Proactive Policing

Send us Fan Mail When we talk about police reform, most people immediately think about body cameras, use-of-force policies, civilian review boards, or new laws. Those are important conversations. But today I want to start somewhere different. I want to start with what I believe is one of the biggest problems facing modern policing. We've become exceptionally good at responding to crime. We've become much less capable of preventing it. Think about that for just a second. When someone calls 911 because their house has been burglarized, what has already happened? They've already become a victim. If someone is robbed in a parking lot... If someone is assaulted walking home... If a business owner arrives in the morning to find the front door smashed in... By the time the police get there, the crime has already occurred. Now don't misunderstand me. Responding professionally and investigating thoroughly is incredibly important. Today's police departments have tools that officers from thirty years ago could only dream about. We have Flock camera systems that can track suspect vehicles across an entire region. We have drones that can search large areas in minutes instead of hours. We have incredible forensic technology. We have Cell phone analysis. DNA evidence. Digital evidence. And, security cameras everywhere. Experienced detectives who know exactly how to put all those pieces together. Those technologies have made us dramatically better at solving crimes. And that's something worth celebrating. But solving yesterday's crime doesn't protect today's victim. If my family has already been robbed, catching the suspect next week is certainly better than never catching them at all. Justice matters. Accountability matters. But if we're honest with ourselves, the thing that family really wanted wasn't a better detective investigation. They wanted to never be robbed in the first place. That's the difference between reactive policing and proactive policing. Reactive policing waits for the phone to ring. It waits for the alarm. It waits for the crash. It waits for the shooting. It waits until someone needs help. Then we respond. That's what we do today, and because of the professionalism of officers across this country, we often do it very well. But proactive policing asks a completely different question. How do we stop that phone call from ever happening? How do we identify crime before it occurs? How do we recognize patterns? How do we intervene early enough that someone never becomes a victim? That's a completely different mindset. And I would argue it's the mindset policing was always meant to have. The safest neighborhood isn't the one where detectives solve every homicide. The safest neighborhood is the one where there aren't any homicides to investigate. The best burglary investigation is the burglary that never happens. The best robbery report is the one that never has to be written. Every officer listening to this knows exactly what I'm talking about. Some of the best police work you'll ever do never results in an arrest. It's checking on a suspicious car before it becomes a burglary. It's stopping a stolen vehicle before it reaches another neighborhood. It's talking to teenagers who are headed down the wrong path before they commit their first felony. It's walking through a business district and simply being visible enough that someone decides tonight isn't the night to break into that store. Sometimes the greatest success in policing is invisible.