U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

THINKING ABOUT POLICE RESOURCES

NCJ Number
144643
Editor(s)
A N Doob
Date Published
1993
Length
125 pages
Annotation
This publication contains three essays presented at a two-day workshop held at the University of Toronto in October 1992, and an overview of that workshop.
Abstract
The first essay is a call for rational use of police resources. Its author recommends that resources should be allocated to police, according to the objectives the communities want served, and not, as it is, to maintain a certain number of officers. He adds that because scale is not a critical determinant of police effectiveness, there is no preferred size for police organizations. The second essay is based on a thesis that the government and management of police resources in Canada is often irrational, uninformed, and profoundly political. Its author urges radical change and projects the inadequacy of conventional thinking on the part of politicians, police managers, and unions alike. The third essay is presented by an assistant director of the Police Foundation in London, England. She says there are three preconditions for sensible police resource deployment: knowledge of how resources are currently deployed, some degree of definition of police priorities, and performance incentives with independent performance monitoring. References, list of participants