Data-Informed and Place-Based Violent Crime Prevention: The Kansas City, Missouri Risk-Based Policing Initiative

The Kansas City, Missouri Police Department sought to reduce violent crime with an evidence-based approach to problem analysis and intervention planning. Informed by hot spot analysis and risk terrain modeling, police and their community partners implemented a place-based crime intervention program focused on key attractors and generators of the environmental backcloth. Target and comparison areas were selected for an outcome evaluation. During the 1-year program time period, violent crimes decreased significantly by over 22%. There was both a significant spatial diffusion of benefits and significantly fewer police officer-initiated actions resulting in arrests or citations. Crime prevention was achieved without an abundance of law enforcement actions against people located at the target areas. Implications for policy and practice are discussed within the contexts of police responses to urgent crime problems and data analytics.

The Diffusion of Detriment: Tracking Displacement Using a City-Wide Mixed Methods Approach

Crime reduction strategies are often faced with the criticism of crime displacement. Conversely, criminologists find that reductions in crime in one area have a ‘diffusion of benefits’ to surrounding areas. However, these findings are limited due to a lack of extensive longitudinal data and qualitative data that provide context. We examine a natural experiment in displacement: the removal of a convergence setting in which calls for service immediately declined. However, other areas emerged as problematic and, in some places, crime increased dramatically. Using a qualitatively informed trajectory analysis, we examine whether the removal of a convergence setting results in displacement across the entire city. We discuss the implications for opportunity theories and prevention strategies.

Reducing Assaults Against Staff Using Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) in Railway Stations

Workplace violence is a major health and safety phenomenon. We investigate whether body-worn cameras (BWCs) can achieve a cost-effective reduction of assaults. We conducted a randomized controlled trial with train stations exposed to the highest recorded assault rates against staff in England and Wales. Treatment members of staff were equipped with BWCs and control staff were unexposed to BWCs. Official records of assaults against treatment and control staff as well as against any employee at the station complexes are used as outcome measures. Results suggest 47% significant overall reduction in the odds of assaults against BWCs-equipped staff at treatment versus controls locations—or approximately two versus four assaults, on average, per station. In addition, we found a 26% significant reduction in assaults against all employees in the treatment versus control station complexes—9 versus 12 assaults, on average, per station—suggesting that BWCs have a spatial diffusion of benefits effects. We estimate that BWCs can reduce at least 3,000 working days per year lost because of physical violence at work. We conclude that BWCs provide substantial benefits for staff health and safety to those who are equipped with the devices as well as to staff in the vicinity of BWC-equipped employees.

Macro-brothels as crime attractors: Impact of closure, displacement, and diffusion of benefits

Efforts made at preventing prostitution – and any associated crime and disorder – are sometimes undermined by assumptions the problem will likely displace elsewhere. This study measures changes in local crime rates following the closure of two macro-brothels in Castelldefels, a town in the greater metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain. The closures were complemented by a local ordinance aimed at preventing spatial displacement. Weighted displacement quotients indicated that the modest crime reductions observed in the treatment area (immediately around the macro-brothels) did not displace to the buffer area (the rest of the town); instead, a diffusion of benefits was observed, whereby crime reductions were also observed in the buffer area. The implications of the findings for criminological theory, policy and practice are discussed.

Offender and family member perceptions after an offender-focused hot spots policing strategy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how both offenders and their families perceived their interactions with police and whether there were negative consequences of the offender-focused strategy that was implemented in a hot spots policing experiment. Design/methodology/approach Data from interviews of 32 offenders and 29 family members are examined qualitatively for themes to evaluate how the strategy was carried out and how it impacted offenders’ behavior and both groups’ perceptions of the police detectives and the strategy overall. Findings The results show that there was overwhelming agreement by both offenders and their family members that the police detectives who contacted them treated both groups with dignity and respect. After the contact was over, the offenders appeared to commit less crime, followed probation more closely, and had positive feelings about what the police detectives were trying to do. Improvement of the offenders’ relationships with their families was an unanticipated finding indicating a diffusion of benefits of the strategy. Practical implications The results suggest that when procedural justice principles are used in an offender-focused police intervention, positive impact can be achieved without negative consequences. Originality/value This is a rare example of an in-depth evaluation of the perceptions of offenders and family members contacted through a hot spots policing offender-focused strategy.

Hot Spots Policing

Since the 1980s, the nature of policing has expanded beyond a person-focused approach to include a location-based approach. Recently developed proactive policing strategies that are concerned with the geographic distribution and explanation of crime include hot spots policing and community policing, and oftentimes problem-oriented policing, broken windows policing, third-party policing, and focused deterrence strategies. Hot spots policing entails focusing police efforts at crime prevention in a very small geographic area where crime concentrates. This strategy is one of only a few policing strategies grounded in both theory and research. Crime concentrates at places even more than it concentrates in people. Research in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the 1980s demonstrated that 60 percent of the crime occurs at 6 percent of places (see Sherman, et al. 1989, cited under Theory and Basis of Hot Spots Policing). Place-based theories about routine activities and rational choice have led to deterrence-based strategies such as directed patrol, crackdowns, and other traditional approaches to hot spots policing, as well as more community-oriented, problem-solving, and situational crime prevention approaches at crime hot spots. Hot spots policing is one of few areas in criminal justice research that has been tested using randomized controlled trials, a gold standard for research. Several systematic reviews suggest that focusing police efforts in a small geographic area reduces crime. Furthermore, research on displacement and diffusion of benefits suggests that hot spots policing does not merely geographically displace crime. In fact, nearby places may experience a diffusion of crime benefits. Only a few studies have examined the noncrime impacts of hot spots policing, but these suggest that it does not harm public perceptions of police and may even promote informal social control. Cost-effectiveness analyses have been partially used to assess the relative costs and outcomes of hot spot policing interventions. Additionally, existing research has suggested the crime harm index (CHI) for assessing the crime impact of hot spot policing interventions. Several data sources are available from past National Institute of Justice–funded studies on hot spots of crime and hot spots policing.