What is a Best Practice?

To the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, "best practices" are the most effective strategies and tactics to reduce crime and the fear of crime. The Crime Commission seeks out and studies the best internal practices of law enforcement, criminal justice, and community-based organizations from around the world that have been implemented and honed to demonstrate superiority in crime and fear reduction.

The Crime Commission gathers this information from a variety of sources. For the most part, this information is based on interviews, surveys, and other mechanisms of primary research. Other insights are distilled from secondary research -- books, academic journals, Internet, and other public domain resources.

The Crime Commission provides an analysis of why and how identified practices produce exceptional results, and provides local project partners with a road map for improvement. Best Practice investigations can yield great benefits in the education of public officials and citizens and the realized performance improvements of operations. In addition, such investigations can be used to determine strategic areas of opportunity. In general, it is the application of what is learned that delivers the marked and impressive results so often noted in the identified best practice sites.

The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission is funded by private contributions and receives no operational funding from tax dollars or government sources. Click here to learn how to help.