Book review: Self-Selection Policing: Theory, Research and Practice
| Author | D Kim Rossmo |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X20951376 |
| Subject Matter | Book review |
Book review
Book review
Self-Selection Policing: Theory, Research and Practice
Jason Roach and Ken Pease
Palgrave Macmillan, London: 2016
Hardback ISBN 978-1-137-46851-2
€83.19: 142 pp.
Reviewed by: D Kim Rossmo, Texas State Un iversity, USA
Email: krossmo@txstate.edu
DOI: 10.1177/0032258X20951376
While police agencies have many responsibilities, their basic activities can be crudely
categorized within a simple temporal framework:
1. past—criminal investigation;
2. present—patrol and order maintenance;
3. future—crime prevention.
In Self-Selection Policing, Jason Roach and Ken Pease outline an innovation that
blends different elements from this structure. Self-selection policing (SSP) involves ‘an
approach whereby active, serious criminals are identified by the investigation of the
minor often “routine” offences that they commit’ (p. 5). By linking present events to past
or future events, these minor crimes, known as trigger offenses, act as pointers to
potential serious criminality. Individuals caught committing trigger offenses ‘volunteer’
themselves for further police investigation.
SSP trigger offense s philosophically rese mble broken windows, te rrorist planning, a nd
predator hunts.Crime and criminality have structural similarities to icebergs, with most of
the action happening beneath the surface. Criminology’s arctic explorers, Roach and
Pease, explain the nature, origins, and utility of the ‘bummock’ (bet you didn’t know
that’s what the part below the water is called). Too often we look at criminal incidents
as isolated events, a perspective encouraged by the bureaucratic nature of society and the
pigeonhole legaldefinitions we employ to delimit crimes.This myopia interferes with our
perception of the fourth dimension and thetemporal trails left by offenders. In the spirit of
Sherlock Holmes, the book’s authors look for footprints to follow. (Some tangential
trivia—over thecourse of his illustrious career as a consulting detective, Holmesfollowed
hound, horse, cow, carriage, and bicycle tracks, in addition to footprints.)
The book begins by introducing the SSP concept; it then fol lows with a general
discussion on how police currently identify criminal suspects and some limitations of
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2020, Vol. 93(4) 384–386
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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