Operation and Crime Review panels: Their impact on break and enter

modelled on the New York ‘Compstat ’ process. The strategy involves a series of ‘Operation and Crime Review Panels ’ (OCRs) in which senior police provide Local Area and Regional Commanders with information on crime trends and patterns in their local area and ask them to devise various tactics and strategies to reduce crime. At a later point in time the same commanders return to the OCR panels and their performance in reducing crime is reviewed by senior management. This paper examines the impact of Operation and Crime Review Panels on the recorded rate of break and enter in New South Wales. The results strongly suggest but do not prove that OCR panels have been effective in reducing the incidence of break and enter. BACKGROUND In the mid 1990s New South Wales began to experience a rapid growth in most major categories of recorded crime. Between 1995 and 1997, assaults rose 39 per cent, robberies rose 65 per cent, household break-ins rose 30 per cent and motor vehicle thefts rose 18 per cent (Doak 2000). These increases generated considerable public concern, especially as they were much more pronounced in New South Wales than in any other Australian State (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1998; 1996). Public concern about crime in New South Wales was further exacerbated by the fact that a Royal Commission of Inquiry during the second half of the 1990s had revealed evidence of polic