Situational Crime Prevention

This program was a place-based crime policing initiative implemented for 1 year to reduce violent crime. Risk-based policing initiatives promote data-informed decisions based on a process of defining the problem, gathering information, and analyzing data. The program is rated Promising. The program resulted in a statistically significant reduction of 22.6 percent in violent crimes in the intervention areas, compared with the comparison areas.

This involves police officers wearing cameras on their uniforms to improve the civility of their interactions with citizens. The program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions in citizen complaints against police and police use-of-force reports for officers who wore cameras, compared with those who did not, and statistically significant reductions in complaints against control officers in the treatment districts, compared with officers in the untreated districts.

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.

This intervention displayed online warning messages to Internet users attempting to view barely legal pornography or upload sexual photos of women, to reduce the accessing of child sexual exploitation material online. The program is rated Effective. Individuals in the experimental groups who received the online warning messages were statistically significantly less likely to attempt to enter the websites, compared with individuals who did not receive a warning message.

This is a place-based intervention that uses environmental design at high-crime businesses in the city to reduce crime and improve public safety. The program is rated Ineffective. There were no statistically significant effects on disorder occurrences or violent crime. The intervention did result in statistically significant reductions in property crime around treated businesses, compared with matched control businesses, at 1-year postimplementation.

This is a police-operated public surveillance program that seeks to reduce crime and increase crime clearances (i.e., arrests) by installing new closed-circuit television cameras at high-crime, high-traffic intersections in Milwaukee (Wis.). The program is rated Promising. Intersections in intervention areas where new cameras were installed had a statistically significant higher rate of crime clearances for all crime types, compared with intersections in comparison areas.

This was a program for college women who engaged in heavy episodic drinking to provide feedback on their risk perception and resistance to reduce sexual assault. The program is rated Ineffective. Program participants did not statistically significantly differ from those in the control group on measures of incapacitated attempted/completed rape frequency, alcohol-related sexual assault incidents/severity, or use of sexual assault protective behavioral strategies at the 3-month follow-up.

This intervention seeks to increase staff ID checks for the sale of alcoholic beverages at licensed establishments, to help prevent sales to minors. The program is rated Effective. The results were mixed. One study found there was a statistically significant increase in age verification rates resulting from the intervention, whereas a second study found no statistically significant increases in ID-checking rates. Overall, the results suggest the intervention influenced ID-checking rates.

This is a crime prevention technique designed to deter retail theft by wrapping products in a security wire wrap. The program is rated Promising. Treatment group stores that received the intervention experienced a statistically significant drop in the loss of cordless electric drills, compared with control group stores. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the loss of diet supplements or skincare products.

This program used a randomized experimental design to test the effects of a situational theft prevention strategy to reduce the theft of property (i.e., dry erase markers labeled with an anti-theft message) from classrooms at a university in Louisiana. The program is rated Promising. Treatment classrooms with labeled markers had a statistically significant lower likelihood of having the markers removed, compared with control classrooms that received markers without the message.

The program is designed to reduce theft and accidental loss of high-loss products by both increasing attention paid to the product and reducing general access to the product. This program is rated Promising. The program showed a statistically significant decrease in product loss in stores that used special protective handling procedures compared with stores that did not.

The program is designed to reduce theft of high-loss products using protective display fixtures. By increasing the effort and time needed to execute a theft, this fixture increases the perceived risk of theft detection while reducing their perception of the potential rewards of stealing a product. This program is rated Promising. The program showed a statistically significant decrease in product loss in stores that used protective display fixtures compared with stores that did not.

This is a police body-worm camera intervention that has been implemented across eight police departments in the United States and United Kingdom. The program equips officers with continuously recording body-worn cameras to record police and citizen interactions. The program is rated Ineffective. There was no significant effect on police use of force, and use of cameras was associated with a statistically significant increase in assaults against officers.

This intervention was designed to prevent repeat and near-repeat burglaries. The program used a target-hardening, crime-prevention technique to reduce repeat victimization of the same households and neighbors within the same area. The program is rated Ineffective. The program found no statistically significant difference in both burglaries and time-to-repeat victimization between households in the treatment group, compared with households in the control group.

This crime prevention strategy applied hot spots policing techniques to bus stops in London, England. The program is rated Ineffective. 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 is designed to deter street-level crime in Newark using closed-circuit cameras, hard-wired to physical structures, which are monitored in real time by CCTV operators. The program is rated Ineffective. Results from one study showed no statistically significant differences in shootings, auto thefts, or thefts from autos. Results from a second study showed a statistically significant decrease in auto thefts but no statically significant difference in shootings or thefts from auto.

