From the outside Looking in: A Researcher's View of Current Policing Practice in the Netherlands

Abstract

Janet Jackson and Marijke fer Voert are respectively principal and post-doctoral researchers at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Criminality and Law Enforcement (NISCALE) in Leiden. Their joint research interests include police practice, the profiling of specific offender groups and the relationship between offending and victimisation. ABSTRACTThe paper examines how far policing practices in the Netherlands have adopted a structured analytic approach. Attention is paid to developments in community-oriented, prevention and problem-oriented approaches. The role that research has played in the past and should play in the future is discussed. It is argued that, although community policing is an accepted concept among many police officers, various problems have hindered the development of the approach and, in the main, projects do not meet very high methodological standards. Suggestions for well-designed evaluation studies as well as the development of new research instrumentsfor use by thepolice are presented. Prevention projects are described as being well structured, theoretically based and carefullv evaluated. They have, however, focused on a narrow range of offences (eg burglary and car thift) and need to be extended to otherareas ofcrime. The adoption ofa cartfully structured and evaluated problem-oriented approach is currently being implemented in many Dutch police regions. Clear goals have been set and the progress that is being made is described.The role that researchers can play in furthering the adoption of such a structured approach is discussed, with particular emphasis being given to analytic techniques.