Evidence Based Policing: An Introduction R. Mitchell and L. Huey (Eds.). Bristol: Policy Press (2019) 272pp. £75.00hb, £24.99pb, £24.99e‐book ISBN 97–1447339786; 97–144339755

Evidence Based Policing: An Introduction, edited by Renée Mitchell and Laura Huey, explores ideas related to evidence-based policing in international context. The editors bring together academics and public police engaging in evidence-based police research and practice. The volume offers sections on research methods, experiences with evidence-based policing research and practice, as well as pressing issues and ideas in this growing field. In the introduction, Huey and Mitchell reflect on the rationale for the collection, summarising the key ideas examined by contributors. The first section of the volume addresses key ideas in evidence-based policing research and practice. In Chapter 1, Renée Mitchell sketches out the field of evidence-based policing, summarising some of the tools used by evidence-based policing researchers, and recounting the methods of academic-practitioner relationships in the field of evidence-based policing research. In Chapter 2, Lawrence Sherman explores the development of what is called the ‘Cambridge Assignment Management System’ (CAM system) and its overlap with evidence-based policing. The author addresses the goals of using the CAM system and discusses how the system may better inform use of police resources (p.18). Chapter 3, by Anthony Braga and Riley Tucker, explores the integration of problem analysis into evidence-based policing practices to help reform police work and introduce best practices in policing (p.32). In Chapter 4, Seth Stoughton tackles the legal framework for evidence-based policing and offers a legal interpretation of evidence-based policing. In Chapter 5, Huey and colleagues reflect on a study conducted with police officers on their views of evidence-based policing. They note some officers found that evidence-based policing increased effectiveness and efficiency in policing, but that officers felt evidence-based policing did not actually help them in decreasing transgression (p.57). The second section addresses issues of research methods in evidence-based policing research and practice. Chapter 6, by Barack Ariel, reflects on the importance of research design and research questions in evidence-based policing. The author stresses the importance of evaluation research in informing evidence-based policing. Chapter 7, by Emma Williams and Ian Hesketh, looks at how social media use may overlap with evidence-based policing, and how a focus on communications can play a role in enhancing evidence-based policing activities. Chapter 8, by Peter Neyroud, makes the case for systemic reviews and meta-analyses as a way of informing evidence-based police research and practices. Systemic reviews and meta-analyses combine the results of a number of studies and thus can reveal trends and patterns in research over time, which may be more useful than basing practice on the results of one study. Chapter 9, by Craig Bennell and Brittany Blaskovits, argues that evidence-based policing research should be marked by a sense of openness, police should be open to participating in the research, the results should be published through open access (pp.122–3), and the methods of study should be made public through open science practices. All of these practices will help enhance evidence-based policing, it is argued. Chapter 10, by Emma Williams and Tom Cockcroft, focuses on the role of professionalisation in policing, and competing views of what counts as evidence and knowledge in policing (p.137). They acknowledge that the evidence-based policing paradigm is part of a movement towards professionalisation of police, and that these discussions need to be situated in the broader context of justice and safety. The third section of the volume addresses emerging areas and developments in evidence-based policing research and practice. In Chapter 11, Sarah Bennett and colleagues reflect on trials and tribulations in evidence-based policing and evidence-based practice more broadly in the criminal justice system. They reflect on evidence-based practice in the courts and related to procedural justice (p.147). The authors assess a number of studies as a way of continuing the discussion and pushing for quality in research design in evidence-based policing research. In Chapter 12, Mitchell writes about evidence-based policing and the idea of hotspot policing, arguing that hotspot policing can be made more efficient and effective if based on evidence-based principles (p.163). In Chapter 13 Adam Vaughan and Martin Andresen consider the effect of mental health related calls on police members. They review findings from previous studies on police calls to mental health assignments. They suggest that mental health calls, as well as addictions-related calls, place stress on the criminal justice system and policing institution. Chapter 14, by Natalie Todak, argues that body worn cameras can be used to create evidence-based de-escalation training programmes for police. The author argues that body cameras visualise examples of good and bad policing, and that the bad examples can be used to train future police on how to engage in de-escalation and how to create better interactions between police and citizens (p.192). The final section addresses experiences in evidence-based policing research and practice. In Chapter 15, Peter Martin discusses the many challenges facing police institutions and suggests that change is necessary in policing. The author claims that all public police organisations should create evidence-based policing units to address these challenges (p.207). In Chapter 16, Alex Murray examines the growth of evidence-based policing ideas and the challenges that evidence-based policing proponents will face. These challenges include: funding cutbacks in the United Kingdom, changing performance regimes which require that certain quotas be met, the issue of integrity, increasing professionalisation, increasing use of computational approaches in policing, and so on (p.219). Murray argues that bottom-up evidence-based policing can happen when officers ask for it, while top-down evidence-based policing