Much research has focused on experimentation with tactical programs such as surveillance and sting operations, whereas far less attention has focused on the overall strategies under which those tactics are used. The first strategic research focused on the preventive patrol experiment in Kansas City. The results and conclusions from the research were both dramatic and controversial. The research findings led many scholars and practitioners to conclude that the traditional, undirected, response-oriented strategies of policing were ineffective. These findings led to the creation and evaluation of other approaches. These include the split-force concept of police patrol in Wilmington, Del.; neighborhood team policing; problem-oriented policing in Baltimore County (Md.) and Newport News (Va.); the policing of crime hot spots in Minneapolis; and community policing. The research over the past 30 years has increased knowledge of policing and what does and does not work. Explorations and assessments of further new approaches should continually emphasize the distinction between strategies and the tactics they produce and recognize that the failure of an individual tactic does not necessarily mean the failure of the strategy that produced it. Researchers and practitioners must also remain aware that much conventional wisdom may be incorrect. 25 references