Problem-oriented Policing

This program involves 15 minutes of police patrol in high-crime hot spots to reduce crime. The program is rated Promising. There were statistically significant reductions in reports of violent crimes and robbery and other crimes against personal victims in hot spots on treatment days, compared with control days.

This is a focused deterrence police strategy that was designed to reduce gang- and group-related violence in Detroit, Mich. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences found for weapons arrests or shooting victimizations for participants in two age groups (15–24 and 25–34). The program did show a statistically significant reduction in all arrests and violent arrests for individuals who attended the Detroit Ceasefire call-in meetings.

This program involved the use of a crime forecasting model to direct police patrol to dynamic hot spots to reduce crime. The program is rated Promising. There were statistically significant reductions in daily crime volume (specifically burglary, car theft, and burglary-theft from vehicle) for police patrols in the treatment condition, compared with patrols in the control condition.

This policing strategy was designed to deter crime on platforms in high-crime areas of the London Underground. The program is rated Promising. Platforms in the treatment areas had statistically significant reductions in calls for services and crime, relative to the control group, on patrol and nonpatrol days.

The program involved the use of hot-spots policing tactics in certain neighborhoods of Montevideo to reduce incidents of robbery. The program is rated Promising. Compared with the control group hot-spot areas, treatment group hot-spot areas that received increased police presence (in the form of foot patrol) experienced a statistically significant reduction in robbery.

This is a police-driven, collaborative, place-based crime-reduction approach focused on a target neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla. The program is rated Promising. The initiative resulted in statistically significant reductions in total crime in both areas of the target neighborhood at the two post-intervention periods and a statistically significant reduction in burglary in one area. There were no statistically significant reductions in disorderly offenses and mixed results on the number of assaults.

This is a parole-based, focused deterrence intervention. The goal of the program is to reduce community-level firearm violence. The program is rated Effective. The intervention was associated with statistically significant reductions in measures of total gun violence, total non-gun violence, and total violence, compared with the synthetic control group.

This initiative involves proactive policing, enhanced enforcement, sentences for individuals who repeatedly offend, and collaboration among multiple stakeholders. The program’s goal is to reduce violent crime and gun violence. The program is rated Promising. The implementation of the program led to a statistically significant reduction in violent crime in the treatment group relative to the control group. However, there was no statistically significant impact on the rate of gun crimes.

This strategy sought to reduce crime in Philadelphia by testing three different patrol strategies. The program is rated No Effects. Relative to control areas, there was no statistically significant difference in violent or property crimes in areas using one of two of the patrol strategies. Property crimes in an area using one of the strategies saw a statistically significant decrease, while there was a statistically significant increase in violent crime in areas using two of the strategies.

This is a focused-deterrence group violence reduction strategy (GVRS) designed to reduce or control gun violence in Oakland, Calif. The program is rated Effective. The intervention was shown to reduce total shootings, gang-involved shootings, suspected gang-involved shootings, and gang shooting victimizations in treatment block groups relative to matched comparison block groups. These differences were all statistically significant.

This was an experiment designed to evaluate the effectiveness of hot spots policing in urban and suburban areas. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences between treatment and control hot spots in part 1 crimes, part 2 crimes, and crime-related calls for service. However, results showed a statistically significant reduction in crime-related calls for service in urban locations relative to suburban locations.

This was a modified focused deterrence program that targeted high-risk persons in Massachusetts. The program aimed to increase their risks of getting caught and convicted while providing them with regular meetings with a case management team and a variety of services such as substance abuse treatment. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences between the treatment group and the control group in time-to-arraignment at the 1-year follow-up.

This police-led program was designed to reduce gun crime and serious violence in the Wells Goodfellow neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. The program is rated No Effects. The intervention did not have a statistically significant effect on gun violence or total violence trends in the target neighborhood compared with the average trends of seven matched comparison neighborhoods across the city.

Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) are designed to improve policing and the perceived legitimacy of the police and legal institutions. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences in police use of force, number of citizen complaints, or number of arrests for disorderly conduct for police officers who wore BWCs, compared with officers who did not wear BWCs.

