Program Profile: Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment: Offender-Focused Policing

This is a proactive, hot spots policing tactic that focuses attention on people who have been convicted of violent offenses operating in neighborhoods with high violent-crime rates. The program is rated Effective. Hot spots that received the treatment reported statistically significantly fewer violent crimes and violent felonies relative to the control areas. However, citizens’ perceptions of crime and safety were not impacted by the intervention.

An Effective rating implies that implementing the program is likely to result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals

The Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment was a randomized controlled field experiment that tested three approaches to hot spots policing: offender-focused (OF) policing, foot patrol, and problem-oriented policing. OF policing is a deterrence-based strategy targeting high-risk persons. OF policing’s main goal is to reduce violence by increasing the risk of apprehension for an area’s most individuals. Targeted persons were identified by intelligence analysts based on data from several police departments. This tactic was implemented in 20 violent crime hot spots in Philadelphia, as part of a field experiment testing different policing tactics in small, high-crime areas.

Target Population

Offender-focused policing targets people who have been repeatedly convicted of violent offenses. During the Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment, individuals identified for increased police attention had long criminal histories. In addition, there was intelligence that suggested the identified people continued to engage in crimes and were active in criminal networks.

Program Activities

In Philadelphia, police departments collaborated with intelligence analysts from the Central Intelligence Unit to identify people who have been repeatedly convicted of violent offenses residing in violent hot spots. Analysts followed the tenets of intelligence-led policing, using data from multiple districts to compile a list of the highly active persons living in or committing crimes in designated hot spots.

The selected individuals were subjected to increased police attention, including proactive questioning and surveillance. Officers assigned to OF policing aggressively patrolled the identified hot spots and made frequent contacts with the prolific persons. The contacts ranged from making small talk with the known individuals to serving arrest warrants if the target individuals committed crimes. Some OF officers collaborated with local beat officers as well. In addition, some districts used flat-screen televisions in roll-call rooms to display photos and convey other intelligence on the target individuals to all law enforcement personnel in the district.

Key Personnel

OF policing involves collaboration between police departments and intelligence analysts. In Philadelphia, departments from neighboring districts contribute crime data to identify the most prolific persons committing violent crimes in any part of the city. Additionally, officers assigned to patrol the violent crime hot spots and contact target individuals are members of the tactical operations squad. Officers assigned to the OF teams were known to be proactive, and they were exempt from answering radio calls while they were focused on monitoring the identified persons.

Program Theory

OF policing is based on deterrence theory, which argues that swift, certain, and severe sanctions can deter crime. Increasing police attention toward certain prolific individuals increases their actual and perceived risk of apprehension should they commit a crime, and therefore discourages such behavior. This method of policing is based on the idea that a small number of highly active individuals is usually responsible for a large proportion of crime. In addition, focusing on high-crime areas allows police departments to allocate resources to areas that yield the most potential gains (Ratcliffe 2008; Groff et al. 2014; Kennedy 1997).

Study 1

Groff and colleagues (2015) evaluated offender-focused (OF) policing as part of the Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment. The study involved evaluations of three tactical approaches employed in the experiment: foot patrol, problem-oriented policing, and OF policing. As part of the experiment, intelligence analysts identified 81 violent-crime hot spots within Philadelphia, and police commanders determined which one of the three tactical approaches would be most appropriate to employ at each hot spot. Commanders chose 27 hot spots for each of the three interventions. Hot spots in each of these groups were randomly assigned to treatment and control categories. With regard to the OF policing approach, 20 hot spots received OF policing for 12 weeks and seven hot spots served as control areas. These control areas received no additional police attention and officers patrolled as usual. The treatment and control areas were equivalent at baseline due to the randomization procedure.

The primary outcome of interest was change in violent crime during the intervention period, which was examined using repeated-measures multilevel models, controlling for seasonality and the size of the hot spot. Contrast coding was used to examine crime rates during the intervention period rather than before or after the tactics were instituted. Violent crime was measured in two ways: violent felonies and all violent crimes. Violent crimes included all homicides, robberies, and aggravated assaults (simple assaults were excluded). The Philadelphia Police Department provided official data on the number of violent crimes biweekly during the study period. Spatial displacement of violent crimes in areas surrounding the treatment hot spots was also measured.

Study 2

Ratcliffe and colleagues (2015) examined the extent to which the Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment (which included OF policing) influenced citizens’ perceptions of the police. The researchers administered mail surveys 90 days before the tactics were implemented and 90 days afterwards. The surveys gauged how OF policing, foot patrol, and problem-oriented policing altered perceptions of crime, safety, disorder, and satisfaction with the police in the 81 hot spots.

Any taxable residence within the hot spot was eligible to receive the survey. With regard to OF policing specifically, 1,830 surveys were sent to addresses in the 20 OF hot spots, as well as 1,855 surveys to residents in the control areas. A total of 152 surveys from OF hot spots and 159 from control areas were returned before the policing tactics were implemented. Post-intervention, 160 surveys were returned from the OF hot spots and 177 from control areas, amounting to a response rate of 9 percent. Due to high non-response bias, citizens who returned the surveys were likely not representative of all citizens in the intervention and control areas. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were used to estimate the impact of the policing tactics on changes in community perceptions of crime, disorder, safety, and satisfaction with the police.

A limitation of this study was the inability to match survey responses to specific households before and after the policing tactics were implemented. The study authors suggested that it was unlikely that the responses were attained from the same residents at both times, making it difficult to know whether the dependent variables captured changes in perceptions or reflected the perceptions of two different groups at two different times.

The offender-focused (OF) component of the Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment was introduced during a meeting with the Philadelphia Police Department executive command staff, district commanders and officers assigned to implement OF strategies, the police department’s Central Intelligence Unit, and the research team.

To ensure that officers were complying with the OF components of the experiment, researchers viewed officers’ daily logs and incident reports to determine what activities they performed during the 12-week intervention. The incident reports provided lists of the people who have been repeatedly convicted of violent offenses that the officers were targeting and the number of times the targeted persons were questioned. The research team also observed officers and conducted interviews to obtain additional information on their activities (Groff et al. 2015).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Hot Spots Policing

Hot spots policing strategies focus on small geographic areas or places, usually in urban settings, where crime is concentrated. Through hot spots policing strategies, law enforcement agencies can focus limited resources in areas where crime is most likely to occur. This practice is rated Effective for reducing overall crime and rated Promising for reducing violent, property, public order, and drug and alcohol offenses.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types
	Crime & Delinquency - Violent offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Property offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Public order offenses
	Crime & Delinquency - Drug and alcohol offenses

Focused Deterrence Strategies

This practice (also referred to as “pulling-levers policing”) includes problem-oriented policing strategies that follow the core principles of deterrence theory. The strategies target specific criminal behavior committed by a small number of individuals who chronically commit offenses, such as youth gang members or those who repeatedly commit violent offenses, who are vulnerable to sanctions and punishment. The practice is rated Promising for reducing crime.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?