Modelling policing strategies for departments with limited resources

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEJANDRO CAMACHO ◽  
HYE RIN LINDSAY LEE ◽  
LAURA M. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Major Goal ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Police Visibility ◽  
The City ◽  
Viable Method

Crime prevention is a major goal of law-enforcement agencies. Often, these agencies have limited resources and officers available for patrolling and responding to calls. However, patrolling and police visibility can influence individuals to not perform criminal acts. Therefore, it is necessary for the police to optimize their patrolling strategies to deter the most crime. Previous studies have created agent-based models to simulate criminal and police agents interacting in a city, indicating a “cops on the dots” strategy as a viable method to mitigate large amounts of crime. Unfortunately, police departments cannot allocate all of the patrolling officers to seek out these hotspots, particularly since they are not immediately known. In large cities, it is often necessary to keep a few officers in different areas of the city, frequently divided up into beats. Officers need to respond to calls, possibly not of a criminal nature. Therefore, we modify models for policing to account for these factors. Through testing the policing strategies for various hotspot types and number of police agents, we found that the methods that performed the best varied greatly according to these factors.

Motivations for Police Support of Domestic Violence Response Team Implementation With Advocates

2020 ◽  
pp. 107780122093082
Author(s):  
Laura Johnson ◽  
Elisheva Davidoff ◽  
Abigail R. DeSilva
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Perceived Benefits ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Serious Crime ◽  
Response Team ◽  
Domestic Violence Organizations

In New Jersey, collaboration between police departments and advocates from domestic violence organizations is mandated by state policy, which requires law enforcement agencies to participate in domestic violence response teams (DVRTs). The purpose of this study is to examine factors that motivate police officers to implement DVRT. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with DVRT coordinators and domestic violence liaison police officers. Findings suggest that police motivation for implementing the intervention is often influenced by perceived benefits to police response and investigation, perceived benefits to victims, the need to comply with mandates, and recognition of domestic violence as a serious crime.

Identification of operational demand in law enforcement agencies

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcio Pereira Basilio ◽  
Valdecy Pereira ◽  
Gabrielle Brum
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
Knowledge Discovery ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Government ◽  
The City

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for knowledge discovery in emergency response service databases based on police occurrence reports, generating information to help law enforcement agencies plan actions to investigate and combat criminal activities. Design/methodology/approach The developed model employs a methodology for knowledge discovery involving text mining techniques and uses latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) with collapsed Gibbs sampling to obtain topics related to crime. Findings The method used in this study enabled identification of the most common crimes that occurred in the period from 1 January to 31 December of 2016. An analysis of the identified topics reaffirmed that crimes do not occur in a linear manner in a given locality. In this study, 40 per cent of the crimes identified in integrated public safety area 5, or AISP 5 (the historic centre of the city of RJ), had no correlation with AISP 19 (Copacabana – RJ), and 33 per cent of the crimes in AISP 19 were not identified in AISP 5. Research limitations/implications The collected data represent the social dynamics of neighbourhoods in the central and southern zones of the city of Rio de Janeiro during the specific period from January 2013 to December 2016. This limitation implies that the results cannot be generalised to areas with different characteristics. Practical implications The developed methodology contributes in a complementary manner to the identification of criminal practices and their characteristics based on police occurrence reports stored in emergency response databases. The generated knowledge enables law enforcement experts to assess, reformulate and construct differentiated strategies for combating crimes in a given locality. Social implications The production of knowledge from the emergency service database contributes to the government integrating information with other databases, thus enabling the improvement of strategies to combat local crime. The proposed model contributes to research on big data, on the innovation aspect and on decision support, for it breaks with a paradigm of analysis of criminal information. Originality/value The originality of the study lies in the integration of text mining techniques and LDA to detect crimes in a given locality on the basis of the criminal occurrence reports stored in emergency response service databases.

The Criminal Law and Law Enforcement Implications of Big Data

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 293-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Brayne
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Big Data Analytics ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Legal Responses

Law enforcement agencies increasingly use big data analytics in their daily operations. This review outlines how police departments leverage big data and new surveillant technologies in patrol and investigations. It distinguishes between directed surveillance—which involves the surveillance of individuals and places under suspicion—and dragnet surveillance—which involves suspicionless, unparticularized data collection. Law enforcement's adoption of big data analytics far outpaces legal responses to the new surveillant landscape. Therefore, this review highlights open legal questions about data collection, suspicion requirements, and police discretion. It concludes by offering suggestions for future directions for researchers and practitioners.

Design Considerations in the Proliferation of Police Body-Worn Cameras

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Joel Suss ◽  
Alexis Raushel ◽  
Adam Armijo ◽  
Brian White
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Data Transfer ◽  
Automatic Detection ◽  
Biometric Identification ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Design Considerations ◽  
Concealed Weapons

More and more police departments are equipping their officers with body-worn cameras. To maximize the utility of body cams, designers have considered issues such as camera-mounting position, camera-mount stability, methods of activation, and data transfer methods. The human factors/ergonomics community can make important contributions to the design of body-worn cameras and identify and address issues that could arise from the introduction of new technologies (e.g., biometric identification and automatic detection of concealed weapons). Engaging with this ever-expanding technology will benefit law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve and protect.

scholarly journals Changes in Police Calls for Service During the Early Months of the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew P J Ashby
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Calls For Service ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Multiple Challenges ◽  
Service Data

Abstract The coronavirus pandemic poses multiple challenges for policing, including the need to continue responding to calls from the public. Several contingency plans warned police to expect a large and potentially overwhelming increase in demand from the public during a pandemic, but (to the author’s knowledge) there is no empirical work on police demand during a major public health emergency. This study used calls-for-service data from 10 large cities in the USA to analyse how calls for service changed during the early months of the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, compared to forecasts of call volume based on data from previous years. Contrary to previous warnings, overall the number of calls went down during the early weeks of the pandemic. There were substantial reductions in specific call types, such as traffic collisions, and significant increases in others, such as calls to dead bodies. Other types of calls, particularly those relating to crime and order maintenance, continued largely as before. Changes in the frequency of different call types present challenges to law enforcement agencies, particularly since many will themselves be suffering from reduced staffing due to the pandemic. Understanding changes to calls in detail will allow police leaders to put in place evidence-based plans to ensure they can continue to serve the public.