This is a focused deterrence intervention that uses a data-driven approach to reduce shootings in Chicago, IL by identifying persons who are responsible for a disproportionate share of shootings and delivering a “don’t shoot” message. The program is rated No Effects. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the strategy had no impact on shooting behaviors in the year after the call-ins, but did have a statistically significant impact on the time until a shooting incident occurred.

This program relies on hot spots policing strategies to prevent thefts from vehicles and residential burglaries in “micro-time” hot spots in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The program is rated Effective. There was a statistically significant reduction in thefts from vehicles and residential burglaries in micro-time hot spots that received tactical police responses, compared with micro-time hot spots that received police patrol as usual.

This is a focused deterrence violence-reduction strategy. The goal was to lower the city’s exposure to violent crime, including reducing the numbers of homicides and aggravated assaults committed by chronic violent individuals operating within organized groups and other social networks. The program is rated No Effects. Two years postimplementation, there was no statistically significant impact on homicides, group-member-involved homicides, and aggravated assaults.

This is a focused policing strategy to reduce calls for service and crime in hot spots using increased foot patrols by civilian police community support officers. The program is rated No Effects. Hot spots that were assigned civilian proactive police community support officers did not experience statistically significant reductions in calls for service or crime.

This was a policing strategy designed to reduce the severity of intimate partner violence and the rearrests of males who had been previously arrested for, or had admitted to, a first domestic violence offense and received a conditional caution. The program is rated Promising. Results indicated a statistically significant reduction in frequency and prevalence of rearrests of persons assigned to the treatment group compared with those assigned to the control group.

This intervention used two hot spots policing strategies (problem solving and directed patrol) to improve citizens’ perceptions of police in St. Louis, Mo. The program is rated No Effects. Although residents in both treatment groups reported a statistically significant increase in cooperation with the police, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the intervention had no significant impact on citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice, police legitimacy, or police abuse.

This is a policing strategy in which officers may stop and detain an individual if they have reasonable suspicion that the person is committing or about to commit a crime. The program is rated Promising. Significant effects were found on measures of non-traffic-related crime incidents in three of the five boroughs of New York City. A U.S. Federal Court ruled that stop, question, and frisks as implemented were unconstitutional and appointed a special monitor to institute substantive reforms.

This crime prevention strategy applied hot spots policing techniques to bus stops in London, England. The program is rated No Effects. Generally, there was no statistically significant difference in bus driver reports of crime for treatment bus stops relative to control bus stops. The program also had a reverse effect on victim reports of crime, which increased in treatment bus stops, compared with control bus stops. This finding was statistically significant.

This program involved officers patrolling crime hot spots in roughly 15-minute intervals to reduce crime. The program is rated Promising. There were statistically significant reductions in aggregated Part 1 crimes and Part 1 property crimes in the treatment hot spots, compared with control areas, during the 90-day intervention period, when compared with the same period 1 year prior. However, there was no statistically significant effect on calls for service, soft crime, and Part 1 violent crimes

This focused deterrence strategy in New Orleans, Louisiana, aims to reduce gang violence and homicide. The program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions found in overall homicide, firearm-related homicide, gang member-involved homicide, and firearm assault from the pretest to the posttest period. Further, New Orleans showed significantly decreased homicide rates after the program was implemented, compared with 14 cities with similar violent crime rates.

The program involved incorporating elements of procedural justice into traffic stops in Adana, Turkey, to test whether procedural justice improves citizens’ perceptions of the police and the law. The program is rated No Effects. No statistically significant differences were found between the treatment and control groups on general perceptions of the police, but the study did find statistically significant differences between the treatment and control groups in encounter-specific perceptions.

This experiment assessed the impact of two hot spots policing tactics on firearm violence. The program is rated Promising. Compared with comparison hot spots, hot spots that received self-initiated enforcement experienced a statistically significant reduction in firearm assault rates, but there were no statistically significant differences for hot spots that received directed patrol. There was no statistically significant effect on firearm robbery rates between treatment and comparison hot spots

This is a law-enforcement model in which both location-based crime and automobile crash data is analyzed to determine where such incidents disproportionately occur (“hot spots”) and to employ targeted traffic enforcement strategies. The program is rated Promising. The areas of targeted enforcement experienced statistically significant declines in robberies, burglaries, and traffic crashes.

