The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers encompass arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. Police forces are often defined as being separate from the military and other organizations involved in the defense of the state against foreign aggressors; however, gendarmerie are military units charged with civil policing. Police forces are usually public sector services, funded through taxes.
In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes, such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking and fare evasion, help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness.
The Kansas City preventive patrol experiment was a landmark experiment carried out between 1972 and 1973 by the Kansas City Police Department of Kansas City, Missouri and the Police Foundation, an independent nonprofit research organization today known as the National Policing Institute. It was designed to test the assumption that the presence of police officers in marked cars reduced the likelihood of a crime being committed. It was the first study to demonstrate that research into the effectiveness of different policing styles could be carried out responsibly and safely.
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has published eight books. He is also the host of the podcast Revisionist History and co-founder of the podcast company Pushkin Industries.
A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as law enforcement officers, military personnel, or security personnel, that are assigned to monitor or secure a specific geographic area.
Crime in the Northern Territory is managed by the Northern Territory Police, the territory government's Department of the Attorney-General and Justice and Territory Families.
The Michigan State Police (MSP) is the state police agency for the U.S. state of Michigan. The MSP is a full-service law enforcement agency, with its sworn members having full police powers statewide.
The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment (MDVE) evaluated the effectiveness of various police responses to domestic violence calls in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This experiment was implemented during 1981-82 by Lawrence W. Sherman, Director of Research at the Police Foundation, and by the Minneapolis Police Department with funding support from the National Institute of Justice. Among a pool of domestic violence offenders for whom there was probable cause to make an arrest, the study design called for officers to randomly select one third of the offenders for arrest, one third would be counseled and one third would be separated from their domestic partner.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference is the debut book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little, Brown in 2000. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." The book seeks to explain and describe the "mysterious" sociological changes that mark everyday life. As Gladwell states: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do." The examples of such changes in his book include the rise in popularity and sales of Hush Puppies shoes in the mid-1990s and the steep drop in New York City's crime rate after 1990.
Established in April 1857, the Newark Police Department (NPD) is the primary law enforcement agency serving Newark, New Jersey and the largest municipal law enforcement agency in New Jersey. As of December 2017 the force had 1,146 officers.
Lawrence W. Sherman is an experimental criminologist and police educator who defined evidence-based policing. Since October 2024 he has served as Chief Executive Officer of Benchmark Cambridge, a global police reform organisation. From 2022-24 he was Chief Scientific Officer of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, and since 2017 he has served as the Wolfson Professor of Criminology Emeritus at the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology.
The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) was set up on the 28 August 1970 to further the objectives of the Government of India regarding the modernisation of police forces. It has since evolved into a multifaceted consultancy organisation. At present it has 4 divisions – Research, Development, Training and Correctional Administration.
Market reduction approach (MRA) is an approach to reducing crime by reducing the opportunity for thieves to fence or resell what they have stolen.
In police terminology, a beat is the territory that a police officer is assigned to patrol. Beats are used to effectively divide available officers across a law enforcement agency's jurisdiction, ensuring organized police presence across a wide area.
Community policing is a philosophy and organizational strategy whereby law enforcement cooperates with community groups and citizens in producing safety and security. The theory underlying community policing is that it makes citizens more likely to cooperate with police by changing public perceptions of both the intention and capacity of the police. The theory is also that it changes attitudes of police officers and increases accountability.
The Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on Law Enforcement is a Ukrainian human rights organization that oversees nationwide monitoring of Ukrainian law enforcement conduct, utilizing its resources to ensure the active preservation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Central European country.
Patrick Vincent Murphy served as the top law enforcement executive in New York City, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Syracuse, New York. He created the Police Executive Research Forum, an organization of police executives from the nation's largest city, county, and state law enforcement agencies, and led the Police Foundation in a period when it published pivotal reports on issues ranging from the police use of deadly force to the efficient use of patrol resources. Murphy's "long-range impact on American policing nationally probably will be judged by students of police history as significant as that of August Vollmer or J. Edgar Hoover," the FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin commented in a 1986 cover story on the Police Foundation.
Evidence-based policing (EBP) is an approach to policy making and tactical decision-making for police departments. It has its roots in the larger movement towards evidence-based practices.
The Kerala Police is the law enforcement agency for the Indian state of Kerala. Kerala Police has its headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital. The motto of the force is "Mridhu Bhave Dhrida Kruthye" which means "Soft in Temperament, Firm in Action" in Sanskrit. It operates under the Department of Home, Government of Kerala. The force is headed by the State Police Chief, and the incumbent chief is Shaikh Darvesh Sahib, IPS.
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know is a nonfiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on September 10, 2019. The audiobook version of the book follows Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast-style structure, using Gladwell's narration, interviews, sound bites, and the theme song "Hell You Talmbout".
