Résumé
This report describes the results of an examination of problem-solving in crime reduction, conducted as a follow-up to 1998’s ‘Beating Crime’. It involved responses to questionnaires and visits to police forces. Overall the report concludes that, despite the almost universal espousal of problem-solving by the police service, high quality problem-solving is still exceptional. Promising examples of small area crime and disorder problem-solving could be found in most forces, yet even here high quality, dependable outcome evaluations were rare. There was little broad-based problemsolving. Most took place at the ‘sharp end’ of operational policing, and tended to focus on the offender. Similarly there was only a little anticipatory problem-solving. While the initiatives questionnaires suggested that many data sources were used, visits to forces and examination of individual initiatives repeatedly suggested that the data is weak, and routine aggregate data sharing is exceptional and problematic. If potential benefits from adopting a problem-solving approach are to be yielded, local areas will need to be encouraged to take a hard critical look at their current working practices. The report provides a checklist that can be used to identify points for improvement at a variety of levels.