This strategy is aimed at reducing crime at violent-crime hot spots in Philadelphia, Pa., through police foot patrols. It involved having veteran officers patrol areas (an average of 3 miles of streets) during one shift per day. This program is rated No Effects. Relative to the control areas, increasing foot patrols at violent-crime hot spots had no statistically significant impact on violent crimes, violent felonies, or citizens’ perceptions of crime and safety.

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.

This program is a multi-agency initiative to reduce gun violence in large cities through enhanced enforcement and deterrence. The program is rated Promising. Cities that received the program experienced a statistically significant reduction in violent crime, compared with control cities, between 2000 and 2006.

This program consisted of a multi-agency partnership to prevent violence and reduce violence-related emergency room admissions in Cardiff, Wales. The program is rated Promising. The program showed a statistically significant reduction in the rates of total assaults, wounding assaults, and hospital admissions related to violence, compared with the comparison sites. However, there were no statistically significant differences between Cardiff and the comparison sites in the rate of common assaults.

This program was implemented in three midsized cities near the Los Angeles, California area, with the goal of examining effects on residents’ fear of crime, perceptions of collective efficacy and police legitimacy, and actual and perceived levels of crime and disorder. The program is rated No Effects. Findings revealed no statistically significant impacts on any of the dependent variables, suggesting no indication of either beneficial effects or “backfire” effects in targeted areas.

A problem-oriented policing strategy that aims to combat drug markets and the problems associated with them, in a high- crime neighborhood, through a deterrence-based, pulling levers framework. The program is rated Promising. The program was shown to significantly reduce nonviolent offenses in the target area, but not violent offenses.

An intensive community-based partnership between police and treatment providers in West Midlands that provided enhanced delivery and coordinated efforts and resources to high-risk individuals to reduce their offending behavior. The program is rated Promising. The program was shown to significantly reduce the average number of arrests for participants.

A problem-oriented policing program that aims to eliminate overt drug markets and the problems associated with them through a deterrence-based, pulling-levers framework. The program is rated Effective. The Intervention had a statistically significant impact on reducing violent incidents in the target areas.

A program that attempts to reduce homicides and non-fatal shootings through a multidisciplinary and multiagency homicide review process. The program is rated Effective. There was a statistically significant, 52 percent, decrease, in the monthly count of homicides in the intervention districts.

This is a public surveillance system that includes a network of cameras and components for monitoring, recording, and transmitting video images to monitor crime in different areas of Baltimore, Md. The program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant decrease in total monthly crime in the downtown, Greenmount, and tri-district areas of Baltimore between pretest and posttest. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the North Avenue area.

This program consists of the use of a vehicle-scanning device deployed by law enforcement to detect vehicles that have been reported stolen or missing. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant program effects on general crime, auto-related crime, vehicle-theft calls for service, or auto-theft.

This is a community-based program to reduce underage drinking and alcohol-related offenses. The program is rated Promising. Intervention sites reported statistically significant reductions in DUI and nighttime crashes, average drinking quantity and variance, police-reported assaults, and EMS calls involving assault and motor vehicle crashes, compared with control sites. There was no difference in ED assaults, police reports of public drunkenness, or EMS calls involving alcohol or other drugs.

This was a saturation foot-patrol initiative implemented in Newark, N.J., in 2008 that aimed to reduce violent crime. The program is rated Promising. The target area that implemented the initiative experienced statistically significant reductions in overall violence and incidences of aggravated assault and shootings, compared with the control area. However, there was no statistically significant effect on incidences of murder or robbery.

This is a community-based program that brings police, local government agencies, and the community together to prioritize problems and prevention efforts in Chicago, Ill. The goal is to solve neighborhood crime problems, rather than react to only to their symptomatic consequences. The program is rated Promising. Police beats or geographical units that implemented the program experienced a statistically significant reduction in crime and calls to 911, compared with police beats that did not.

This is a place-based, problem-oriented policing strategy implemented by the Boston (Mass.) Police Department in response to a sudden increase in violent index crimes. The program is rated Promising. Treatment street units experienced statistically significant reductions in total violent index crime, robbery, and aggravated assault, compared with control street units. However, there was no statistically significant effect on incidents of homicide or rape/sexual assault.

