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6 The Effectiveness of Police Activities in Reducing Crime, Disorder, and Fear
Pages 217-251

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From page 217...
... This body of research is the main concern of this chapter. It is important to note at the outset that the committee recognizes that other mechanisms, both within and outside law enforcement, play a role in addressing these concerns.
From page 218...
... These and other understudied police activities warrant serious and sustained research. In this chapter we review a large of body of research on police using a very specific criterion: How effective are police strategies at reducing crime, disorder, and fear of crime?
From page 219...
... Policing experiments mostly compare a new or innovative program or strategy with traditional police practices. Another class of studies, referred to here as quasi-experiments, typically allow for less confidence in making a link between the programs or strategies examined and the outcomes observed (Cook and Campbell, 1979)
From page 220...
... Rather, researchers observe natural variation in outcomes and examine the relationships between that variation and police practices. For example, when trying to determine if police staffing levels influence crime, researchers might examine the relationship between staffing levels and crime rates across cities.
From page 221...
... While it is generally recognized that randomized experiments have higher internal validity than nonrandomized studies, a number of scholars have suggested that the results of randomized field experiments can be compromised by the difficulty of implementing such designs (Clarke and Cornish, 1972; Pawson and Tilly, 1997)
From page 222...
... It is also important to point out that evaluations of police tactics to reduce crime and disorder often involve comparisons of areas receiving varying levels of the tactic in question. Evaluations based on spatial comparisons must account for complex spatial dependencies.
From page 223...
... Despite the continued reliance of many police agencies on these standard practices, the evidence the committee re viewed suggests that such approaches are generally not the most effec tive strategy for controlling crime and disorder or reducing fear of crime. Over the past two decades, there has been increasing criticism of what has come to be considered the standard model of police practices (Goldstein, 1990; Visher and Weisburd, 1998)
From page 224...
... . This model has also been criticized because of its almost sole reliance on the traditional law enforcement powers of police in preventing crime (Moore et al., 1992)
From page 225...
... In policing it is common for police agencies to increase and redeploy officer strength as they also change policing strategies. New York City in the 1990s is a recent example of this (McDonald, 2001)
From page 226...
... Rapid Response to Calls for Service A third component of the standard model of policing, rapid response to emergency calls for service, has also not been shown to reduce crime or even lead to increased chances of arrest in most situations. The crime reduction assumption behind rapid response is that if the police get to crime scenes rapidly they will apprehend offenders, thus providing a general deterrent against crime; there are no studies of the effects of this strategy on disorder or fear of crime.
From page 227...
... . Another example of the standard model of policing assumes that general improvements in police investigations to improve the rate at which crimes are solved will prevent future crime.
From page 228...
... Generally Applied Intensive Enforcement and Arrests Tough law enforcement strategies have long been a staple of police crime-fighting. We review three broad areas of intensive enforcement within the standard model: disorder policing, generalized field interrogations and traffic enforcement, and mandatory and preferred arrest policies in domestic violence.
From page 229...
... In the late 1990s, the role of intensive enforcement strategies in reducing crime became particularly contentious. Crime statistics in New York City, in particular, have been used as evidence for the effectiveness of this approach (Karmen, 2000; Harcourt, 2001)
From page 230...
... . Others have argued that crime was already falling before the implementation of intensive enforcement activities in New York, suggesting that the trend of declining crime rates was not the result of police reform efforts after 1993 (Eck and Maguire, 2000; Joanes, 2001)
From page 231...
... Consistent with the standard model of policing, these laws apply to all cities in a state, in all areas of the cities, for all kinds of offenders and situations. Some research on mandatory arrest for
From page 232...
... Because community policing involves so many different tactics, its effect as a general strategy cannot be directly evaluated. Some com munity policing strategies appear to reduce crime, disorder, or fear of crime.
From page 233...
... While the standard model of policing has relied primarily on the resources of the police and its traditional law enforcement powers, community policing suggests a reliance on a more community-based crime control that draws not only on the resources of the police but also on the resources of the public. Community policing programs, such as neighborhood watch, general foot patrol, storefront offices, and community meetings have not been found to reduce crime, although storefront offices and community meetings may
From page 234...
