The Character of Harms: Operational Challenges in Control

How should we deal with societal ills such as crime, poverty, pollution, terrorism, and corruption? A Harvard professor and former Detective Chief Inspector of the British Police, Malcolm Sparrow argues that control or mitigation of these and other "bad" things involves distinctive patterns of thought and action which turn out to be broadly applicable across a range of human endeavors, and which need to be better understood. In this provocative new book, he demonstrates that an explicit focus on the bads, rather than on the countervailing goods (safety, prosperity, environmental stewardship, etc.) can provide rich opportunities for surgically efficient and effective interventions - an approach which he terms "the sabotage of harms." Drawing from Sparrow's rich background and unique experiences in law enforcement, this book makes a powerful case for this new approach to tackling the complex problems facing society.

Malcolm K. Sparrow is Professor of the Practice of Public Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is Faculty Chair of the Master of Public Policy Program, and of Executive Programs on regulatory and enforcement strategy, corruption control, and counter-terrorism. A mathematician by training, he joined the British Police Service in 1977, serving for ten years and rising to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector. He left the police to take up a faculty appointment at Harvard in 1988.