This is a comprehensive gang violence reduction program designed for the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. The program is rated Promising. Treatment group youth who participated in the program had statistically significant reductions in total violent crime, serious violent crime, and drug crime arrests, compared with control group youth. However, there was no statistically significant difference in property crime arrests or total arrests.

This is a comprehensive, multiyear program designed to reduce youth gang crime and violence. The program is rated Promising. The target area demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in calls for shots fired and gang-related incidents compared with the comparison area. However, there were no statistically significant impacts on calls for vandalism, incidents of serious violence, gang-related incidents of serious violence, or student attendance.

This is a comprehensive antiviolence initiative that uses collaborative strategies to alter perceived costs and benefits of gun violence and is intended to reduce illegal gun offending. The program is rated Promising. Treatment areas experienced a statistically significant reduction in homicide and gun-related homicides, but no reduction in gang-related homicides. In addition, offender notification forums were associated with statistically significant reductions in recidivism rates.

This is a problem-oriented policing program that offered a collection of enforcement and non-enforcement strategies designed to reduce homicide in Richmond, Calif. The initiative combined traditional law enforcement practices with prevention and intervention efforts that involved partnerships with the community, other city agencies, and local schools. This program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction of homicides following the implementation of the initiative.

This program consisted of a police patrol experiment, which was designed to reduce gun violence in Kansas City (Mo.) by placing extra police patrols in gun crime hot spots. The program is rated Promising. In the treatment area, there was a statistically significant increase in gun seizures and a statistically significant decrease in gun crimes, compared with the comparison area, in the 6 months following implementation.

This police foot patrol strategy involved rookie officers patrolling an average beat of 1.3 miles during one shift per day in hot spots in Philadelphia, PA. This program is rated Effective. Compared with the control areas, there were statistically significant reductions in reported violent crime in patrolled areas, although the effect faded once officers were removed from their targeted beats.

This is a focused policing strategy, designed to reduce violent crime in high-crime locations in Jersey City, N.J., by modifying specific characteristics and situations that promote violence in targeted areas. The program is rated Promising. Total citizen calls for service and total reported criminal incidents were reduced in treatment locations, compared with control locations. These findings were statistically significant.

This is a hot spots policing program that targeted identified drug activity locations to reduce public disorder by engaging local residents and business owners and applying pressure through crackdowns. The program is rated Promising. The treatment group hot spots showed a statistically significant decrease in disorder-related offenses, compared with the control group hot spots. However, there were no statistically significant differences in violent or property offenses.

The program model enlists second responders to make home visits to try to help victims find long-term solutions to help repeat incident victims of family violence including intimate partner abuse, abuse within families or households, and elder abuse. The program is rated No Effects. Overall, the evidence found no statistically significant differences between the treatment and control groups on prevalence of and frequency of new domestic incidents and time to failure.

This is a geographically focused policing strategy to reduce violent crime in high-crime areas using problem-oriented policing (POP) and saturation/directed patrols. The program is rated No Effects. While there were no statistically significant reductions in any violent or property crime in POP hot spots, or in any violence or property crime in directed patrol hot spots, there were statistically significant reductions in nondomestic violent crime in POP hot spots compared with control hot spots.

This is a crime-reduction strategy that uses a disorder-policing approach to improve physical and social order in high-crime locations in Lowell, Mass. This program is rated Effective. High-crime locations experienced statistically significant reductions in calls for service and in social and physical disorder, compared with control areas.

This is a problem-solving police strategy, which was designed to reduce gang violence, illegal gun possession, and gun violence in communities in Boston, Mass. The program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions in youth homicide, citywide gun assaults, calls for service, and recovered new guns following implementation of the intervention.

A violence prevention program that uses a public health approach, using trained street violence interrupters and outreach workers, public education campaigns, and community mobilization to reduce shootings and killings. This program is rated Promising. The program was associated with significant reductions in shootings, killings, and retaliatory homicides and also appeared to make shooting hot spots cooler in some neighborhoods but not others.

This is a place-based policing intervention that was designed to reduce crime and disorder associated with homeless encampments in the “Skid Row” section of Los Angeles, Calif. The program is rated Promising. The treatment group areas had statistically significant reductions in nuisance crime, violent crime, and property crime, compared with comparison group areas.

