Chapter 1: Introduction: The Linearity of Contemporary Criminal Justice Thought: Perspective, Context, and Direction Chapter 18: Contemporary Police and Society, pp. 290-294 Godown, J. (2009, August). The CompStat process: Four principles for managing crime reduction. Police Chief Magazine, LXXVI(8). Retrieved from http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&article_id=1859&issue_id=82009 Unit Lesson Throughout history, the American criminal justice system has experienced a myriad of challenges and changes along its evolutionary journey. Ever since the inception of our nation’s first police agency, law enforcement has been charged with the responsibility of instituting public policy and initiative that exhibits a clear perspective on how to detect, deter, and prevent crime. These perspectives set the foundation for the way our criminal justice system addresses the contemporary issues facing modern law enforcement in the 21st century. The evidentiary shift from traditional criminal justice practices to a more innovative, contemporary law enforcement strategy arose from research-based theory and practice. Three contemporary tools deserving a deeper level of explanation and analysis include the following elements:  evidence-based practices (EBP),  crime mapping, and  community and problem-oriented policing. These tools are key to what is referred to as predictive policing. The premise behind predictive policing rests on the idea that society will be much safer if we do not wait to make an arrest after a crime has been committed, but rather, we prevent the crime in the first place (Maguire & Okada, 2015). Evidence-based policing, simply stated, is the marriage between scientific research and taking that evidence and those results and putting them into practice with the use of guidelines and policy. This notion has been used in medicine when doctors use advanced training as it pertains to the scientific method and follow the most recent evidence available derived from research (Sherman, 1998). We see this firsthand with Berkeley Police Chief August Vollmer in the early 1970s when he began implementing a radical approach to practical policing with innovations such as the patrol car, profiling, and forensics to name a few. UNIT I STUDY GUIDE Contemporary Criminal Justice Theory and Practice BCJ 4601, Criminal Justice Current Topics 2 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Crime mapping, such as that provided by the widely recognized program CompStat (computer statistics), is another innovation in contemporary criminal justice that has changed the way law enforcement approaches crime. Crime mapping has a long history dating back to the 1920s. According to Chamard (2006), the most well-known criminological maps came from Chicago sociologists, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, who constructed a choropleth map consisting of the residences of over 3,000 juvenile delinquents. Shaw and McKay used polygon shading to indicate t ...

1. Chapter 1: Introduction: The Linearity of Contemporary
Criminal Justice Thought: Perspective, Context, and Direction
Chapter 18: Contemporary Police and Society, pp. 290-294
Godown, J. (2009, August). The CompStat process: Four
principles for managing crime reduction. Police Chief
Magazine, LXXVI(8). Retrieved from
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseac
tion=display&article_id=1859&issue_id=82009
Unit Lesson
Throughout history, the American criminal justice system has
experienced a myriad of challenges and changes along its
evolutionary journey. Ever since the inception of our nation’s
first police agency, law enforcement has been charged with the
responsibility of instituting public policy and initiative that
exhibits a clear perspective on how to detect, deter, and prevent
crime.
These perspectives set the foundation for the way our criminal
justice system addresses the contemporary issues facing modern
law enforcement in the 21st century. The evidentiary shift from
traditional criminal justice practices to a more innovative,
contemporary law enforcement strategy arose from research-
based theory and practice. Three contemporary tools deserving a
deeper level of explanation and analysis include the following
elements:
-based practices (EBP),
-oriented policing.

2. These tools are key to what is referred to as predictive policing.
The premise behind predictive policing rests on the idea that
society will be much safer if we do not wait to make an arrest
after a crime has been committed, but rather, we prevent the
crime in the first place (Maguire & Okada, 2015).
Evidence-based policing, simply stated, is the marriage between
scientific research and taking that evidence and those results
and putting them into practice with the use of guidelines and
policy. This notion has been used in medicine when doctors use
advanced training as it pertains to the scientific method and
follow the most recent evidence available derived from resear ch
(Sherman, 1998). We see this firsthand with Berkeley Police
Chief August Vollmer in the early 1970s when he began
implementing a radical approach to practical policing with
innovations such as the patrol car, profiling, and forensics to
name a few.
UNIT I STUDY GUIDE
Contemporary Criminal Justice Theory and Practice
BCJ 4601, Criminal Justice Current Topics 2
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Crime mapping, such as that provided by the widely recognized
program CompStat (computer statistics), is another innovation
in contemporary criminal justice that has changed the way law
enforcement approaches crime. Crime mapping has a long
history dating back to the 1920s. According to Chamard (2006),
the most well-known criminological maps came from Chicago
sociologists, Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, who constructed