... He concludes that neither neighborhood watch nor community organizing more generally reduces crime. On average the studies reviewed do not show statistically significant crime reductions.
From page 235...
... FOCUSED POLICING EFFORTS Proposition 3: There has been increasing interest over the past two decades in police practices that target very specific types of crimes, criminals, and crime places. In particular, policing crime hot spots has become a common police strategy for reducing crime and disorder prob lems.
From page 236...
... . In a more recent Police Foundation study, more than 7 in 10 departments with more than 100 sworn officers reported using crimemapping to identify crime hot spots (Weisburd, Greenspan, and Mastrofski, 2001)
From page 237...
... This absence of spatial displacement is consistent with more general reviews of the displacement research. Spatial displacement in response to targeted crime prevention efforts has not been found to be common, and when it occurs it is less than the overall crime reduction effect (Cornish and Clarke, 1986; Barr and Pease, 1990; Eck, 1993; Clarke and Weisburd, 1994; Hesseling, 1994)
From page 238...
... The study found that the experimental compared with the control hot spots experienced statistically significant reductions in crime calls. These differences were of moderate size and were largest when disorder-related calls were examined.
From page 239...
... In the Jersey City Drug Hot Spots Experiment (Weisburd and Green, 1995a) , hot-spots-specific tactics were found to be more effective at reducing disorder at drug places than was generalized enforcement.
From page 240...
... Focusing on Specific Types of Offenders A number of scholars have suggested that policies directed at specific types of offenders will be more effective than generalized enforcement strategies described earlier under Proposition 1 (Farrington, Ohlin, and Wilson, 1986)
From page 241...
... It is important to note, however, that these evaluations have examined the apprehension effectiveness of repeat offender programs. These are only indirect examinations of their effect on reducing crime, and conclusions about their crime reduction effectiveness rely on ancillary assumptions about the effectiveness of selective incarceration and incapacitation.
From page 242...
... They both may independently choose to do this because they both understand the negative consequences that arrest may have on continued employment. Overall, these studies suggest that there may be an important interaction between the nature of offenders and the effects of police practices.
From page 243...
... His proposal challenged the one size fits all approach of standard models of policing, replacing it with an approach focused on specific problems, and looked to the development of tailor-made police practices to address such problems. Importantly, his approach also demanded that the police focus more attention on the ends of policing.
From page 244...
... Nevertheless, it is important to answer two questions: Does the application of problem solving actually reduce problems? Is this application more effective than other police activities?
From page 245...
... In a randomized trial with Jersey City violent crime hot spots, Braga et al.
From page 246...
... Furthermore, it has a very high level of generalizability. CONCLUSION We have reviewed the literature of research on the effectiveness of police practices in controlling crime, disorder and fear in the context of four broad propositions: Proposition 1: The standard model of policing has relied on the uniform provision of police resources intended to prevent crime and disorder across a wide array of crimes and across all parts of the jurisdictions that police serve.
From page 247...
... The second dimension represents the extent of focus or targeting of police activities. Strategies that are focused on specific places or that are tailor made to respond to specific types of problems, are high on
From page 248...
... The standard model provides a common set of services throughout a jurisdiction. Police agencies using the standard model employ a limited range of approaches, overwhelmingly oriented toward enforcement, and make relatively little use of institutions outside policing (with the notable exception of other parts of the criminal justice system)
From page 249...
... This synthesis is found in Table 6-1. It is the committee's judgment, based on our review, that the standard model of policing, represented in the lower left corner of the table, which draws on generally applied tactics and uses primarily the law enforcement powers of the police, has generally not been found to be effective either in reducing crime or disorder or TABLE 6-1 Synthesis of the Committee's Findings on Police Effectiveness Research Police Strategies That...
From page 250...
... Indeed, studies that focused police resources on crime hot spots provide the strongest collective evidence of police effectiveness that is now available. On the basis of a series of randomized experimental studies, we conclude that the practice described as hot-spots policing is effective in reducing crime and disorder and can achieve these reductions without significant displacement of crime control benefits.
From page 251...
... These promising themes form a primary focus of discussion in Chapter 8. There is greater and more consistent evidence, although it is based primarily on nonexperimental studies, that focused strategies drawing on a wide array of nonlaw enforcement tactics can also be effective in reducing crime and disorder.


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