Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives

Over the last forty years, policing has gone through a period of significant change and innovation. The emergence of new strategies has also raised issues about effectiveness and efficiency in policing, and many of these proactive strategies have become controversial as citizens have asked whether they are also fair and unbiased. Updated and expanded for the second edition, this volume brings together leading police scholars to examine these key innovations in policing. Including advocates and critics of each innovation, this comprehensive book assesses the impacts of police innovation on crime and public safety, the extent of implementation of these new approaches in police agencies, the dilemmas these approaches have created for police management, and their impacts on communities.

David Weisburd is Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University, Virginia and Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has received many international awards recognizing his work on policing and criminology more generally, including the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, the Edwin Sutherland and August Vollmer Awards from the American Society of Criminology, and the Israel Prize. Professor Weisburd served as Chair of the National Academies of Sciences Committee on Proactive Policing.

Anthony A. Braga is a Distinguished Professor in and Director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, Boston. Between 2007 and 2013, Braga served as the Chief Policy Advisor to Commissioner Edward F. Davis of the Boston Police Department. His work with the Boston Police Department was recognized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police with its Excellence in Law Enforcement Research Award (2011).