Can Hot Spots Policing Reduce Crime in Urban Areas? An Agent‐based Simulation*

Weisburd, David; Braga, Anthony A.; Groff, Elizabeth R.; Wooditch, Alese

doi:10.1111/1745-9125.12131

Cited by 80 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 101 publications

(179 reference statements)

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“…ABMs of criminal justice interventions often do not have meaningful control conditions from which to compare various criminal justice strategies. For instance, in Weisburd and colleagues' () research using ABM to study hot‐spots policing, they considered the effects of hot‐spots policing as compared with random police patrols because it is highly likely that hot‐spots policing will reduce crime more so than a complete absence of police officers. Likewise, it is true by definition that criminal networks that are never disrupted will suffer less damage than networks exposed to either lead k or broker targeting.…”

Section: Data and Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To ensure the robustness of the results, we follow procedures established in prior research (Berk, ; Birks & Davies, ; Birks et al., ; Groff et al., ; Weisburd et al., ), estimating each instance of each model 100 times. As discussed by Gilbert () and Groff et al.…”

Section: Model Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rational choice perspectives of crime argue that criminal incentives and offending patterns can only be understood in relationship to particular types of crime (Clarke & Cornish, 1985;Cornish & Clarke, 1986, 1989. Consequently, crime prevention is only successful if the intervention is tailored to the type of crime being committed (Birks & Davies, 2017;Birks, Townsley, & Stewart, 2012;Clarke, 1996;Weisburd et al, 2017). As criminal network structure is mainly influenced by criminal network objectives and behavior (Morselli, 2009), disruption strategies will likely vary in their effectiveness depending on the characteristics of the criminal network being targeted.…”

Section: Criminal Network Vulernabilties To Different Disruption Stramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 For these reasons, ABMs have drawn considerable attention in the social sciences, especially in studies of crime. Researchers have successfully applied ABMs to study hot-spots policing (Groff, 2007;Weisburd et al, 2017), situational crime prevention (Birks & Davies, 2017;Groff & Birks, 2008;Groff & Mazerolle, 2008), and criminal opportunities (Brantingham & Brantingham, 2004), as well as to measure the role of exogenous shocks in social processes (Liu & Bearman, 2013). ABM provides numerous advantages over traditional statistical techniques for examining criminal network disruption.…”

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To ensure the robustness of the results, we follow procedures established in prior research (Berk, 2008;Birks & Davies, 2017;Birks et al, 2012;Groff et al, 2018;Weisburd et al, 2017), estimating each instance of each model 100 times. As discussed by Gilbert (2008) and Groff et al (2018), averaging over model iterations is a common strategy to ensure model validity because idiosyncratic patterns wield little influence at the aggregate level.…”

Section: Model Validationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Criminal network security: An agent‐based approach to evaluating network resilience*

Duxbury

Haynie

2019

Criminology

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Criminal networks are frequently at risk of disruption through arrest and interorganizational violence. Difficulties in designing empirical studies of criminal network recovery, however, have problematized research into network responses to disruption. In this study, we evaluate criminal network resilience by examining network recovery from disruption in an array of different criminal networks and across different disruption strategies. We use an agent‐based model to evaluate how criminal networks recover from disruption. Our results reveal the vulnerabilities and time to recovery of numerous criminal organizations, and through them, we identify which disruption strategies are most effective at damaging various criminal networks.

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Section: Data and Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Criminal Network Vulernabilties To Different Disruption Stramentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Validationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Criminal network security: An agent‐based approach to evaluating network resilience*

Duxbury

Haynie

2019

Criminology

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Crime Prevention

Blevins¹

2018

The Handbook of Social Control

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Hot spots policing of small geographic areas effects on crime

Braga

Turchan

Papachristos

et al. 2019

Campbell Systematic Reviews

Self Cite

117

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Background In recent years, crime scholars and practitioners have pointed to the potential benefits of focusing crime prevention efforts on crime places. A number of studies suggest that there is significant clustering of crime in small places, or “hot spots,” that generate half of all criminal events. Researchers have argued that many crime problems can be reduced more efficiently if police officers focused their attention to these deviant places. The appeal of focusing limited resources on a small number of high‐activity crime places is straightforward. If crime can be prevented at these hot spots, then citywide crime totals could be reduced. Objectives To assess the effects of focused police crime prevention interventions at crime hot spots. The review also examined whether focused police actions at specific locations result in crime displacement (i.e., crime moving around the corner) or diffusion (i.e., crime reduction in surrounding areas) of crime control benefits. Search Methods A keyword search was performed on 15 abstract databases. Bibliographies of past narrative and empirical reviews of literature that examined the effectiveness of police crime control programs were reviewed and forward searches for works that cited seminal hot spots policing studies were performed. Bibliographies of past completed Campbell systematic reviews of police crime prevention efforts were reviewed and hand searches of leading journals in the field were completed. Experts in the field were consulted and relevant citations were obtained. Selection Criteria To be eligible for this review, interventions used to control crime hot spots were limited to police‐led prevention efforts. Suitable police‐led crime prevention efforts included traditional tactics such as directed patrol and heightened levels of traffic enforcement as well as alternative strategies such as aggressive disorder enforcement and problem‐oriented policing. Studies that used randomized controlled experimental or quasiexperimental designs were selected. The units of analysis were limited to crime hot spots or high‐activity crime “places” rather than larger areas such as neighborhoods. The control group in each study received routine levels of traditional police crime prevention tactics. Data Collection and Analysis Sixty‐five studies containing 78 tests of hot spots policing interventions were identified and full narratives of these studies were reported. Twenty‐seven of the selected studies used randomized experimental designs and 38 used quasiexperimental designs. A formal meta‐analysis was conducted to determine the crime prevention effects in the eligible studies. Random effects models were used to calculate mean effect sizes. Results Sixty‐two of 78 tests of hot spots policing interventions reported noteworthy crime and disorder reductions. The meta‐analysis of key reported outcome measures revealed a small statistically significant mean effect size favoring the effects of hot spots policing in reducing crime outcomes at treatment places relative to...

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Can Hot Spots Policing Reduce Crime in Urban Areas? An Agent‐based Simulation*

Cited by 80 publications

References 101 publications

Criminal network security: An agent‐based approach to evaluating network resilience*

Criminal network security: An agent‐based approach to evaluating network resilience*

Crime Prevention

Hot spots policing of small geographic areas effects on crime

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