3. a choropleth map consisting of the residences of over 3,000
juvenile delinquents. Shaw and McKay used polygon shading to
indicate the rate of delinquency of the minors between 1927 and
1934. They discovered that crime is essentially caused by
community- and neighborhood-level influences such as land
use, infant mortality rates, and mental disorders (Chamard,
2006). This was the birth of what we now know as crime
mapping.
Crime mapping has been met with differing reviews. According
to the New York City Police Department, CompStat has helped
to improve the quality of life and decrease crime for over two
decades, while other departments across the U.S. have
discontinued its use (Godown, 2009). This resistance to
CompStat as a contemporary criminal justice tool, in part, is
due to the ineffective and improper utilization of the system.
We must understand that CompStat is only effective if it is
coupled with traditional policing tactics and if it follows the
following four principles as outlined by Godown (2009):
Proper use of information to address crime problems (i.e., types
of calls for service, what crimes are being committed, and if
there were any arrests) is essential.
has worked in the past, what resources are appropriate, and
what law enforcement partners are needed to respond to the
problems identified.
kly. As opposed to traditional
reactionary policing, CompStat aims to essentially predict crime
and deploy resources to the areas where crime is a problem in
order to “head off” a problem before the situation escalates.
-up and assessment: If it works, keep doing

4. it. CompStat utilizes meetings to monitor prior and current
crime trends to ascertain what strategies are successful in order
to continuously improve planning and deployment of resources.
Community and problem-oriented policing (POP) also offer a
unique perspective in the 21st century criminal justice system.
Research suggests that solutions to problems can only come
about with proactive involvement and community support
(Maguire & Okada, 2015). Essentially, the patrol officer cannot
“solve” a problem or manage an issue without spending more
face-to-face time within the community. We must take an
initiative to remove that wall, step out of the comfort of the
patrol car, and assist the citizens with simple requests and
personal troubles. These tenets have proven to be highly
effective and have now become the basis of what we now know
as community policing. These two interrelated ideals of problem
solving and community policing simply focus attention on the
problems that cause a crime rather than the crimes themselves.
This process, as outlined by Maguire and Okada (2015),
involves the following components:
ch for and select actions that aim to solve the
problem.
effective, and if it was not, develop a new strategy.
As we have learned, we must take an innovative, contemporary
approach to crime and criminal justice as we move further into
the 21st century. At the heart of these strategies is the melding
of a theoretical, scientific, and fact-based research approach
that law enforcement officials can use to essentially solve

5. problems while predicting and preventing crimes.
References
Chamard, S. (2006). The history of crime mapping and its use
by American police departments. Alaska Justice Forum, 23(3).
Retrieved from
http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/23/3fall2006/a_crimemappin
g.html
BCJ 4601, Criminal Justice Current Topics 3
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Godown, J. (2009, August). The CompStat process: Four
principles for managing crime reduction. Police Chief
Magazine, LXXVI(8). Retrieved from
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuse ac
tion=display&article_id=1859&issue_id=82009
Maguire, M., & Okada, D. (2015). Critical issues in crime and
justice: Thought, policy, and practice (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Sherman, L. W. (1998, July). Ideas in American policing:
Evidence-based policing. Police Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.policefoundation.org/publication/evidence-based-
policing/
Suggested Reading
The report below discusses community policing as a problem-
oriented policing concept and outlines its importance to current
law enforcement agencies.

6. U.S. Department of Justice. (1994, August). Understanding
community policing: A framework for action. Retrieved from
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/commp.pdf
The following report by the U.S. Department of Justice provides
an in-depth look into crime mapping and hot-spot analysis and
examines how these concepts play a role in our contemporary
criminal justice system. This information is an excellent
supplement to the Unit I Lesson.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2005, August). Mapping crime:
Understanding hot spots. Retrieved fromEvery public policy
begins with a purpose. Law enforcement and criminal justice
strategies are no different. Describe two contemporary law
enforcement strategies, and describe the technology that
comprises predictive policing. Discuss both the intention and
the concern for people and communities that are behind the
strategies.
Your response should be at least 200 words in length.