Abstract
Research into the police function, police activities-preventive patrol, rapid response to calls for service, team policing, and investigations-and technology suggests that the emphasis on crime-related activities has failed to achieve crime reduction goals and may have exacerbated problems of police-citizen alienation and citizen fear of crime. Even at best, the police can have only a limited effect on crime. In the future, police must abandon strategies which prevent extensive contact with citizens. They must direct their attention to improving the quality of police-citizen interaction and to developing approaches to policing that reduce citizen fear.
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