AnJaleous Marcinowski-Hope Police/ Community/ Society- Massasoit Community College 2023 Assignment 6 The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment, under a grant from the National Policing Institute, was an experiment to measure routine patrol impact on crime occurrence and the public's interpretation of fear on crime. Beginning on October 1st, 1972 and lasting until September 3rd, 1973 this experiment was the first patrol to meet minimum standards of incorporating scientific research while also using a variety of different data sources to examine an extensive range of issues within the department. Clarence M. Kelly, a Police Chief at the Kansas City Police Department, along with the Police Foundation (whose main mission was to help police be more effective in crime fighting) was asked to research basic assumptions of police work that had gone untested and patrol effectiveness was one of those concerns. This occurred in the southern district of Kansas City, Missouri and only consisted of 15 out of the 24 pb (patrol beats) available. Eliminating the other 9 for not having any populations representing a majority in the city, they used 32 square miles which embodied a rough population of 148,395 residents. Dividing the 15 pb into 3 groups- a control group, that consisted of the same number of patrols out before the experiment- a Proactive group, which consisted of an increased number of patrols out that doubled or even tripled the number of officers- and a Reactive group, that consisted of no immediate law enforcement in the vicinity. They collected and analyzed data consisting of citizen/ resident/ business surveys, citizen crime reports, official police reports, and participation observation to measure the public’s perception of crime, the public’s fear of crime, and the police quality of services. The Kansas City Police Department had the idea of using Preventive Control as an enforcement tactic, which is the strategy of increasing police presence in the hopes of deterring crime and inspiring citizens to be less fearful of crime in the community. With more police officers in “Hot Spots”, they can create better preventive control of criminal activities occurring while also establishing a better perception of Law Enforcement. Though they lack the resources for better preventive control, the experiment showed significant effects in reduction of crime involving burglary, larceny, robbery, sex offenses, assault, auto theft, vandalism, larceny, homicide, and traffic accidents. The major finding in the experiment was that there was No differences being made in either the public noticing the absence of police presence, the public’s opinion on policing, or crime rate. They concluded that the resources spent on policing should be allocated elsewhere and the community has to police themselves in order to establish real change. Patrol does not affect crime prevention or deterrence. The Preventive Patrol Experiment in Kansas City led to researchers realizing that the Reform-Era police methods are ineffectual and inspired innovative styles of policing such as Community-Oriented Policing, which was starting to form in the mid 1970’s and 1980’s, as well as Problem- Solving Policing, taking way in the mid 1980’s. Both built principles that believe police should examine underlying causes of recurring crime and disorder in hopes of establishing more than mere competence in Identifying & Analyzing problems, Officers developing better response strategies and assessing results. With the expectations of Law Enforcement Officers to identify certain relatable connections and patterns between locations, behaviors, and individuals. In other words, be able to effectively respond to a specific problem- in a specific place- under specific conditions. Though in the article, “The Efforts of Directed Patrol & Self-Initiated Enforcement on Firearm Violence: a Randomized Controlled Study of Hot Spot Policing”, focus more on targeted policing through an experiment with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD). In the spring of 2012 a 9 month field experiment took place to evaluate Hot Spot enforcement on Firearm Violence in Missouri. Targeted Policing, or Place-based policing (Hot Spot Policing) achieves short term reduction in criminal activities in higher criminal activity based sections of communities. Usually assigning officers to Hot Spots for longer duration on shift where serious offenses occur such as street level- drug trafficking, aggravated assaults, robbery, and firearm related crimes.The three major objectives of this experiment was to analyze effects of patrol intervention, identify enforcement tactics responsible for patrol intervention effects, and investigate three forms of crime displacement that resulted from patrol intervention. They focused on Non Domestic Aggravated Assaults with a Firearm and Robberies with a Firearm. This experiment contributed to future policy change considerations by addressing what the police currently do or should do instead to reduce crime in Hot Spots and by broadening the assessment of crime displacement beyond the issue of spatial displacement. Spatial Displacement is the movement of crime from one location to another nearby location. Directly utilizing Directed Patrol, otherwise known as Koper Curve, and Targeted Foot Patrols there was a modest to significant increase in violent crime reduction. A major help was ESRI, a Arcmap geospatial mapping program, to identify Hot Spots of firearm violence based on distribution of homicides, firearm assault, and firearm robberies from statistics formed from the 8 participating police districts the year prior. Using areal concentration of crime incidents by generating a “Point system”, or address level crime data, calculating the distance between each incident location as well as the magnitude of crime in a particular area zoning in on crime concentrations greater than 2 standard deviations above the mean (which is 3 crime deviations). Not only was ESRI used but also enacted self- initiated activities like pedestrian- building- vehicle (occupied/unoccupied) checks, directed targeted foot patrol , arrests and problem solving. All involve the same assumption as before that these actions cause a deterrence by increasing the perception that there is a certain detection and apprehension of would-be offenders. The experiment concluded that NDFA (Non Domestic Firearm Assault) had reduced by a sizable margin with no displacement effects most likely because they changed criminal tactics to evade Law Enforcement or the community did not report. So yes, Hot Spot Policing is reducing crime by leading to a reduction in crime in nearby locations regarding violent crimes, property crimes, public order offenses, and drug & alcohol offenses. Though it can vary by enforcement tactics and strategies carried out. Citations Gaines, D.C. (2013). Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment. Sage Productions, Inc. Subgroup Introduction, Chapter C, Chapter K. Rosenfeld, Richard, Michael J. Deckard, and Emily Blackburn.2014. “The Effects of Directed Patrol and Self-initiated Enforcement on Firearm Violence: a Randomized Controlled Study of Hot Spot Policing.” Criminology 52.(3):428-49.
