Cutting crime with knowledge and power - A doorway to effective policing

 

The 2025 Problem-Oriented Policing Conference returns 

to Madison, Wisconsin

By Gregory Saville

A few decades ago, television entered what critics call the Second Golden Age. Gone were the tidy cop shows of the 1970s. In their place came gritty realism. Among them was NYPD Blue, where Detective Andy Sipowicz embodied the flawed but dedicated street cop.

In one memorable episode, Sipowicz points to three hoodlums owning a downtown corner as he mentors a rookie about what it really means to police the streets: “Them three are bad and right now they own that corner. A good cop is gonna take that corner back so that people walking by don’t have to fear for their life.”

Today, that line may sound dated. Yet in its time, the sentiment rang true. As a young police officer, I too heard versions of that same lesson: your beat is your responsibility - protect it with pride. It reflected the enduring myth of the warrior in blue—the guardian who takes back the street.

NYPD Blue - the 1990s police procedural TV drama won 20 primetime Emmy Awards and 80 nominations over its 12-year run

Of course, reality was always messier. Crime is rarely solved by a lone act of heroism. Yet the drive to bring safety and dignity to a community remains. The difference today is that we know far smarter ways to do it.

FROM WARRIOR MYTH TO SMART STRATEGIES 

Despite what the skeptics say, police can and do stop crime— but only when they use the right tools. Sometimes that involves an arrest. More often, it means creative strategies that reduce harm without relying only on force.

This is the world of Problem-Oriented Policing (POP). Conceived by the late Professor Herman Goldstein, POP has become one of the most effective, research-backed models in modern policing. Instead of reacting case by case, POP asks: why is this crime happening here and how can we change the conditions that allow it?

Over decades, POP has built a proven track record: tackling robberies, drug markets, intimate partner violence, carjackings, and more. Its philosophy is simple: don’t just respond to symptoms— use crime analysis, community partnerships, crime prevention through environmental design, and many other inventive strategies to actually solve the problems.

 

Madison Wisconsin, site of the 2025 POP Conference
- photo Wiki Creative Commons

THE POP CONFERENCE 

The annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference is the gathering place for this work. Previous conferences introduced new strategies and concepts, such as the SafeGrowth model presented for the first time last year.

In 2025, the conference will once again return to Madison, Wisconsin after having been there in 2015. This year it will bring together practitioners, researchers, and community partners to share cutting-edge strategies and real-world results.

At the conference, you’ll learn practical tactics, such as:

• Cutting gun crime through place-based prevention and community partnerships.
• Reducing school bullying by reshaping school climates and peer norms.
• Preventing robberies by focusing on repeat victims, and situational vulnerabilities.
• Applying CPTED and SafeGrowth to redesign public spaces and reduce fear.

The conference is about equipping police and city leaders with the evidence and tools to reduce crime in meaningful, lasting ways. You can register here

The conference is run by the Center for Problem-Oriented Police headed by Michael Scott - the nexus for innovative and effective policing

FROM SIPOWICZ TO POP HEROES

Sipowicz’s message—take back the corner—was once the rallying cry of police culture. It symbolized toughness and control. But today, real heroism looks different. It’s the officer who asks why the corner became dangerous, and then works with residents to change it. It’s the leader who measures success not in arrests, but in safer neighborhoods and stronger trust.

The Sipowicz era imagined the cop as a lone warrior. POP reimagines the cop as a problem-solver, a partner, and a guardian of community well-being.

That is the spirit of the 2025 POP Conference: to give practitioners the strategies, partnerships, and confidence to reclaim not just a street corner, but the whole city and, along with it, the legitimacy and trust that sustain safe communities.

And in that sense, Sipowicz’s line still resonates. Good cops do take back the corner—but today, they do it with insight, compassion, and strategy. Those are the true heroes who guard the community.

 

The curse of abandoned lots

What to do with abandoned lots? Photo - Belmont community SafeGrowth Team 

SafeGrowth teams in Philadelphia and Newark this week produced some remarkable gems for transforming troubled areas. They tackled neglected parks, drug infested commercial corridors, and blighted playgrounds.

