ABSTRACT
Evidence-based medicine (EBM), with its evidence hierarchies and emphasis on randomised controlled trials (RCTs), meta-analyses and systematic reviews, sets the model for evidence-based policy almost everywhere, policing no exception. How closely should policing follow this model? We argue that RCTs tell you little about what you need to know for real-world practice: will this policy work where and when you implement it? For RCTs to play a role in policy development, they must be set into a larger body of knowledge, including theory and local knowledge about sites of implementation. Unfortunately the standard EBM model generally ignores the other kinds of knowledge needed. An alternative model for evidence-based policing, similar to that of the new movement ‘EBM+’ and immanent in the practice of realist synthesis, focuses on the arguments that proposed policing policies will work where and when they are implemented and looks for evidence needed to support those arguments.
