Book Description

This guidebook presents a new and comprehensive organizational model for the institutionalization of effective crime reduction strategies into police agencies, called the Stratified Model of Problem Solving, Analysis, and Accountability (i.e., "Stratified Model"), along with the specific mechanisms, practices, and products necessary to carry out the approach in any police agency, no matter the size or the crime and disorder levels. Consequently, the purpose of the guidebook is to present the Stratified Model in a succinct and practical way in order to provide direction for institutionalizing effective crime reduction strategies and accountability. The goal is to discuss the applicability of the problem solving process and accountability procedures as well as present relevant analytical products that can immediately be used to systematically implement crime reduction strategies. Although any police leader will find this guide informative, it is mainly written for police managers and commanders who are seeking to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of their agency's crime reduction efforts. It will also be most useful to those with an understanding of basic organizational change and leadership principles and methods. This guidebook is not a primer to police leadership nor does it provide instruction on how to enact organizational change in a police agency. It simply presents an effective model that can be used as a template for systematizing crime reduction strategies, analysis products, and accountability processes. A model based on the assumptions that problem solving is an effective process for addressing simple and complex problems, that crime reduction strategies can and should be guided by analysis, and that an accountability structure is imperative for enacting and sustaining change in a police agency. The guidebook first presents the foundations and elements of the Stratified Model, then provides guidelines for implementing crime reduction strategies at different levels and evaluation of these efforts, as well as an organizational structure of accountability. Although the objective is to implement all aspects of the Stratified Model, an agency may choose to implement parts of the model as appropriate or to implement the model in phases. As a result, the guidebook provides a separate discussion of how problem solving, analysis, and accountability occur at each level of crime reduction-immediate, short-term, and long-term-that is followed by a discussion of evaluation and an organizational structure of accountability that would be used if all levels of crime reduction are implemented simultaneously. At the end of the guide, the information is synthesized into a table illustrating a framework that can be easily adapted for agencies that seek to tailor the model and implement it into their own organizational structure.