Understand GPD

Amber alerts and other missing persons alerts are police-initiated actions (generally, communications) that engage the public (or other agencies) to garner extended support in looking for missing persons.

Arrest is used as an independent variable in the study, and no further information or specification is given about the type or nature of arrest to sufficiently categorise it elsewhere.

Arrest is used as an independent variable, with specifications around the context, purpose (i.e. crime targeted) and/or type of arrests conducted.

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) or body-worn videos are recording devices worn by police to capture events and interactions from the police’s viewpoint. They are deployed in a variety of ways (e.g., automatically and manually) and use can be mandated or encouraged by a range of stakeholders (e.g., policy, government, within-agency, other municipal groups).

An approach that prioritises the maintenance of neighbourhood order, and environmental factors, to reduce the potential for the environment to reflect a low standard of societal cohesion (as it is theorised that this encourages criminal activity).

Police strategies to divert (potential) offenders from arrest, court, prison, offending, and recidivism.

Communication systems and channels used by police in the course of their regular work. Refers to systems used for communication between police and other professionals, not police-to-public. Includes police radio systems, interagency communications, triage protocols, etc. – e.g., TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio Telecommunication systems). Does not include police-to-public communication (i.e. social media) or pedagogical approaches (e.g., the way training materials are ‘communicated’).

Includes police interactions and/or collaboration with community groups and subgroups, supporting civilian involvement in the regulation and enhancement of local areas.

Policing strategies that prioritise police-community engagement and partnership, for collaborative solutions to problems.

Short for ‘Computer Statistics’, CompStat “is a performance management system” that uses jurisdiction-specific crime mapping to monitor police performance and delegate their efforts.

Technologies and software used to analyse the location and characteristics of crime events to make predictions about the spatial nature of crimes and guide the development of targeted enforcement/intervention efforts.

Police collection of data, which may be for research or intervention purposes – e.g., a study comparing the outcomes for police agencies that surveyed the public to gather community-specific data before implementing an intervention, and agencies that did not.

Management of, and preparation for, public disasters and emergencies. Includes police activities in response to large-scale disasters, such as flooding, fires, terrorist events, etc. Could include resource distribution, inter-agency collaborations, police management of the public, etc.

Collection and presentation of facts, information, and objects related to criminal investigations. Could include physical (e.g., forensic) evidence and testimonial evidence (e.g., witness reports, suspect interviews, etc.). Opposed to forensic techniques, although more specifically relates to the methods of collection and presentation used by police, rather than evidence analysis or evaluative techniques. May include (but not limited to): Camera perspective when videoing interviews for use in court, providing videoed or written transcripts of interviews.

A preventative policing strategy that focuses on protective factors in reducing the likelihood of offending for high-risk groups.

Officers doing rounds of their beat, or a specified jurisdiction, on foot. Can be indoors or outdoors.

Scientific examination of evidence related to crimes, for investigative purposes. Encompasses a number of tools, technologies, and approaches. For example, fingerprint detection accuracy, forensic DNA testing examples, etc. May overlap with ‘Evidence collection and presentation’ in some studies, although applies specifically to the analysis of forensic (physical) evidence, and may exclusively apply to some studies comparing technologies or techniques.

Police proactively focus resources on geographic locations that have been identified as high-crime areas (i.e., hot spots).

A proactive policing approach that centres the use of data and intelligence in strategic decision making, and sometimes the development of specialised tactical units or teams, for more targeted and efficient crime control.

A formal or informal interview conducted by police, for the purpose of eliciting and gathering information from an individual. Does not include studies where the interview has been used solely as a research methodology for data collection, as opposed to a component of the actual policing intervention.

These include features of interview rooms, separation of interviewees prior to interview, etc.

A type of eyewitness identification, wherein a suspect and ‘fillers’ (non-suspects) stand before a witness. The witness is asked to nominate the culprit, if they believe they are present in the line-up.

Organised groups of civilians coordinate to monitor their local areas for crime and vandalism, in cooperation with police.

