Policing as self-audited practice

All occupations, including police, must define what they do and why they do it in order to carve out and defend a socio-economic and politically defined niche. This requires a rhetoric of justification. Crime statistics (ORCS), in spite of their frequent misuse by the police, academic criticism, and police ambivalence about their utility as a measure of performance, serve this purpose. These are at best reported and validated police activity, not a full assessment of the distribution of crime or disorder by official categories, regions, and cities. Attempted police innovations that are not `crime-based' nor connected to direct attempts at crime reduction have had mixed effects. A theory of policing that does not take into account these practices will fail to account for police behavior and known outcomes.