Effects of One-a-Day Foot Patrols on Hot Spots of Serious Violence and Crime Harm: a Randomised Crossover Trial

Research Question Does one foot patrol per day (15–20 min) conducted in serious violence harm spots reduce street-visible crime harm and frequency relative to no foot patrol in the same hot spots, and if so by how much? Data We identified 20 hot spots of 150m2 each on the basis of community violence defined as serious assaults, robbery, and drug dealing in the Southend-on-Sea area of Essex Police, with boundaries geo-fenced to collect GPS measures of foot patrol presence generated by hand-held electronic trackers issued to officers directed to perform patrols. All street-visible crimes were counted for each of the 90 days of the experiment in each hot spot. Methods Daily random assignment of each hot spot to either control or treatment conditions (N = 90 X 20 = 1800 place-days) prescribed 720 place-days to receive extra patrols by Operational Support Group officers, which were compared to 1080 place-days with no extra patrols, using an intent-to-treat design, with 98% compliance with assigned treatments. Independent measures of other police presence in the area were tracked by the force-wide GPS telematics measures. All crimes were coded with the Cambridge Crime Harm Index for their CHI value. Findings The 20 harm spots comprised just 2.6% of the geographical area of the Southend-on-Sea area, with 41% of all its Cambridge CHI crime harm in the year preceding the experiment. Background patrol presence was about 2 min per day on control days and 1 min per treatment day. Crime harm scores for serious community violence were 88.5% lower on experimental days with extra patrols (mean = 1.07 CHI per treatment place-day) than without it (mean = 9.30 CHI per control place-day). Crime harm scores for all street-visible offences were 35.6% lower on treatment days (mean = 7.94 CHI per treatment place-day) than control days (mean = 12.33 CHI per control place-day), while the mean count of all street-visible offences was 31% lower on treatment days (mean count = 0.09 crimes per treatment place-day) than on control days (mean count = 0.13 crimes per control place-day). The estimated effect of the 720 days with 15-min patrols was to prevent crimes with recommended imprisonment of 3161 days, or 8.66 years. Conclusion The use of two-officer foot patrol can be highly effective at preventing serious violence in street-visible settings in small areas in which such violence is heavily concentrated.

The Helicopter Pilot—Swedish Hot-Area Policing From Above

Hot spot policing is an established concept that is proven to reduce crime. It is mostly done through foot patrol or car patrols. In the present study it is tested whether helicopters can produce a deterrent policing effect to reduce the amount of vehicle arsons in Sweden on larger hot areas. Sweden tends to have elevated levels of vehicle arsons in August, with about 20% of police districts responsible for 50% of the cases. The risk narrative revolves around youth congregating in public places in deprived neighborhoods to generate disturbances, and the disruption of the risk narrative tested here is based on providing deterrence through helicopter police presence. During 6 weeks in August and September of 2019 police helicopters patrolled four police districts in Sweden to attempt to prevent vehicle arsons. Our data comprise police reports of vehicle arson, and time stamped satellite data over the location for police helicopters. The evaluation considers whether there is an intention to treat effect from this project, in addition to whether there is an effect of actual helicopter presence. The study finds no significant effect of intention to treat, nor of actual dosage.

The Effects of the Summer All Out Foot Patrol Initiative in New York City: A Difference-in-Differences Approach

Objectives: The New York City Police Department’s “Summer All Out” (SAO) initiative was a 90- day, presence-based foot patrol program in a subset of the city’s patrol jurisdictions. Methods: We assessed the effectiveness of SAO initiative in reducing crime and gun violence using a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach. Results: Results indicate the SAO initiative was only associated with significant reductions in specific property offenses, not violent crime rates. Foot patrols did not have a strong, isolating impact on violent street crime in 2014 or 2015. Deployments on foot across expansive geographies also has a weak, negligible influence on open-air shootings. Conclusions: The findings suggest saturating jurisdictions with high-visibility foot patrols has little influence on street-level offending, with no anticipatory or persistent effects. Police departments should exercise caution in deploying foot patrols over large patrol jurisdictions.

Cognitive Dominance: Soldiers and Systems That Outthink the Enemy

Cognitive dominance—the ability to quickly understand the unfolding battle and make correct decisions—is critical to winning modern military engagements. Whether it is fighter planes approaching each other at the speed of sound or a surprise ambush during an infantry foot patrol, combatants and their leaders must be better trained to make these life and death decisions. This chapter focuses on how the military has traditionally conceived of and trained these skills and how they may go about it more effectively in the future. Topics include the military decision-making process, situational awareness and how to train it, and intuition. Cognitive psychologists play a central role in understanding and training cognitive dominance. Emerging technologies that may aid in cognitive dominance are discussed.

Becoming a Police Community Support Officer and Being Institutionally Undermined

This chapter considers the process of becoming a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO), from deciding to apply for the position to the initial training experiences and the first few months of shadowing experienced colleagues on foot patrol. The focus of this chapter is on the relationship between the individual PCSOs and the police institution. It considers the stages of initiation into community policing which PCSOs experienced and how the organization failed to fully equip these new recruits with the ‘tools’ needed. While work as a PCSO initially was attractive to these individuals, the reality upon entering the occupation was that many were left to learn for themselves how to do the work. The organization did not give consistent messages in this regard or adequate support in order for them to learn in a formal capacity how to do the job: this process will be called ‘institutional undermining’.

The Spatial Effect of Police Foot Patrol on Crime Patterns: A Local Analysis

A foot patrol program was implemented in Lower Lonsdale, British Columbia, in the summer of 2010 and continues today. As a part of assessing the foot patrol’s effect on crime in the neighbourhood, the spatial similarity was examined by comparing the crime pattern before the foot patrol initiative (2007-2009) with the crime pattern during the foot patrol program (2010-2012). Considering these baseline and treatment data sets and a spatial point pattern test, the spatial similarity between two data sets is analyzed. In general, the continued presence of foot patrol appears to have created a concentration of crime in specific areas, rather than a diffusion effect. The areas that continued to experience increased crime during foot patrol presence were often in the catchment area, suggesting displacement does occur, or along the border between the catchment and primary patrol area.