The traditional model of policing is reactive and incident driven. Problem-oriented policing (POP) attracted significant attention as a possible more effective approach to protecting individuals and communities by looking at the relationships between cases and incidents, and resolving the causes in a more comprehensive matter than just closing an isolated call (Spelman & Eck 1987).

Maguire, Uchida and Hassell’s (2015) “Problem-Oriented Policing in Colorado Springs a Content Analysis of 753 Cases” studied the implementation of POP at the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) which was well known as a leader in this field. They examined reports and summaries of 753 POP cases using content analysis. It was a surprise to researchers that POP continued to have barriers to full implementation as well as external influences on police reform that do not align.

CSPD operated using the traditional policing model. It was an insight in 1991 which changed the approach and philosophy (Maguire et. al. 2015). They discovered that preceding a fatal shooting at a bar there had been 90 separate calls to police. Other stakeholders such as state liquor licensing authorities were included in determining a comprehensive course of action to reduce the opportunity for violent disturbances using POP principles, and the results were dramatically positive. There was significant interest in this success, and the Chief and Deputy Chief described the experience in their book Total Problem-Oriented Policing. The intent was to integrate POP in the way that policing was conducted, rather than leaving it as a separate function. The study showed that there were “invisible boundaries” that prevented embracing the POP philosophy, and these included external partners that did not or could not fully participate, and sometimes partners that were needed were overlooked or unavailable.

Inconsistent record keeping and technical difficulties were an issue to implementing POP. One can assume that as the study was conducted on cases from over a decade ago, that databases and modern software technology can greatly assist in this area. Standardization in record keeping is necessary in order to find pattern with simple search words as well as to identify markers or triggers for follow up or review of POP factors. In the study, they could not even find all of the POP related files at CSPD in order for the researchers to review them.

Maguire and team’s article changed my outlook towards the concept of POP for a number of reasons. Before learning more about the criminal justice system and how police services operate most people generally believe that POP has always been standard police practice. Television and films present police services not as incident driven but rather as seeking patterns and solving crime on a comprehensive level. This is particularly reinforced by the idea of the “detective” in popular media. By contrast, each call or case is handled in a fairly individual manner, without accountability of the policing system to the greater issues or causes. Just as community policing has the potential to, through better relationships, prevents crime and increase engagement, POP has the capacity to prevent crime by dealing with causal factors in a proactive way.

In learning about POP it appealed to what seemed to be common sense; however the article by Maguire and colleagues changed my outlook on POP. It provided two major insights; how difficult and complex it was to put POP into practice, and the length of time in which the attempt had been made to create an easy to use model to reform the approach to policing.

POP is difficult and complex; as Maguire and colleagues (2015, 9) described, “POP is a philosophy that must be tailored to the special needs and unique circumstances of the agency and the community.” This adds to the burden of external barriers to implementation, and begins to explain why it is has been such a long and difficult attempt.