Law School sponsors police chief training sessions

About 30 police chiefs and sheriffs from around Wisconsin are meeting in Madison this week to examine strategies for dealing with specific problems in community law enforcement.

The Wisconsin Problem-Oriented Leadership Institute for Chief Executives, co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Law School and the state Bureau of Law Enforcement Training and Standards, trains police officials in problem-oriented policing.

“Our objective is to teach a conceptual framework for policing, introduce a greater analytical aspect and encourage them to share some of the responsibility for crime-fighting with the community instead of relying so heavily on the criminal justice system,” says Michael Scott, a UW–Madison clinical assistant professor of law and founder of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.

Problem-oriented policing centers on taking a specific policing problem – such as gang crime, traffic problems or public drunkenness – and subjecting it to microscopic examination in hopes of finding solutions that work. The concept places a high value on ideas that are preventive in nature.

The concept was pioneered in the 1970s by Herman Goldstein, an emeritus law professor at UW–Madison.

Scott was formerly police chief in Lauderhill, Fla., and worked in various civilian administrative posts in police departments in St. Louis, Fort Pierce, Fla. and New York City. He also served as a police officer in Madison.

The training institute will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Tuesday, July 25 through Friday, July 28 at the Holiday Inn-West, 1109 Fourier Drive.