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.