..a program aimed at first time offenders, designed by Caroline Nicholl, chief superintendent of Milton Keynes, aims to nip criminal behavior in the bud. Its effect is impressive. According to a study by the Home Office, the reoffending rate for those who have been through the program is 3%. Behind what is going on in Milton Keynes is problem oriented policing that aims, not just to react to calls from the public, but to find out why those demands are being made and to solve problems at their source.

To some extent, implementing these ideas means teaching cops to go about their work in a different way. But administrative changes are also making a difference.

“Under the leadership of Caroline Nicholl, then commander in Milton Keynes, the local force developed a new philosophy of policing in which the police’s job was not so much enforcement but helping to create a safer, self-policing society. Nicholl prompted a Youth Crime Strategy Group, bringing together different agencies, and initiated a business funded audit of the justice system that found 16 million pounds a year spent on reacting to crime rather than preventing it. By highlighting the inefficiencies of the current approach it made it more legitimate and less risky to develop alternatives. The Milton Keynes strategy involved painstaking work to establish the case for outcomes-based policing rather than reaction. Caroline’s work is now spreading ….”