Proactive policing also known as ‘intelligence lead policing’ is where the police manage secret operations i.e. go undercover, exploit CCTV, tap peoples phones and use informants for information. This also may or may not result in convictions depending on information officers receive and evidence found. According to Sanders (2002) police who adopt proactive policing are usually specialist drug units, vice and serious crime squads, etc. Normal police officers don’t tend to adopt this approach, therefore they are unable to take their own initiative or the lead, this can be de-motivating to a police officer and so no eagerness or interest is being incorporated into an investigation.
The reactive approach does not allow police to use their own discretion because the members of the public are just directing them. Research has found that civilians initiate police action or identify the suspect in over half of all arrests (Sanders. A and Young. R, page: 68). However, the police do use their own observation and knowledge to determine what they are told i.e. if the crime isn’t serious enough police may choose not to investigate it at all. However, proactive policing does allow the police to use own discretion as they in the first place initiate the investigation upon a crime that is serious and worth investigating.
The committing of crimes by individuals has always been high and in undertaking reactive policing the police are not giving the time or effort to investigate crimes, therefore less serious crimes are overlooked and no crime patterns or hotspots are detected to enable the police to target high crime areas. This shows that reactive policing is inefficient, ineffective and does not use resources efficiently, thus the problem of high crime areas isn’t being satisfied. The result of this is that the crime rate is rising, the clear up rate is falling and more police resources are being taken up. It is also believed that certain individuals commit the majority of crime. To deal with these problems a more proactive approach is now developing and being encouraged in today’s society.
An example of where reactive policing is being overtaken by proactive policing is within the Central Scotland Police who have undertaken the Crime Management Model, which enabled police to concentrate their efforts to combat particular offences, to target criminally active individuals and to put more emphasis on crime prevention. The models objectives were to reduce reactive work by visiting every victim and every crime scene, by dealing with minor crimes over the phone. To reduce the recording of crime through use of computer systems, to ensure intelligence about crime was gathered effectively, analysed and used and to integrate crime prevention strategies such as co-operation and close links with the community. The new proactive approach was found to improve the standards of services provided by the force to the public i.e. enabled the police to use its resources more efficiently. A victim survey revealed that they were more satisfied with the way in which police now dealt with reported crimes, resulting from the use of computer tracking to tell victims about progress of investigations. (University of Kent [October 1994: April 1995]).
The methods of proactive policing mentioned above are also used today within many communities e.g. the police liase with the public to prevent crime e.g. visit schools, advise people on security, etc (Microsoft, Encarta [2002]). The Neighbourhood Watch Scheme within communities prevents crime by encouraging the community to help and communicate with each other and the police. The police also target certain areas and offenders and these methods enable proactive policing to be more efficient than reactive policing. In 1993-4 at least 24% of all arrests were a result of proactive policing i.e. stop searches, surveillance, etc (Sanders. A and Young. R, page: 70).
Police partnerships also undertake proactive policing in order to prevent crime. For example, Nottingham City Council hired two police officers to identify the most troublesome youths on its problem housing estates (Sanders. A and Young. R, page: 70).
Reactive policing is expensive and is seen as in cost-efficient compared to proactive policing that is viewed as cost-efficient because the informants used to gather information are generally known offenders e.g. drug dealers, etc, which enables the police to get the right information off the right people.
Proactive policing seems to be a better approach to police investigation than reactive; however, the proactive approach can be legally and ethically problematic because information given by informants may be unreliable. This is because the police sometimes pay them to talk; informants will say anything just to get the money or they may feel like their privacy or their rights have been invaded and lie. Informant’s identities also need to be protected because a big problem could arise in that suspects if know them may try to harm them, if this problem is not tackled then an informer may need to go into witness protection where their identities are changed so know one knows them.
The information collected from proactive policing e.g. bugging suspects, if believed to be fabricated or exaggerated could lead to information being unreliable, this is a legal problem as a person cannot be tried for the same offence twice.
Because proactive policing is secretive and not as open as reactive policing the public may think the police are being prejudice as they select the targets; this is another ethical problem.
An example of a problem in undertaking proactive policing is the current investigation on the Isle of Man into allegations that police bugged an interview room for more than ten years with a listening device to monitor conversations between criminal suspects and their lawyers. This could lead to a decade of convictions being reviewed and prisoners appealing on the grounds that their convictions are unsafe. The use of such device if found would contravene the Police and Criminal Act codes of practice, which give suspects the right to advise in private (The Times; Friday October 24th [2003]).
Conclusion
There are two approaches to police investigation; reactive and proactive. Reactive is where the police respond to crimes and proactive is where police initiate and discover crimes. The two approaches have been compared and contrasted against each other finding that mainly normal officers undertake the reactive approach, they are unable to use their own initiative and discretion and they do not have much time to investigate crimes. The approach appears to be inefficient and ineffective in high crime areas as the crime rate is rising and the clear up rate is falling. The proactive approach is mainly undertaken by special units, who are able to use their own discretion and initiative, they have enough time to investigate crimes and can concentrate on high crime areas, resulting in the crime rate falling and the clear up rate rising.
Examples have been given of reactive and proactive policing and evidence backing up the arguments, it has been shown that the proactive approach is gradually overtaking the reactive approach, but that also there are ethical and legal problems in undertaking the proactive approach.
In reality it seems that reactive and proactive policing work in conjunction with each other i.e. while some police target specific crimes some will be responding to the publics calls as they are not going to ignore the publics phone calls and they cannot detect every crime.