This is a program that increased police presence in crime “hot spots” to reduce criminal activity in Minneapolis, Minn. The program is rated Effective. Experimental hot spots experienced statistically significant reductions in citizen calls to police and observed disorder, compared with control hot spots.

This program consists of a specialized police unit, which was designed to prevent recidivism among people convicted of domestic violence offenses and to assist victims of domestic violence through the process of prosecution and recovery. The program is rated Promising. The treatment group assigned to the Domestic Violence Unit had a statistically significant lower likelihood of recidivating, compared with the control group, who were assigned to standard patrol.

This was a special police unit that conducted raids of crack houses to reduce crack-related crime and improve public order in Kansas City, Mo. The program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in calls for service (including calls for violent, property, and disorder offenses) and reported offenses (including violent and property offenses).

This is a problem-oriented policing program targeted at high-crime areas and drug corners in Philadelphia, Pa., to prevent violent and drug-related crime. The program is rated Promising. Localized analysis of the intervention group areas (that implemented the program) found statistically significant reductions in violent and drug crime rates. However, there were no statistically significant effects on citywide homicide, violent crime, or drug crime rates.

This is a multi-agency team-based, drug-control program in Oakland, Calif., which is designed to reduce drug-related problems and improve habitation conditions at targeted problem areas. The program is rated Effective. Treatment areas experienced a statistically significant decrease in police contacts following the implementation of the program.

The town of Redton, England, installed closed-circuit television cameras in the central commercial district to reduce crime. The program is rated Promising. Using a trend analysis, there was no significant overall crime decrease. However, in analyses of separate types of crime, controlling for trends, the reduction was significant for some types of crime (theft of and from vehicles), but not from others (other theft, shoplifting).

This is a program designed to reduce drug dealing at residential rental properties by encouraging improved property management practices. The program is rated Effective. The treatment group that implemented the full program experienced a statistically significant reduction in crime, compared with the control group However, there was no statistically significant difference between the treatment and control groups in the eviction of persons convicted of drug offenses.

This program installed closed-circuit television cameras to monitor public space in different locations around the city of Philadelphia, PA. This program is rated Promising. The intervention showed a statistically significant reduction in disorder crime and the number of crime events in the target areas, compared with the control areas. However, no significant differences were found for serious crimes in the target areas, compared with the control areas.

This is a community-based approach to reducing and preventing crime while revitalizing the community. This program is rated No Effects. There were no statistically significant differences in rates of violent crime between the treatment and comparison areas following the crackdown. However, drug offenses increased significantly in the treatment areas, compared with the comparison areas.

This is a focused-deterrence policing initiative designed to reduce gun homicide in Stockton, Calif., by providing gang-involved youth with positive alternatives to violence. The program is rated Promising. The intervention was associated with a statistically significant 42 percent decrease in the monthly number of gun homicides, compared with pre-intervention trends.

This is a policing program that targeted high-risk persons who chronically commit offenses to reduce gun violence in Indianapolis, Ind. The program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction in the number of average monthly homicides and gang-related homicides in Indianapolis, in the 2 years following the implementation of the program.

This was a policing initiative that targeted specific gangs in the Hollenbeck area of Los Angeles, California, through aggressive enforcement and problem-oriented policing. The program is rated Promising. There was a statistically significant reduction in overall violent crimes in targeted blocks, compared with matched comparison blocks. However, there was no statistically significant effect on gang crimes or gun crimes.

This is a policing program that used community mobilization, strategic planning, and pulling-levers notifications to reduce drug dealing in a high-crime area in Nashville, Tenn. The program is rated Promising. At the postintervention, there was a statistically significant decline in drug crime incidents in the target area, compared with the adjacent comparison area and the rest of Nashville. But there were no statistically significant effects on violent or property offenses or calls for service.

This is a policing program designed to reduce crime through the management of police resources in Fort Worth, Texas. The program is rated Promising. Following the implementation of Compstat in Fort Worth, there was a statistically significant reduction in rates of overall crime and property crime, and a statistically significant increase in arrests for minor nuisance offenses. However, there were no statistically significant effects on violent crime rates.