Patrol Work

Question 1

Examples of patrol strategies

Answer 1

Foot patrol, motor vehicle patrol (car, helicopter, ATV/motorcycle, etc.), mounted patrol, bike patrol, drone patrol, remote (CCTV) patrol, undercover/plainclothes

Question 2

Effects of patrols?

Answer 2

Each type of patrol more effective in certain environments; also have effect on public perception (bike patrols have significant positive effects)

Question 3

Routine Activities Theory

Answer 3

Crime most likely to occur when motivated offender & suitable target intersect in time and space in the absence of a capable guardian

Question 4

Motivated offender

Answer 4

Person who wishes to commit a crime in the present moment

Question 5

Suitable target

Answer 5

Any person/thing that a crime can be committed against

Question 6

Capable guardian

Answer 6

Person/thing that could identify/prevent crime from happening in any way; police considered as filling this role, but objects can also fill it (alarms, cameras, etc.)

Question 7

Deterrence Theory

Answer 7

Effective capable guardians can deter/prevent crime; people are most likely to commit crime when benefits of doing so outweigh the costs, therefore making costs outweigh the benefits should (in theory) deter crime

Question 8

Spatial displacement

Answer 8

Displacing crime in terms of location (i.e. preventing someone from speeding down one road, but they speed up on another one)

Question 9

Temporal displacement

Answer 9

Displacing crime in terms of time (i.e. preventing someone from speeding down a road in the morning, but they speed down it later that day)

Question 10

Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment overall description?

Answer 10

Designed to analyze effectiveness of routine preventative patrol (was the most comprehensive experiment done at the time); experiment performed by Kellen in 1972; Kansas City divided into 3 groups assigned to different levels of patrol; data was collected through surveys, crime data, arrest data, and observational data

Question 11

Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment groups?

Answer 11

Reactive (No routine patrol; officers entered beats only when called for service); Proactive (2-3x more patrols than usual); Control (Regular amount of patrol); reactive + proactive beats separated by at least one district

Question 12

Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment results?

Answer 12

Differences in patrol did not significantly affect crime rates or citizens’ levels of fear/crime reporting; suggested that routine preventative patrol did not impact crime, but officers would frequently break the rules of the study and the size of the beats were too large to be measured properly

Question 13

Minneapolis Hot Spots Policing Experiment overall description?

Answer 13

Conducted by Sherman & Weisburd in 1993; pondered if crime was concentrated in certain places, would directing police to those places impact crime?; identified 110 hot spots (small high-crime clusters of addresses) and assigned half to control treatment and half to experimental treatment (intense, intermittent patrol during ‘hot times’)

Question 14

Minneapolis Hot Spots Policing Experiment results?

Answer 14

Exp. sites recieved 2x more observed patrol presence; total crime calls reduced by 6-13%, observed disorder reduced by 50%; suggested increased patrols in hot spots can reduce crime and disorder

Question 15

Minneapolis Hot Spots Policing Experiment problems?

Answer 15

Officer boredom led to them leaving their assigned spots; may have displaced crime rather than prevented it; little insight into officer actions

Question 16

Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment overall description?

Answer 16

Conducted by Groff in 2016; a randomized, controlled field experiment testing 3 policing tactics in hot spots; ID’d 81 violent crime hot spots, then divided into 3 groups of 27 sites (20 = exp. treatment, 7 = control)

Question 17

Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment tactics?

Answer 17

Foot patrol, problem-oriented policing; offender-focused policing

Question 18

Characteristics of foot patrol?

Answer 18

Done in pairs or groups; goal is to increase police visibility, therefore preventing crime; benefits include increases in positive public perception, better rapport w/ citizens, improved access to tight urban areas, and boosts on crime reduction; problems include reduced response speed, variability in officer fitness, reduced access to heavy equipment & reliance on motorized officers for transport

Question 19

Characteristics of problem-oriented policing?

Answer 19

Proactive policing instead of reactive (ID’ing and solving problems); thorough problem analysis followed by combo of traditional + non-traditional solutions; based on SARA model

Question 20

SARA Model

Answer 20

Scanning (What is the problem?); Analysis (What contributes to problem?); Response (How to improve problem?); Assessment (Did response work?)

Question 21

Characteristics of offender-focused policing?

Answer 21

Increased certainty of arrest for small groups of highly active offenders = deterrence of both targeted groups and others who hear about the targeting from committing crime

Question 22

Philadelphia Policing Tactics Experiment results?

Answer 22

Foot patrol + problem-oriented policing had no impact on violent crimes and felonies; offender-focused policing = 42% reduction in all violent crime & 50% reduction in violent felonies (even observed diffusion of these effects to surrounding sites); suggested directed attention towards key offenders is helpful in reducing crime