De-Policing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rushin ◽  
Griffin Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Mandated Reform ◽  
External Regulation ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Growing Pains ◽  
Law Enforcement Leaders

102 Cornell Law Review 721 (2017)Critics have long claimed that when the law regulates police behavior it inadvertently reduces officer aggressiveness, thereby increasing crime. This hypothesis has taken on new significance in recent years as prominent politicians and law enforcement leaders have argued that increased oversight of police officers in the wake of the events in Ferguson, Missouri has led to an increase in national crime rates. Using a panel of American law enforcement agencies and difference-in-difference regression analyses, this Article tests whether the introduction of public scrutiny or external regulation is associated with changes in crime rates. To do this, this Article relies on an original dataset of all police departments that have been subject to federally mandated reform under 42 U.S.C. § 14141 — the most invasive form of modern American police regulation. This Article finds that the introduction of § 14141 regulation was associated with a statistically significant uptick in some crime rates, relative to unaffected municipalities. This uptick in crime was concentrated in the years immediately after federal intervention and diminished over time. This finding suggests that police departments may expe- rience growing pains when faced with external regulation.

Racial Discrimination in Urban Police Departments

1975 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Rafky
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Principal Finding ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Emotional Issue

The highly emotional issue of racial discrimination in hiring by law enforcement agencies is examined. Circumstances that make this topic both salient and problematic are discussed, and a conceptual model is presented which outlines barriers to the em ployment of blacks in predominantly white police departments. Barriers are classified according to purpose (whether intentional or unintentional) and location (within the individual police officer, the law enforcement organization, or other social institution). The literature concerning all these obstacles is reviewed and data are presented which bear on one phase of this model—namely, barriers that are unintentional and departmental. The principal finding is that white officers, irrespective of racial beliefs, are un willing to relinquish certain role behaviors to black officers.

scholarly journals Personnel support of the police of the Irkutsk province during the period of anti-Bolshevik power in 1918–1919

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Vladimir Sinichenko ◽  
Dmitriy Kaveckiy
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
The Public ◽  
Material Supply ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
The Subject

The article aims to study the activities of the police of the Irkutsk province during the Civil War. The object of the study in the article was the units of the people’s (civilian) police, created in early March 1917 and acting on the basis of the Regulation adopted on April 17, 1917 by the Provisional Government. On October 28 (November 10), 1917, the PKIB of the RSFSR issued a new decree «On the Workers’ Police», but after the overthrow of Soviet power in the summer of 1918 in the east of the country, the eastern regions returned to the Regulation of April 17. The functioning of the police in 1918–1919, based on the principles of the Provisional Government and became the object of analysis in this work. The subject of the study is the personnel work carried out during this period in the law enforcement agencies of the Baikal region. Along with general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction etc.), the work used problem-chronological and comparative methods that revealed the dynamics of historical events in Eastern Siberia, their impact on politics, on decision-making, and revealed similarities and differences in the forms, organization and manifestation of police actions operating in eastern Russia in the indicated historical period of time. It is concluded that the activities of the authorities of the Irkutsk province to recruit police units were unskilled. Of course, leaders at various levels, to the extent of their limited resources, tried to strengthen the public order authorities, but the lack of systemic organization of law enforcement work had a negative impact on the activities of the police. Neither the Omsk government, nor the civilian and military authorities of the Irkutsk province, could provide at the proper level not the material supply of the police, nor its personnel support. As a result, the police of the Irkutsk province not only did not defend the authorities against the Bolsheviks, but also could not cope with the functions of law enforcement. The increase in criminal criminality in 1918 and 1919 is recorded by all printed publications of the Irkutsk province of that time, as well as statistical reports of the provincial police.

Variability in the Use of Misdemeanor Arrests by Police Agencies From 1990 to 2013: An Application of Group-Based Trajectory Modeling

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 536-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Lum ◽  
Heather Vovak
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Trajectory Modeling ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Zero Tolerance Policing

Arrest for minor offenses has become one tool that some police departments employ to fight crime and disorder in their jurisdictions. Dubbed by some as “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” policing, a few police agencies in the 1990s and 2000s notably and significantly increased their use of arrest for such misdemeanors, such as New York City and Baltimore. But was this the case for other law enforcement agencies in the United States? Our analysis is the first to examine long-term trends in the use of misdemeanor arrests in a sample of U.S. law enforcement agencies using group-based trajectory modeling. Results show that police agencies have distinct longitudinal patterns of use of arrests for minor crimes from 1990 to 2013; some agencies significantly increased their use of arrests for minor crimes while others did not. Further analysis of possible explanations for agency membership in any given longitudinal trajectory found that agencies with similar patterns in their use of misdemeanor arrests were not similar on demographic or crime characteristics. This finding suggests that the decision to increase the use of arrest for minor offenses may have been a policy choice by agencies influenced by factors not detected here.

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