Police Organizational Change after Implementing Crime Analysis and Evidence-Based Strategies through Stratified Policing

This article presents the findings from an evaluation of one sheriff's office in Florida. Evidence-based policing strategies and crime analysis were implemented within the agency through 'stratified policing', an organizational framework to facilitate the systematic implementation of evidence-based practices through problem solving, analysis, and accountability. Crime analysis is an integral part of stratified policing and is the foundation on which all evidence-based practices are implemented and evaluated within the approach. While the agency saw crime reductions after implementation of stratified policing, when implementing and sustaining new practices throughout a police organization, it is important to evaluate components of organizational change. Thus, two waves of the same anonymous online survey were administered to agency personnel to obtain their perceptions about leadership, accountability, communication, and transparency occurring within the agency's crime reduction efforts as well as the frequency of proactive crime reduction activities. Comparisons of the mean results for the two waves (i.e. baseline and one year of implementation) show significant increases in the amount of crime reduction activities in addition to significant improvements in leadership, accountability, communication, and transparency. Personnel were also more satisfied with the agency's crime reduction efforts. The findings support stratified policing as one way to institutionalize crime analysis and evidence-based crime reduction and make important changes to sustain practices within an agency's crime reduction culture.