Community Oriented Policing

Until 1993, when the Community Oriented Policing philosophy was adopted by the Addison Police Department, the approach to police service in the Village of Addison had traditionally been incident driven. Most of the Department's activities were aimed at resolving individual incidents rather than groups of incidents or problems. Problem Oriented Policing (POP) is an alternative to incident driven policing. The theory behind POP deals with the underlying conditions that create problems. Reacting to calls for service is only one step toward a solution. Officers must go further and attempt to find a permanent resolution of the problem that created the call.

The Addison Police Department will always handle calls for service, and we will do much more. Officers will use the information gathered in their response to incidents, together with information obtained from other sources, to get a clearer picture of the problem. The underlying conditions will then be addressed. If the officer is successful in improving these conditions, fewer incidents may occur, or those that do occur may be less serious. The incidents may even cease. At the very least, information about the problem can help to design more effective ways of responding to each incident.

Problem Oriented Policing is a viable form of policing that will become more prevalent in the future. POP will have a major impact on the safety of the Village. When the community is made safer, it not only affects the citizens who live there, but also provides a safer environment for Addison Police Department personnel who work in the neighborhoods.

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PROBLEM ORIENTED POLICING - DEFINED
(Herman Goldstein - 2001)

Problem-oriented policing is an approach to policing in which discrete pieces of police business (each consisting of a cluster of similar incidents, whether crime or acts of disorder, that the police are expected to handle) are subject to microscopic examination (drawing on the especially honed skills of crime analysts and the accumulated experience of operating field personnel) in hopes that what is freshly learned about each problem will lead to discovering a new and more effective strategy for dealing with it. Problem-oriented policing places a high value on new responses that are preventive in nature, that are not dependent on the use of the criminal justice system, and that engage other public agencies, the community and the private sector when their involvement has the potential for significantly contributing to the reduction of the problem.Problem-oriented policing carries a commitment to implementing the new strategy, rigorously evaluating its effectiveness, and, subsequently, reporting the results in ways that will benefit other police agencies and that will ultimately contribute to building a body of knowledge that supports the further professionalization of the police.
Herman Goldstein (2001)