can happen when government imposes it. The author suggests that evidence-based policing could be a way of governing police practices. In Chapter 17, Gary Cordner contends that evidence-based policing is a mindset that can permeate a police-based organisation, and not simply an opinion held by police researchers or police administrators. The author argues that evidence-based policing can apply to all forms of policing and that evidence-based policing should be taught to police recruits upon entry into the policing workplace (p.233). Evidence Based Policing: An Introduction integrates a good deal of material into a short collection. However, there are several problems with the volume that I elaborate on below. It is curious that evidence-based policing as a discourse is gaining traction at a time when trust in police in most Western countries has never been lower, and the legitimacy of public police as an institution is in question. In 2020, we have seen calls from a multisectoral social movement for police defunding and police abolition. Proponents of police defunding and abolition argue that reforming police will not work (McDowell and Fernandez 2018). Reforms in policing have been attempted for at least 40 years. Proponents of police defunding argue that public policing is an institution that must be scaled back if not abolished for several reasons: policing does not prevent transgression, it is incredibly expensive, it adds costs elsewhere in the justice system and in government, and it creates harm in the form of criminalisation, brutality, shootings and killings. Yet, evidence-based policing discourse is becoming more prominent at this time among its proponents, which raises the question of why calls for evidence-based policing reforms are being made by police and by researchers who work closely with police. This volume does not engage with this kind of more critical questioning. The idea that policies can be reformed or made more humane is baked in to the idea of evidence-based policing, constraining the research that can be done under this paradigm. The first criticism I have is that the collection does not offer any kind of social scientific view on what evidence is or the problems with calling something ‘evidence’. It rejects any kind of knowledge claims from outside of policing, and does not treat knowledge from outside the criminal justice domain as ‘evidence’. All of the examples in the volume are from police research partnerships where police are in a position of approving access, approving the types of data, and approving the research questions. Even the chapter by Craig Bennell and Brittany Blaskovits on the case for open police research is still ensconced in a police view. Police voice is privileged above all else in evidence-based policing research and practice to the extent that there is nothing but an attempt to improve efficiency and effectiveness in policing. A second critique is that there is almost no theoretical or conceptual work being done in evidence-based policing research. There is no attempt to look through the lens of social science theory. Instead of theory, there is only a mirror; police see their own practices in the mirror and they try to adjust them, but there is no use of theory or conceptual material to shed new light on policing, to interpret issues of policing in different ways. The lack of attention to theory and conceptual material is baffling when considered from a social science perspective. Third, the idea of evidence-based policing purports to be neutral and benign. Since at least the 1960s, it has been acknowledged that it is not possible to conduct social science from a value-free point of view. If one pretends that they do not have a normative position in social science, they are simply adopting a status quo position – such as liberalism, a belief in the legitimacy of the State, or a belief in the necessity of police. By failing to declare a normative position and by operating in a pro-police echo chamber, evidence-based policing scholars offer views that are blindly pro-police, in ways that undermine the arguments being made. For example, several of the authors note that police are facing challenges regarding legitimacy and trust, but instead of suggesting that perhaps police as an institution should not be engaging in calls for service regarding petty transgressions, that clearance rates for all types of crimes are extremely low, that we are seeing a militarisation of policing, and that police budgets are bankrupting cities, evidence-based policing scholars simply point back to police and in a self-referential loop, claiming the answers must come from within policing. Thinking outside of the police bubble is not intelligible to evidence-based policing scholarship, and evidence-based policing insights are biased as a result. If evidence-based policing cannot see outside police institution, cannot adopt theory to help interpret the word, cannot be clear on its political and normative position, and cannot accept any evidence outside of that which public police deem legitimate, it appears to me that evidence-based policing scholarship has ostracised itself from the social sciences, and has become part of the policing apparatus. Public police make research money available to scholars who will ask the types of questions police want to be asked, providing parameters which shape the outcomes of evidence-based policing. This further throws into jeopardy the idea of neutrality being mobilised in evidence-based policing when so many of the tools of social science are not on the table for evidence-based police scholarship, though monies from police and justice ministries are. It is necessary in light of the social movements against policing in 2020, but more pointedly, because of the impoverished social science articulated in this volume, to suggest that evidence-based policing work has strayed a long way from social science. To me, evidence-based policing research and discourse is police-public relations management, it is part of the policing apparatus, and this collection is an example of how deeply evidence-based policing scholars are integrated into the policing institution.

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