S.A.R.A. The Problem Solving Process

S.A.R.A is the problem solving process used by law enforcement. There are four steps that are used in the problem solving process for law enforcement, which is where the S.A.R.A acronym come from. S stands for Scanning.  A stands for Analysis. R stands for response.  The last A stands for Assessment.

Scanning
Scanning is used by officers to identify problems.  One thing officers can do is to look for problems while they are on their shift.  A problem is usually when the same type of crime is committed in identical ways in a small area and would cause a concern for law enforcement or the public.  Officers can look for patterns in behavior, locations, people, times and events.

Analysis
Analysis is one of the most important steps in the problem solving process.  In the analysis step law enforcement breaks down the information they have obtained from scanning to figure out what the problem is and an effective way for dealing with the problem.  Analysis uses all of the different types of information they obtained to decide what would be the most effective path to take to combat the problem.

Response
After the problem has been correctly analyzed, the next step is to issue a response to the problem.  This sis the stage where law enforcement takes action against the problem in the hopes that it will fix the problem or incidents that are occurring.

Assessment
After the response has been issued the last stage in the S.A.R.A. problem solving process is the assessment of the response.  This is where law enforcement asses how effective their response to the situation was.  This allows law enforcement to determine if the method was effective or not and what they can change in the future.

As you can see each stage greatly relies on the stage before it to be effective.  The S.A.R.A problem solving process is an extremely effective tool in law enforcement's fight against crime.