Crime hotspots account for over 50% of requests for police assistance, therefore focusing policing efforts on these locations should have a significant negative impact on criminal activity. Towards this goal, residual deterrence can be created by police drive-bys and a police presence lasting between 10 to 15 minutes. Such strategies represent the contribution that problem- and evidence-based policing can offer, but significant obstacles prevent widespread acceptance of such approaches. These obstacles represent not only police and organizational culture, but also community and policymaker expectations concerning the nature of good policing. The way forward will require engaging all of these disparate entities by researchers, in order to bring policing methods up to date locally.
Criminal Justice Management
Mapping Crime Hotspots to Deter Crime
Reducing crime is a constant concern of law enforcement and community leaders. Police strategies for reducing crime rely heavily on deterrence, in the form of police patrols (reviewed by Koper, 1995, p. 649-650). Research has shown that a police presence reminds offenders and potential offenders of the certainty of punishment, which is a more effective deterrent than the promised severity of a punishment. The findings from early studies on the effectiveness of police patrols as a crime deterrent were mixed, but with publication of a well-controlled Kansas City study in 1986 the debate moved on to what factors influence the deterrence effect.
Of the variables that have been found to influence criminal activity, geographic location stands out (Koper, 1995, p. 652). A study done in Minneapolis revealed that just 3.3% of the city's addresses and intersections accounted for over 50% of the requests for police help. These 'hotspots' for criminal activity included those where serious crimes occurred, such as robbery, criminal sexual assault, and auto theft. By focusing preventive policing efforts on hotspots, deterrence would be predicted to have the greatest impact.
Another variable suspected of influencing the deterrence effect is disorder, in the form of behavior and the physical appearance of the location (Koper, 1995, p. 651). For example, broken windows, boarded up buildings, and graffiti has been suggested to foster the perception of a lack of safety and high crime. Such locations are believed to foster certain behaviors related to disordered locations, such as vagrancy, panhandling, vandalism, drunkenness, drug use, and prostitution. When researchers examined robbery data for several neighborhoods, they found that disorder provided an indirect link between crime prevalence and economic/social decay.
Residual Deterrence
The effectiveness of a police presence in reducing crime has been well established, but the variables that influence the magnitude of the effect are still being worked out. Of primary concern is how long the effect lasts after the police have left the area (Koper, 1995, p. 658). This 'residual' deterrence effect is defined as criminal activity remaining below normal levels after police have left the area. An initial analysis of the Minneapolis data revealed that disorder and criminal behavior decreased by 25 and 65%, respectively, immediately after the police had left the area.
To further define the parameters of residual deterrence, Koper (1995) analyzed the Minneapolis data to uncover what length of time a police presence had to persist in order to provide the maximum deterrence effect. Excluded from the data were instances when a disturbance elicited a police response (Koper, 1995, p. 661). The average length of time that a police presence had to persist to produce the maximum residual deterrence effect was 14 to 15 minutes (Koper, 1995, p. 664). The effectiveness is quite substantial; reducing the probability of a disorder occurring to about 4%, 30 minutes after the police had left the area.
If the time the police remained in the area was grouped into 1 to 5 minutes, 6 to 10 minutes, 11 to 15 minutes, or 16-20 minutes, only a stay of 11 to 15 minutes produced a significant (p < 0.01) residual deterrence effect (Koper, 1995, p. 663). The magnitude of the effect was a 388% increase over the residual deterrence effect of a police drive-by (zero minutes). However, a 1 to 5-minute police presence produced a worse outcome compared to drive-bys and the other time groups were not significantly different.
An interesting result from this study is that drive-bys alone are very effective in producing a residual deterrence effect. For example, 10 minutes after a drive-by the chances that a disorder would occur is just 6.5%, and at 30 minutes, 16%. Drive-bys are more effective than a police presence lasting 1 to 5 minutes and similarly effective to police presences lasting 6 to 10 or 16 to 20 minutes.
Discussion
Koper's (1995) research reveals how residual deterrence, caused by a police presence unrelated to a disturbance, can reduce the prevalence of disorder in crime hotspots. Disorder is used as an outcome measure, in part because the number of crimes in the data was too few to provide sufficient statistical power, and because research findings have suggested that disorder provides a link between social/economic decay and criminal activity. Despite this limitation, the above findings reveal that drive-bys and a police presence lasting between 11 and 15 minutes provides a significant residual deterrence effect lasting at least 30 minutes. Whether the crime was displaced to another location could not be determined from this analysis.
Based on the conclusions drawn from a recent study examining the nature of policing research, in terms of its rigor and predictive potential, the focusing of police patrols on hotspots is one of the best-validated, evidence-based policing strategies in existence (Lunn, Koper, and Telep, 2011, p. 6-7). This conclusion is consistent with findings that suggest policing strategies are most effective when focused, proactive, and place-based. The focus of the hotspot research study was disorder deterrence caused by a short-term police presence. It was proactive because it relied on historical crime and disorder data to assess strategies designed to prevent future crime. It was place-based because it focused on intersections or addresses as disorder/crime hotspots.
Using the policing strategies recommended by these studies, the aftermath of the media storm surrounding the Hayley Scott murder (Sparrow, 2009) should be handled in a focused and proactive manner. Although the Hayley Scott had a history of complaints about a stalker, no definitive descriptions were reported that could provide the investigators with a reasonable lead. The murder occurred at an interstate rest stop and could therefore have been a random event by someone traveling through the area. In support of this possibility, Hayley Scott never reported any death threats arising from the stalking activity. The 61 women, who reported that they suspected they were being stalked as well, filed these reports only after the media storm about the unsolved murder. In addition, as a group they could provide no specifics about their stalkers. In the absence of any solid leads, Lunn and colleagues (2011) would probably recommend that the Heron Police Department focus on historical hotspots for sexual assault and murder. For example, the interstate rest stop would probably qualify as a hotspot by virtue of the Hayley Scott murder and random drive-bys or a police presence lasting 14 to 15 minutes would be recommended.
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