Good Cops: The Case For Preventive Policing

by David A. Harris

Police departments across the country have begun to embrace a new approach to law enforcement based on accountability to citizens, better leadership, and collaboration with the communities they serve. Standing in marked contrast to "Ashcroft policing," these new strategies are exactly what police need both to make the streets of our cities and towns safer, and to prevent terrorism. David Harris, law professor and nationally known expert on police profiling, has spent the last five years visiting police forces across the country, collecting examples of smart, progressive law enforcement. Drawing on successful strategies currently in use in Detroit, Boston, San Diego, and other cities and towns all over the country, all of which have reduced crime without infringing on civil rights, Harris here unveils the concept of "preventive policing," a term he has coined to meld these strategies into a new vision for good cops. From preventive policing's founding principles to its real-world applications, Harris shows that the solutions to reducing crime, fighting terror, and preserving civil liberties are within reach―if only the Department of Justice will listen.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 14, 2005

Reviews

[Eric Plume · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fascinating - and considering our modern political climate a saddening text to read.

Harris wrote Good Cops ten years go, and the question he asks is one American culture has since answered...do we want a police system that endeavors to serve the people by solving the problems we really care about, or do we want to let our government strip away our civil rights using the theories of "tough love" and police militarization in the name of peace and order at any cost? As we move into 2015 its pretty obvious to most people the direction our law enforcement has chosen to take, and after reading this you'll be sad and angry all over again that events ended up playing out the way they did - especially after you read about the bungles of cognition which led us to where we are today.

Harris lays out the theory of "preventative policing" with an earnest fervor; he shows us how police methodology dropped the ball for decades, as well as how some metropolitan departments slowly rediscovered elemental truths about community involvement in the late 1990s and applied those lessons for positive gain. Using stories cribbed from police departments across the country as examples of how cops involving community leaders in their decision-making can reduce crime (rather than merely increase arrest rates), Harris makes a rock-solid case regarding how correcting simple miscommunications and increasing accountability - as well as making sure police officers remember their peace-keeping mission - can have a dramatic effect on the law officer/civilian narrative as well as lead to safer communities where citizens still get to enjoy their civil rights.

Harris juxtaposes this with descriptions of how in the wake of 9/11 the federal government screwed the pooch and ignored the advice of both veteran street cops and hardened anti-terrorist professionals in favor of pursuing the vision designed by people who had never worked in law enforcement, about how racism and prejudice defined our police policy (even more than they already did), about how the "War on Terror" set back immigration policy by a half-century...and most importantly, how state and local police fought against the policies dictated to them by those above - and lost.

Taken together, it is all hard to get through...especially when one considers the problems we're having now, problems which can be directly traced to the subjects Harris attempted to address in this book.

Anyone who is concerned with the militarization of our police force, immigration policy, race relations or police procedure in general...pick this book up and give it a read. I don't care what your opinions are, you'll find them challenged if you do.