Knowledge-Based Policing: India and the Global Revolution in Crime Prevention

Abstract

The past three decades have witnessed a global revolution in the development and application of the prevention sciences, notably in health, tramportation, and public safety. That revolution has saved countless lives that woul.d otherwise have been lost to disease, p/,ane crashes, murders and other tragedies. This revolution is strongest in the methods far creating new knowledge, but remains uneven in applyi,ng new knowledge. ,By initiating its global mid-career training programme for police. executives, the Indian Police Service will faster both the production and the applicaiion of powerful new knowledge about the prevention of crime. Central to this effort is the science of criminology, which the Cambridge University has nurtured for over half a century as a multi-disciplinary creator of empirical knowledge within the Faculty of Law. The application of criminology to crime prevention is equal in complexity to the application of biology to medicine. Only when this complexity is fully appreciated by both public and police will the public invest more in knowledge-based policing, as the most cost-effective means of sustaining human liberty in our globally diverse societies.