Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform

In the wake of a rash of police killings of unarmed people, most of them African-American, U.S. law enforcement is in crisis. In this timely volume, Sparrow (The Character of Harms: Operational Challenges in Control), who combines experience as a U.K. detective chief inspector with academic rigor, presents a valuable guide to the pressing problem of how policing can be effective without losing popular support. He begins with an analysis of why, three decades after the concept of community policing was widely accepted, many forces, including in Ferguson, Mo., have not adopted its principles. He notes that the Ferguson department was hampered by the political decision to focus on revenue enhancement, a policy that dramatically increased focus on minor offenses that could generate fines for the city. Sparrow goes on to observe that the NYPD's more logical central imperative%E2%80%94to lower the reported crime rate%E2%80%94has created a distortion analogous to Ferguson's in the absence of effective counterbalancing controls and attention to other valuable indicators of the quality of police performance. His commentary is coupled with a strategic approach to policing that offers a positive way forward. (Apr.)