Community Policing and Problem Solving: Strategies and Practices

This book is about policing at its most important and challenging levels–in neighborhoods and in communities across the nation and abroad. Unique in perspective, its focus is on community policing and problem solving–and the processes that are being implemented under COPPS to control and prevent crime, disorder and fear. Extremely applied, this book focuses on daily processes and tactics and how and why agencies are revolutionizing their traditional philosophy and operations. This fifth edition provides updated information on crime in the United States, more emphasis on terrorism and homeland defense, and a new chapter on information technology.

Authoritative and practical perspectivecombines the classroom expertise of a seasoned criminal justice educator with the practical experience of an executive–level police administrator. Community-oriented policing and problem solving (COPPS) focus provides a comprehensive view of how agencies are changing their management style, organizational structures, and operational strategies to attack crime, disorder and fear. Includes topics such as computer-aided dispatch, mobile computing, records management, geomapping, CompStat, global positioning systems, use of the Internet, and surveys.

Police practictioners with a fundamental knowledge of police history or operations or those working in a government agency outside policing and are interested in learning about community policing and problem solving.

Combining both community-policing and problem-oriented policing concepts, this book explains the processes and terms, what they mean and how they are applied, as well as how they are implemented and evaluated. The book exposes readers to such timely and important topics as re-engineering public service, police-minority relations, and more.

This textbook on community oriented policing and problem solving (COPPS), an initiative designed to enhance neighborhood safety, includes a large section on practical applications. Designed for undergraduate and graduate students in criminal justice, the text is clearly organized and contains many case studies that illustrate the principles described. The initial chapters give a history of policing, the changing nature of criminality in the US, the development of a more community-oriented government and police, and the development of the COPPS program. Peak teaches at the U. of Nevada in Reno where Glensor is a member of the police department.

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Ken Peak is a full professor and former chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Reno, where he has been named "Teacher of the Year" by the university's Honor Society. He served as chairman of the Police Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences from 1997 to 1999 and has served as president of the Western and Pacific Association of Criminal Justice Educators. He entered municipal policing in Kansas in 1970 and subsequently held positions as a nine-county criminal justice planner for southeast Kansas, director of a four-state Technical Assistance Institute for LEAH, director of university police at Pittsburg State University, and assistant professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University. His earlier books include Policing America: Methods, Issues, Challenges (4th ed.), Policing Communities: Understanding Crime and Solving Problems–An Anthology (with R. Glensor and M. Correia), Community Policing and Problem Solving: Strategies and Practices (3d ed., with Ronald W. Glensor), Police Supervision (with Ronald W. Glensor and L. K. Gaines), Kansas Temperance: Much Ado About Booze, 1870-1920 (Sunflower University Press), and Kansas Bootleggers (with P. G. O'Brien, Sunflower University Press). He also has published more than 50 journal articles and additional book chapters. His teaching interests include policing, administration, victimology, and comparative justice systems. He holds a doctorate from the University of Kansas.