Dr Lisa Thompson

Senior Lecturer, NZ Institute for Security and Crime Science

Dr Lisa Tompson is a Senior Lecturer at the NZ Institute for Security and Crime Science. Prior to that she was an Associate Professor at UCL, after originally working as a Police crime analyst. Her primary professional interests are understanding the patterned nature of crime to inform crime prevention, and embedding evidence into police practice. Before she left the UK she was involved in a large programme of work to develop the infrastructure to support Evidence-Based Policing, culminating in a Chief Constable’s Commendation. Lisa is currently enjoying working with New Zealand Police to revitalise problem solving across the organisation.

Presentation & Discussion: Getting Off the Drawing Board: The Pitfalls of Implementing New Responses to Policing Problems

There are four basic reasons why a problem-oriented- or evidence-based-policing initiative might fail: 1) the problem was inaccurately identified; 2) the problem was insufficiently or inadequately analyzed; 3) the responses developed from the analysis were improperly or insufficiently implemented, or not implemented at all; or 4) the problem was properly identified and analyzed, and responses were implemented, but the responses did not have the desired effect. This session deals with the third of these four reasons: implementing responses to problems in problem-oriented and evidence-based policing initiatives. It addresses the reasons why the responses you plan to implement do or do not get properly implemented, and how you can better ensure that they do. There are factors to consider in four project stages: 1) the preimplementation stage; 2) the planning stage; 3) the implementation stage; and 4) the post-implementation learning stage.