Sunday, August 28, 2016

The POP conference is back!

Tempe Mission Palms Conference Center, Tempe, Arizona - site of 2016 Problem Oriented Policing Conference
After some bleak years of de-funding, the International Problem Oriented Policing Conference is back! After a funding hiatus in 2014, the 25th POP conference reappeared last year. This year the 26th conference will be in Tempe, Arizona,  October 24-26

The conference program says it all:
Problem-Oriented Policing Conference is often described by attendees as the most substantive policing conference they've ever attended. Each year, police officers and police leaders, and all the ranks in between, as well as crime consultants and crime researchers, come together to discuss what they've learned about trying to reduce different crime and safety problems.
Along with complimentary problem-solving conventions such as the recent International Police Problem-Based Learning conference and last year’s International CPTED Association Conference, the International POP Conference is one of the few global policing conferences focused on the daily business of everyday policing.

Problem-Oriented Policing section of the Office of Community Oriented Policing website 
The problem-solving conferences are based in practical cop experiences. In other words, they are real-life. This year’s POP conference does have topics tapping into recent controversies dominating the media - Police Legitimacy and Policing Terrorism - but the program is also loaded with crime and safety themes:

  • Introduction to CPTED (by yours truly)
  • Police and PTO/Problem Based Learning 
  • Homelessness 
  • Intimate partner violence, and 
  • Leveraging community engagement to reduce fear of crime.

Professor Herman Goldstein (retired), the remarkable scholar who started the problem-oriented policing movememt
There will be numerous Herman Goldstein Problem-Oriented Policing Award submissions from around the world. And, as always, Professor Herman Goldstein will attend the event.

Goldstein, the founder of problem-oriented policing, is the man who started it all. If you don’t know Goldstein’s history, it is online and well worth the read. The conference pays homage to his remarkable legacy.