Local Policing: Expanding Reach with Limited Resources through Fusion Centers

Sir John Stevens, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, United Kingdom, once compared being a police officer in the 21st century to being a man standing on the bank of a very fast flowing river. In that river, the man could see countless people drowning as they swept past him. As the moments ticked on, thousands of troubled people shouted to the man on the bank to rescue them. Commissioner Stevens then posed the question, “What does the police officer do?” He further questioned, “Does he jump in and help as many as he can, or does he take a walk upstream and find out who is throwing them all in the river?” Stevens surmised that quite often, police wade in to the rescue and begin the cycle of uncontrolled demand and uncoordinated response. From this story, Commissioner Stevens concluded that “the police become like lifeguards, frantically swimming against the tide from one incident to another, employing different tactics in a disjointed and unfocused manner with little or nothing to show for it at the end of the day.”