Studies of crime at micro places have generally relied on crosssectional data and reported the distributions of crime statistics over short periods of time. In this paper we use official crime data to examine the distribution of crime at street segments in Seattle, Washington, over a I4-year period. W e go beyond prior research in two ways. First, we view crime trends at places over a much longer period than other studies that have examined micro places. Second, we use for their thoughtful comments and advice in revising our paper. We owe a special debt to Daniel Nagin for his guidance in applying the trajectory approach to micro crime places. CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 42 NUMBER 2 2004 283 1. It should be noted that a few early criminologists did examine the "micro" idea of place as discussed here (see Shaw et al., 1929). However, interest in micro places was not sustained and did not lead to significant theoretical or empirical inquiry.

Studies of crime at micro places have generally relied on cross‐sectional data and reported the distributions of crime statistics over short periods of time. In this paper we use official crime data to examine the distribution of crime at street segments in Seattle, Washington, over a 14‐year period. We go beyond prior research in two ways. First, we view crime trends at places over a much longer period than other studies that have examined micro places. Second, we use group‐based trajectory analysis to uncover distinctive developmental trends in our data. Our findings support the view that micro places generally have stable concentrations of crime events over time. However, we also find that a relatively small proportion of places belong to groups with steeply rising or declining crime trajectories and that these places are primarily responsible for overall city trends in crime. These findings are particularly important given the more general decline in crime rates observed in Seattle and many other American cities in the 1990s. Our study suggests that the crime drop can be understood not as a general process that occurred across the city landscape but one that was generated in a relatively small group of micro places with strong declining crime trajectories over time.

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Research Summary Existing studies examining the crime impacts of stop, question, and frisks (SQFs) have focused on large geographic areas. Weisburd, Telep, and Lawton (2014) suggested that SQFs in New York City (NYC) were highly concentrated at crime hot spots, implying that a microlevel unit of analysis may be more appropriate. The current study aims to address the limitations of prior studies by exploring the impact of SQFs on daily and weekly crime incidents in NYC at a microgeographic level. The findings suggest that SQFs produce a significant yet modest deterrent effect on crime. Policy Implications These findings support those who argue that SQFs deter crime. Nonetheless, it is not clear whether other policing strategies may have similar or even stronger crime‐control outcomes. In turn, the level of SQFs needed to produce meaningful crime reductions are costly in terms of police time and are potentially harmful to police legitimacy.