Evidence based policing continues to be an important area of discussion
among police organisations across the world, and parallels are often
drawn with medicine as a means to describe how a profession can
be enhanced through a commitment to evidence based techniques.
The use of the medical analogy in policing does not have
everybody convinced, however, and there are those who argue
that rather than molecules, bacteria and disease, we are dealing
with the complexity of human behaviour, meaning simple cause and
effect may always be difficult to establish. In this Research Focus
Professors Nick Tilley and Gloria Laycock of the Jill Dando Institute at
University College London extend this thinking and suggest that a better
professional parallel might be drawn with engineering. Arguing that
a process of evidence based trial and error might be more effective
in policing than the experimental testing of narrow hypotheses,
Professors Tilley and Laycock provide an important and thought
provoking addition to the ongoing evidence based policing debate
