Quality-of-Life

Quality-of-Life Enforcement

In line with George Kelling

about Quality-of-Life in the Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement:

Quality of life, quality-of-life offenses , and quality-of-life enforcement entered the criminal justice lexicon in a major way during the late 1970s. This was at a time when American (United States) policing was in a crisis. Crime was increasing, and research suggested that the dominant tactics of the time-preventive patrol and rapid response to calls for service-were of limited effectiveness. Starting during the 1920s and continuing through the 1970s, police saw their “business” as responding to serious “index” crimes (there is more information about criminal law in the American Legal Encyclopedia and about crimes and criminals vocabulary): Murder, rape, assault, robbery, and burglary topped their priorities. The police put forward several values to justify their strategic emphasis: Index crimes (there is more information about criminal law in the American Legal Encyclopedia and about crimes and criminals vocabulary) were serious and demanded police attention; limited resources required that police establish priorities; and focusing on serious crime with reactive tactics-preventive patrol, rapid response to service, and criminal investigation-lim-ited how intrusive police were into community life.