Analysis of criminal offender characteristics and case information, to identify patterns and commonalities. For example, use of assessment tools often used to predict and prevent crime patterns.

The management of minor offences and neighbourhood disorder, in line with broken windows theory, to reduce community level crime.

Animals that are employed to assist police in their duties and law-enforcement activities. This could include (but is not limited to) police dogs (K-9) and horses. Police animals may be the participant of the study (if so, they are treated the same as human police participants).

Could include police uniforms, comparisons with plain-clothed police, or police protective wear.

Activities targeting police physical and psychological wellbeing.

Elements of police employees’ job tasks, organisation, and requirements. Includes rostering and shift length.

Police roles and competencies relating to the internal management and leadership of other police within a policing organisation.

Practices, processes and features of recruitment, selection and employment of police employees – e.g., education level of police, varied recruitment strategies, onboarding trainings, etc.

Interventions relating to the vehicles and transportation used by police in conducting their duties and frontline service delivery.

Activities relating to police access to, training in, and use of weapons for enforcement – e.g., guns, tasers, capsicum spray, etc.

Police use of public-facing platforms to communicate with citizens. Includes police websites and social media.

The strategic analysis of crime data sets to guide the deployment of police.

A proactive policing approach, in which police use analytic and experimental approaches to reduce negative outcomes by focusing on the contextual factors and antecedents that contribute to their repeated occurrence. POP entails the identification and analysis of a specific crime problem to develop a targeted response.

A method employed in interventions (usually named) which requires police-public interactions that are characterised by expressions of fairness and adherence to unbiased procedures.

Includes disorder, nuisance, protest, riots, and hooliganism.

Includes CCTV, Surveillance cameras, dash cams, and other surveillance technology.

Responses to individual mental health needs and events and emergencies, e.g., mental health co-responder interventions.

Police engage a range of “levers” to incentivise target groups (high-risk offenders) to refrain from crime, or disincentivise crime activities.

A specific technique in which victim reparations are centred in the management of crime events.

Includes Random Breath Testing (RBTs), speed limit enforcement, etc.

Police officers placed within schools to provide protection and enforcement.

Police searches of citizens’ person or property, which may result in the confiscation (‘seizure’) of illegal items.

For example, SWAT.

Can include drug market interventions, street-level drug law enforcement.

Police performing street-level stops of individuals, which may entail stopping, questioning and patting down (‘frisking’) citizens. Includes pedestrian stops, stop-and-frisk, and street-checks.

Police engage non-police partners to use their powers or legal levers to intervene in crime/disorder scenarios, vicariously reducing crime and disorder. Non-police partners may be regulators, businesses, schools, etc. An example is Operation Galley.

The intervention includes training of, or by, police.

Considers the method/approach of learning and development activities.

• Facial recognition technology
• Multi-Agency partnerships
• Police contact
• Police performance management, mentoring or appraisals
• Public awareness campaigns
• Warrants
• Wildlife (anti-poaching, conservation).

The GPD repository of eligible studies includes systematic reviews (with or without meta-analysis), randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and a wide range of quasi-experimental designs. We include cross-over designs, cost-benefit analyses, regression discontinuity designs, designs using multivariate controls (e.g., multiple regression), matched control group designs with or without pre-intervention baseline measures (propensity or statistically matched), unmatched control group designs with pre-post intervention measures which allow for difference-in-difference analysis, unmatched control group designs without pre-intervention measures where the control group has face validity, short interrupted time-series designs with control group (less than 25 pre- and 25 post-intervention observations), long interrupted time-series designs with or without a control group (≥25 pre- and post-intervention observations, raw unadjusted correlational designs where the variation in the level of the intervention is compared to the variation in the level of the outcome.

We recognize the important contributions of qualitative research providing insights into all aspects of police and policing. Yet qualitative research does not answer the question of how a police or policing intervention impacts a stated outcome. The focus of the GPD is to offer police policy makers and practitioners access to study information that answers the question of intervention impact.

A GPD eligible study must:

• be published after 1950, AND
• be about a policing intervention, AND
• report on a quantitative impact evaluation.