Law Enforcement: Multi-jurisdictional Task Forces and Gang Strategies

Law enforcement is one of the three major components which make up the continuum of the criminal justice system. Within this continuum, which also includes the courts and corrections, law enforcement represents the front lines of prevention and enforcement. Within the law enforcement community are tribal, county, state and federal authorities operating within their own jurisdiction and utilizing different approaches to maintaining public safety.

No matter at what level of government, law enforcement and policing have seen an increasing amount of innovation and experimentation over the last few decades. This innovation has spanned the entire system from the use and enforcement of curfews, gang intervention programs, weapons reduction programs like project CeaseFire all the way to the wide spread use of a the multijurisdictional task force approach for dealing with drugs, gangs, human trafficking and white collar crime. Regardless of the type of law enforcement strategy used to deter crime or enforce law, the use of process and outcome measures can help agencies at any level of government go from anecdotal evidence of effectiveness to quantitative measures of effectiveness. Below you will find measures for two common law enforcement strategies including multijurisdictional task forces¹ and gang programs/strategies².

Multi-jurisdictional Task Forces

Gang Programs/Strategies

¹The information found in the multijurisdictional task force chart and the research that supports the measures can be found on the BJA Center for Program Management and Performance Measurement's Commonly Used Measures of Task Force Performance page

²The information found in the gang programs/strategies chart and the research that supports the measures can be found on the BJA Center for Program Management and Performance Measurement's Commonly Used Measures of Gang Programs/Strategies page.