point” studies of neighborhood thresholds of crime (first noted in a paper by Thomas Shelling in 1971) begin to appear.

1994:

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, authorizing $8.8 billion in expenditures over six years, is enacted.

1994:

The federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) is created to distribute and monitor funds under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and provide numerous other functions related to and in support of community policing.

1994:

Three-year Community Policing Demonstration Program is launched in 16 cities to design, demonstrate, and assess a comprehensive, departmentwide community policing prototype.

1994:

CompStat (comparative statistics or computer statistics), a crime management process used in the problem-solving process, is introduced by the New York City Police Department.

1994:

Bureau of Justice Assistance publishes Understanding Community Policing: A Framework for Action.

1995:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services funds 25,000 more officers; Lawrence Sherman authors “Hot Spots of Crime and Criminal Careers of Places” in Crime Prevention Studies.

1996:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services has funded more than 52,000 community policing officers and announces antigang, domestic violence, and problem-solving partnership initiatives.

1997:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services establishes a nationwide network of Regional Community Policing Institutes (RCPIs).

1997:

National Institute of Justice establishes the Crime Mapping Research Center (CMRC).

1997:

Systematic review of more than 500 crime prevention practices is prepared for Congress by Lawrence Sherman and colleagues, concerning which prevention programs work, do not work, are promising, and have not been tested adequately.

1998:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services announces that 75,000 new community policing officers had been funded nationwide; its monograph, Problem Solving Tips: A Guide to Reducing Crime and Disorder Through Problem-Solving Partnerships, is published.

[Page xviii]1999:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services launches its Problem-Oriented Guides series, to summarize knowledge about how police can analyze and respond to specific crime and disorder problems.

1999:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services funds its 100,000th community policing officer.

1999:

National evaluation of eight Operation Weed and Seed sites is performed, concerning their implementation and measurable outcomes related to crime and public safety. Although the results were not highly significant statistically, they were consistently favorable: seeding programs provided services that would not have been available without the program, additional structure and discipline were provided to young people in the area, six of the sites showed declines in Part I crimes (homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft).

2000:

National evaluation of the problem-solving partnerships grant program is launched, wherein the federal COPS Office awarded grants to 468 police agencies to help solve crime and disorder problems, form community partnerships, and engage in problem-solving activities.

2000:

Willard M. Oliver publishes his descriptions of three generations of community policing: (1) innovation (1979–1986); (2) diffusion (1987–1994); and (3) institutionalization, (1995 to the present).

2000:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services launches its Police as Problem-Solvers and Peacemakers program, awarding $1 million to five law enforcement agencies.

2001:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services launches two series of publications, COPS Innovations and Problem-Oriented Policing Guides; by 2011 more than 60 problem-solving guides had been published.

2001:

The first Problem-Oriented Guide, authored by Michael S. Scott, was published, entitled Assaults in and Around Bars

2002:

Center for Problem-Oriented Policing is created.

2002:

The Crime Mapping Research Center evolves into the Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety (MAPS) program.

2003:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is formed, immediately hiring 80,000 new federal employees and committing $32 billion in 2003 toward safeguarding the nation.

2003:

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services awards $23 million in grants to support the network of 31 RCPIs and the Community Policing Consortium (CPC); it also launches the Homeland Security Overtime Program (HSOP).

2006:

An evaluation of gang hot spots policing in Chicago, Illinois, is funded by NIJ, to determine whether new policing strategies contributed to significant decreases in crime in the 2000s.

2007:

Police use global positioning for monitoring police vehicle location across real time/space, for CompStat and other directed patrol strategies (e.g., hot spots policing).

2008:

The second Executive Session is convened, cosponsored by NIJ and the Kennedy School of Government, on Policing and Public Safety.

2010:

Predictive-policing conferences and articles emerge; predictive policing is a crime analysis tool using various analyses, technologies, and ILP for crime prevention strategies and tactics.

2012:

In August, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services announces that it will not continue funding the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.