Are We The Best At What We Do?

Fort Worth, TX, Sunday, February 22, 2009, 1624 CST

After several months of studying the issues of Crime Prevention in the US and other countries, I have noted something. The US is not the best in Crime Prevention. Canada, England, Austrailia, and New Zealand seem to have surpassed us. So why is this happening?

From what I've learned the folks in those countries are not operating under severe budget constraints, nor are their CPO's burdened with several other duties which serve to limit their time in Crime Prevention. Most of them have been doing the things I have spoken or written about to include actively training their citizens, maintaining daily notes on e-mail systems, developing "schemes" (as they are called in the UK), being out in the community daily without being burdened with extra duties, and many other Crime Prevention and Crime Reduction Programs.

I do notice that some of our CPO's would rather allow themselves to be overburdened than try to come up with novel ways to increase their presence in the community, or to argue over criticism when challenged. Now I'm sure someone will argue with these comments, but I can assure you I have already heard many at conferences and training sessions. Discussion and disagreement is great, it means people are thinking through their options.

We need to get more creative in our programs. We need to think outside of the box!! Perhaps management needs to rethink certain positions. I read the other day that European law enforcement use smaller vehicles which cost less to operate. Maybe its time for us to think about alternative theories of achieving our objectives. When we're in a crunch, we seem to cut services, people, and less important departments. Since when did Crime Prevention become a less important function? We're quick to implement new techniques, but do we really explore less expensive alternatives?

With our economy going in the tank, we had best figure out how to stay even or get better with the resources we have.

I would be interested in hearing other opinions.

Steve Wallach