Lawrence W. Sherman - Evidence-Based Policing

Evidence-Based Policing

In a 1998 Police Foundation lecture, Sherman sketched out the concept of “evidence-based policing,” modeled on the ideas of evidence-based medicine. His core idea was that police practice can be made far more effective if all of its complex but repeated elements were tested by repeated controlled field experiments. In February 2000, Sherman co-founded the Campbell collaboration's Crime and Justice Group, which has pursued the synthesis of research evidence on the effectiveness of policing and other crime prevention practices. Since then, the FBI Academy has offered a course on evidence-based policing, and it has become the subject of wide debate and commentary in police practice and research journals.

In 2008, Sherman made evidence-based policing (EBP) the core of the Police Executive Programme at Cambridge University, a part-time course of study for senior police leaders from around the world to earn a Diploma or Master’s in applied criminology. In that year, the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) funded the first international conference on EBP, which was attended by police executives from Asia, Australia, Europe and the US. Since then the conference has been held each July, with the 5th International Conference attended by over 250 police and scholars from six continents, including Africa and Latin America.

In 2010, a group of UK police officers founded the Society of Evidence-Based Policing, and elected Sherman its first Honorary President, along with Sir Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of the UK's Greater Manchester Police (see http://sebp.police.uk/index.php). In 2011, UK Home Secretary Theresa May appointed him an independent non-executive director of the new College of Policing, which develops and promotes evidence of what works in policing (www.college.police.uk).