Executive Summary

Evidence-based policing is often treated, in practice, as a research label or a collection of approved tactics. That framing no longer fits where policing is today. As Eric Piza recently argued, the field has reached a critical inflection point. We know far more than we once did about what works in policing. The more pressing challenge is understanding how and under what conditions those strategies succeed or fail inside real organizations. In 2026, evidence-based policing is less about discovering new programs and more about building the capacity to implement, sustain, and adapt what we already know.

What Evidence-Based Policing Actually Means in 2026

When I talk about evidence-based policing in 2026, I am not referring to a research program or a set of approved tactics. To me, evidence-based policing is a way of making decisions, using the best available data, analysis, research, and experience to set priorities intentionally, understand trade-offs, and revisit decisions as conditions change. For example, deciding whether to protect proactive patrol time in a handful of high-demand areas, knowing it will lengthen response times elsewhere, and revisiting that choice as calls, staffing, or community conditions shift. That distinction matters because evidence is still too often treated as something external to leadership, something consulted for pilot projects, evaluations, or after-the-fact justification. In practice, evidence only matters if it shapes routine decisions about where time, attention, and authority are directed across the organization.

For much of the past two decades, evidence-based policing focused, necessarily, on answering a foundational question: does a given strategy reduce crime or improve outcomes? That work fundamentally changed the field. Policing moved from a low-information environment to one where there is broad agreement on several core principles. Proactive approaches tend to outperform reactive ones. Concentrating resources on high-risk places, people, and problems is more effective than spreading them evenly. Tailoring responses to specific conditions matters. These findings are now well established. Most agencies are not struggling because they lack awareness of the evidence.

The problem, as Piza and others have noted, is that this success has created a new burden. Cataloging what works is no longer enough. Knowing that a strategy can be effective does not explain why it succeeds in one department and stalls in another, or why promising initiatives fade once initial attention wears off. These gaps are rarely failures of research. The evidence base has increasingly emphasized mechanisms, context, and implementation. The harder challenge has been translating that knowledge into routine management practice inside complex organizations operating under real workload, staffing, and supervision constraints.

This is why evidence-based policing in 2026 is fundamentally about how work gets done. It requires paying attention to officer activity, demand patterns, and the organizational friction that shapes behavior on the street. It means asking whether officers have the time, clarity, and support to carry out priorities as intended, whether supervisors have visibility into how strategies are actually delivered, and whether leaders have feedback loops that allow for early course correction. Modern policing generates an enormous volume of operational information, from calls for service and officer activity to detailed reports, narratives, and contextual data. While access to information still varies across agencies, the broader shift is clear. The limiting factor is less about data collection and more about how that information is used to learn, adapt, and decide.

This shift also raises the bar for leadership. Evidence-based policing is not about waiting for perfect studies or outsourcing judgment to analysts. It is about building habits of inquiry into everyday management. Leaders practicing evidence-based policing can explain not just what they are doing, but why those priorities were chosen, what trade-offs they involve, and what conditions would prompt a change in course. The same is true, for example, when agencies change response models, such as shifting certain call types away from sworn response. When leaders are clear up front about the evidence behind the change, the risks they are accepting, and how they will monitor unintended consequences, evidence becomes a tool for shared understanding rather than a shield against criticism. When evidence is used only to justify decisions after the fact, it loses credibility. When it shapes decisions in advance and is revisited over time, it becomes a source of trust inside and outside the organization.

The next phase of evidence-based policing is not about discovering new tactics. It is about building agencies that can learn under real-world conditions. That requires tools, but more importantly, discipline. Leaders have to be willing to examine how work is delivered, not just how it is described, and to treat adjustment as a normal part of decision-making rather than an admission of failure. In that sense, evidence-based policing in 2026 is less about research and more about stewardship: creating systems where decisions are intentional, trade-offs are explicit, and learning is continuous.

About Jacob Cramer, Ph.D.

Dr. Cramer serves as the Director of Data Innovation at ForceMetrics, where he leads efforts to turn scattered law enforcement data into actionable insights for public safety agencies. He holds a Ph.D. in political science with a focus on terrorism and counter-terrorism and previously served as the Analysis Administrator for the Tucson, AZ Police Department, where he built one of the nation’s leading police analytics teams.

Piza, Eric L. 2026. “Here Be Dragons: Burdens of Knowledge and Innovation in Evidence-Based Policing.” Evidence Base, January. doi:10.1080/30679125.2025.2607615.