ABSTRACT

As literature around policing and society grows, there is increased use of, and focus upon the concept of police ‘demand’. The concept itself, however, is ill-defined and no consensus exists about how it should be measured. This paper addresses these issues by undertaking a scoping review of literature on the topic, and by exploring how demand has been conceptualised in both academic and practitioner communities. The review reveals that while key interdependencies between police demand and supply are widely discussed, they are often analysed in isolation. To add to the academic discussion of police demand, the paper introduces a comprehensive conceptualisation including the various forms police demand can take and the different manifestations of drivers for police demand. Subsequently, it outlines several approaches that might be levied to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of demand management approaches. These include the consideration of trade-offs that need to be considered. For example, there is a need to balance any resources allocated to deal with proactive demand reduction and that necessary for (reactive) response. Considering the dynamics of police demand and – by necessity – supply through the lens of complex adaptive systems we propose potential ways forward that capitalise on this framing.

摘要

随着有关警务和社会的文献的增长，越来越多地使用和关注警察“需求”的概念。然而，这个概念本身是不明确的，关于如何衡量它也没有达成共识。本文通过对该主题的文献进行范围审查，以及探索学术界和从业者社区如何概念化需求来解决这些问题。审查表明，虽然广泛讨论了警察需求和供应之间的关键相互依存关系，但它们往往是孤立分析的。为了增加对警察需求的学术讨论，本文介绍了一个全面的概念，包括警察需求可以采取的各种形式以及驱动警察需求的不同表现形式。随后，它概述了几种可能用于提高需求管理方法效力和效率的方法。其中包括需要考虑的权衡。例如，需要平衡分配用于主动减少需求的资源和（反应性）响应所需的资源。考虑到警察需求的动态，以及必要时通过复杂自适应系统的视角供给的动态，我们提出了利用这一框架的潜在方法。