One of my favorites was a team from the Belmont community in Philadelphia who zeroed on an abandoned lot. Abandoned lots are not just an eyesore. This one triggered disorder, health and squatting problems for the entire for the neighborhood.

The Belmont team came up with some fascinating ideas for rehabilitation and in a tabletop exercise solicited us for some new ideas.

It was a bright side to this creeping plague. One estimate puts the number of abandoned lots at astronomical levels. It says in 2010 there were 12,000 in Detroit, 40,000 in Philadelphia and 90,000 in Baltimore alone...that's not a typo - 90,000!

SOLUTIONS

The POP Center Guidebook on the topic lists solutions but few actually deal with the root of the problem. Most are superficial situational prevention tactics - changing the environment, installing CCTV, enforcing building codes, and cleanup campaigns. A few are a bit more substantive such as financing to rehabilitate or reuse the property.

More specific help appears in horticulture magazines, especially one interesting decade-long study comparing blighted lots with greened vacant lots. Greening was linked to significant reductions in gun assaults across most of Philadelphia and significant reductions in vandalism in one section of the city.

Another interesting approach appears in an architectural article about a Philadelphia program turning blighted lots into produce generating mini-farms.

Still another idea is a Rhode Island program turning abandoned lots into community gardens. The Philadelphia SafeGrowth presentation on abandoned lots, like all the SafeGrowth presentations this week, was inspiring. It showed how we can turn these places around.

Rhode Island urban community garden. Turning abandoned lots into fun. Photo Maravillosospaisajes

POP Center closes - Combat cops score?

Mythical arsenal of the combat cop - POP Center latest to fall

"The best we could get out of them was more kind of tactical stuff, police officer safety, weapons and tactics kind of stuff..." - Mike Scott POP Center Director

A sign of the times: The Center for Problem Oriented Policing - the nexus for advanced policing tactical problem solving - is gone! The website remains, but the conference and all the research activities are now defunded by the US government.  

A news article describing the event says: 

"The center has been instrumental in changing the way police look at crime, focusing on root causes of crime trends and ways to prevent them, rather than merely reacting to incidents.

The philosophy underpinning the center's work stems from the work of  Herman Goldstein, a UW law professor who in 1979 introduced the concept of problem-oriented policing, which he later expanded into a 1990 book that has inspired the approach throughout the U.S. and in many places abroad."

Combat policing has never seemed so close.

Back to the future - POP in 2014?

Photo from 2013 Goldstein Award Winners, Enfield school robbery POP project report -  Sandeep Broca and Ian Agar, London UK

This week I attended the 24th annual International Problem Oriented Policing (POP) conference in Dayton, Ohio run by the POP Center. After depressing news last blog about funding cuts in UK crime prevention there is good news from London.

The POP conference is flagship for the best community policing in the world. It features finalists in the Goldstein POP Award program. I've blogged on previous winners. This year the slate was impressive:

• Citrus Heights police in California helped trigger revitalization of a crime-ridden street
• Houston police cut robberies in convenience stores
• Dayton and Milwaukee police reduced prostitution and help get streetwalkers off the street; 
• New Zealand police reduced youth crime, and 
• Hamilton police in Canada cooled violent hotspots downtown.

The 2013 winner of the International Herman Goldstein POP award was from police in the London UK borough of Enfield. Their community safety partnership tackled a worrisome increase in youth robberies around schools.

Enfield crime map on robbery hotspots around 3 schools helped target efforts - Sandeep Broca and Iain Agar, Enfield POP Project report

The Enfield team worked in schools (mentoring, anti-bullying), applied CPTED (after-class dispersal zones, staggered school closing times) and used enforcement (disrupting stolen goods markets, targeted patrols). Their efforts reduced street crime, increased drug treatment access for offenders, and cut robberies in half.

I watched as Enfield and the other finalists received their well-deserved awards. I was impressed with them and all the exceptional project teams. It's heartening to see police and community partners using  POP and CPTED as paths to a better future.

Then it dawned on me - last year the COPS Office at the US Department of Justice de-funded the POP Center. Efforts are now underway to avoid shutdown, but the POP Center and POP conference may be history. I wonder if this forebodes more combat policing and crime prevention defunding?

After decades of documented police innovation carrying us forward into the 21st Century are we now de-evolving back to the 20th?