Police focus on individual offenders can cut crime

nick cowen, 15 June 2012

While police forces and the prison system grapple with the swingeing cuts inflicted by the Coalition Government, a new Civitas report reveals that policing strategies that target individual offenders could help protect the public. Offender-Desistance Policing and the Sword of Damocles, by two Cambridge University criminologists, Lawrence W. Sherman and Peter W. Neyroud, argues that letting the police deal with low-risk offenders quickly with a structured supervision plan linked to a deferred prosecution could reduce offending and allow police and the other agencies to focus more on preventing serious crime.

• Full press release
• Press Association summary
• Buy Offender-Desistance Policing and the Sword of Damocles