Science, evidence and police accountability in the age of big data
Michael D. Rowe · Policy Press eBooks · 2020
This chapter explores the impact that the increasing use of data and science have on policing in terms of the organisation and delivery of police responses to crime and crime prevention. The use of scientific evidence to develop improved policing services offers many advantages, especially in a period where demands on the public police are transformed by technological change, and resources available to meet new challenges have reduced in absolute terms. The use of science to promote EBP and the related but distinct development of ‘big data policing’ generally have not been thought of as means to control police discretion. Nonetheless, it is argued here that both provide powerful opportunities to reorient behaviour and practice, and their growing significance in contemporary policing means that is of vital importance to consider the implications that they have in terms of democratic accountability and public oversight. Both EBP and big data policing represent futures of policing that are difficult, although not necessarily impossible, to reconcile with established systems of ‘hard’ accountability outlined in the previous chapters of this book. Unlike other recent shifts in police styles and practices – such as ‘hot spots’, ‘intelligence-led’ or ‘problem-oriented’ policing – EBP is best understood not as a model of delivery but as a strategy for improving effectiveness and efficiency. Drawing on the wider approaches to evidence-based policy within public administration, EBP offers the potential to transform established tradition, custom and practice in police work through the application of scientific research and evaluation. As is widely noted, police work has tended to be responsive in the sense that it is reactive to incidents once they have occurred, and organised around traditional models of patrol that are, to some extent, predicated on public demand for visible policing.