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 environmental crime-prevention measure was enacted as a city ordinance and required property owners of abandoned buildings (that often serve as havens for illicit drugs and related crime) to install working doors and windows in all structural openings or be subject to significant fines. This program is rated Promising. The results show that the program was associated with statistically significant citywide reductions in overall crimes and all nuisance crimes, but not in violent gun crimes.

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.

The program tested whether police use of a specialized script (based on principles of procedural justice) during random breath-test traffic stops could improve perceptions of police and change people’s views about drinking and driving. The program is rated Promising. The program was shown to have a statistically significant effect on changing views on police and on drinking and driving, on increasing satisfaction and compliance with police, and on strengthening perceptions of procedural justice.

Keeper Boxes are clear, polycarbonate boxes that are designed to protect so-called hot products in retail stores by placing selected merchandise in the sturdy lock boxes. The program is rated Promising. At the 13-week follow-up, shrinkage (or unexplained unit loss) statistically significantly decreased by 52 percent while sales statistically significantly increased by 69 percent in the experimental stores that used Keeper Boxes compared with the control stores that did not use Keeper Boxes.

A crime prevention strategy designed to reduce crime in Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority parking facilities through the introduction of digital cameras at the exits of the parking facilities to capture images of patrons’ license plates as they exited the facility. The program is rated as Ineffective. Crime rates (including car-related, property, and violent crimes) remained at pre-camera levels in parking facilities.

This program is a federal initiative under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which began in 1992, to eradicate severely distressed public housing and to reconstruct sites with more livable housing. The program is rated Promising. The target sites experienced a statistically significant decrease in crime during the stability period (after redevelopment had taken place and most residents had moved into new units), compared with the comparison sites.

In the Netherlands, a large-scale government intervention led to a regulation requiring built-in home security in all newly constructed homes. The program is rated Promising. The regulatory change statistically significantly reduced the risk of burglary by 26 percent compared with homes built in the years prior to the passage of the regulation. There were no statistically significant effects on measures of attempted burglary.

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 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 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.

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 community crime-prevention program in Portland, OR., used a combination of private prevention techniques and neighborhood prevention efforts to protect neighborhoods from burglary. This program is rated Effective. Participating homes showed statistically significant reductions in burglary rates and were more likely to report burglaries to the police, compared with non-participating homes. However, there were no statistically significant differences in recovery rates of stolen property.

This program consists of installing closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, to deter crime in five cities in England. The program is rated Promising. Intervention sites that installed CCTV cameras experienced a statistically significant reduction in assault-related emergency department visits, compared with control sites that did not install CCTV cameras. However, there was no statistically significant difference between intervention and control sites in police-reported violent offenses.

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 mail campaign aimed to deter illegal firearm transactions in Los Angeles, Calif., using a letter outlining the regulations and laws surrounding firearm ownership. The program is rated Promising. Those who received a letter were more than twice as likely to report their firearms stolen than those who did not receive the letter. However, there was no statistically significant impact on whether the firearm was later used in a crime.

This program upgrades street lighting on residential roads and footpaths to decrease crime and fear of crime. This program is rated Effective. In the experimental area, there were statistically significant reductions in the incidence and prevalence rates of crime and in the percentage of respondents who knew a victim, compared with the control area.

This program consists of using closed-circuit television cameras in the town center and adjacent car parks, or parking lots, in Gillingham, England. The program is rated Promising. The treatment area where the cameras were installed experienced a statistically significant reduction in overall crime, compared with the comparison area.

This program seeks to increase prosocial attitudes and behaviors toward and awareness of risky behaviors and precursors to sexual victimization among potential bystanders and third-person witnesses. The program is rated Promising. Intervention participants showed statistically significant improvements in knowledge of sexual violence and bystander attitudes, behavior, efficacy, and likelihood of helping friends, and a reduction in rape-myth acceptance, compared with nonparticipants.

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.

This is a program designed to reduce crime by improving street lighting in residential areas. This program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions in prevalence, incidence, and fear of crime in the experimental area compared with the control area. In addition, a statistically significant higher percentage of residents in the control area reported knowing someone who had been the victim of a crime compared with residents in the experimental area.

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 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 crime prevention program that consists of the installation of gates to alleyways in Liverpool, England, to reduce burglaries. The gates restrict access to local residents only, thus reducing opportunities for potential crime. The program is rated Effective. Treatment areas that implemented alley gates had a statistically significant reduction in burglaries, compared with comparison areas.

This program uses devices that prevent a vehicle from starting without receiving the correct signal from the driver, with the goal of reducing car theft. This signal may be communicated through a transponder, electronic key, or other mechanism. The program is rated Effective. The program demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in theft of cars with engine immobilizers, compared with theft of cars without engine immobilizers.