Hot Spots Policing Research Articles

Hot spots policing and crime prevention: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Crime scholars and practitioners have argued that police actions should be focused on high-risk crime places rather than spread thinly across the urban landscape. This review examines five randomized controlled trials of the effects of concentrating police enforcement efforts on crime hot spots. The findings of these evaluations suggest that focused police actions can prevent crime and disorder in crime hot spots. A meta-analysis of the effect sizes from the five experiments reveals a statistically significant mean effect size for hot spots policing interventions; this suggests overall reductions in citizen calls for service in the treatment hot spots relative to the control hot spots. These studies also suggest that focused police actions at specific locations do not necessarily result in crime displacement. Although these evaluations reveal that these programs work in preventing crime, additional research is needed to unravel other important policy-relevant issues such as community reaction to focused police enforcement efforts.

What Can Police Do to Reduce Crime, Disorder, and Fear?

The authors review research on police effectiveness in reducing crime, disorder, and fear in the context of a typology of innovation in police practices. That typology emphasizes two dimensions: one concerning the diversity of approaches, and the other, the level of focus. The authors find that little evidence supports the standard model of policing—low on both of these dimensions. In contrast, research evidence does support continued investment in police innovations that call for greater focus and tailoring of police efforts, combined with an expansion of the tool box of policing beyond simple law enforcement. The strongest evidence of police effectiveness in reducing crime and disorder is found in the case of geographically focused police practices, such as hot-spots policing. Community policing practices are found to reduce fear of crime, but the authors do not find consistent evidence that community policing (when it is implemented without models of problem-oriented policing) affects either crime or disorder. A developing body of evidence points to the effectiveness of problemoriented policing in reducing crime, disorder, and fear. More generally, the authors find that many policing practices applied broadly throughout the United States either have not been the subject of systematic research or have been examined in the context of research designs that do not allow practitioners or policy makers to draw very strong conclusions.