Executive Issues Seminar SeriesExecutive Issues Seminar Series

19981998

Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas

Sam Houston State University

PATROL PATROL RESEARCHRESEARCH

Dr. Larry Hoover

Police Research Center

Sam Houston State University

Last Year’s Program:Why the Drop in Crime?

• Social-demographic Trends

• Economic Conditions

• Drug Use Prevalence

• Incarceration Rates

• Police Programs.

5000

5500

6000

6500

7000

7500

8000

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

Year

Rate

STATEWIDE UCR RATE

Myth: The Police Make No Difference

• Borne first of the lack of clear relationship between staffing levels and crime rates

• Reinforced by the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment and the Rand Criminal Investigation Study.

Crime-Specific Policing

• Clearly defined intervention strategies

• Targeted at particular offenses

• Committed by particular offenders

• At specific places

• At specific times.

Crime-Specific Policing is NOT:

Unfocused Strategies

• Non-Directed Patrol

• Simple Saturation Patrol

Change in Style

• New York City COMSTAT Program

• Houston Proactive Effort in 1992

However, Crime-Specific Policing is Not Necessarily:

• Focused upon only a single offense

• Conducted solely by Patrol

• Always a direct field based intervention

• Antithetical to Community Oriented Approaches

We Will Examine:

• Neighborhood Centered

• Targeted Enforcement

• Youth & Gang Programs

• Problem-Oriented Strategies

• Proactive Investigative Techniques

The 25 Year Research Legacy on Patrol

A Brief Synopsis• Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment (1973)

• San Diego Field Interrogation Experiment (1975)

• Directed Patrol in New Haven and Pontiac (1976)

• Split Force Patrol in Wilmington (1976)

• Newark and Flint Foot Patrol (1981)

• Minneapolis Repeat Call Address (Recap) (1988)

• Kansas City Gun Reduction Experiment (1993)

Other Research(examined later)

• Problem Oriented Policing in Newport News

• Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment and Its Replications

• Investigative Effectiveness Research

Preventive Patrol Experiment

R e a c tive B e a ts(5 )

P ro a c tive B e a ts(5 )

C o n tro l B e a ts(5 )

S o u th P a tro l D is trictF ifte e n B e a ts

RR

C PC

P C R C

P

R

P

C

PR

Preventive Patrol Experiment Beat Configuration

Generalizing the ResultsResults

• No effect on crime

• No effect on citizen perceptions

• No effect on traffic accidents

However

• Routine Preventive Patrol is Non-directive

• Activity varies by Dept./Shift/Officer

• Only about 2 hours of an 8 hour shift

• Results apply only to beat level perceptions

San Diego Field Interrogation

Three Areas

• Control

• Specially Trained Officers

• “No” Field Interrogations

Time

• Pre - 7 months

• Experimental - 9 months

• Post - 5 months

Measured Suppressible Street Crime

• Part I offenses of robbery, burglary, auto theft, street rape, street theft

• Other offenses included other sex crimes, vandalism, and disorderly conduct.

Effect on Crime in Experimental Areas

75

63

104

83 81

63

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

PRE-EXP. EXPER. POST-EXP

Other Results

• No change in control or specially trained areas

• About one month lag time in effect

• No effect on community relations

• In San Diego, 17% of all arrests attributed to FIs, but less than 2% of FIs result in an arrest

• About 3% of all citizen complaints result from field interrogations.

Directed Patrol in New Haven & Pontiac

• Use of crime analysis to direct non-committed patrol time to problem locations

• Direction by dispatchers proved problematic

• Reduction in criminal incidents (but lacked control areas)

Wilmington Split-Force Concept• Bifurcated patrol, 70% in

Basic, 30% in Structured

• Structured concentrated on problem areas and follow-up

• Patrol’s arrest rate up 4%, clearances up 105% - however, detective division clearances down 61%, department as a whole down by 28%

• Abandoned after one year.

Newark & Flint Foot Patrol• No impact on crime in Newark, 9% reduction in Flint

• Decreases in fear of crime in both cities

• Significantly improved satisfaction with police services in both - 33% of Flint residents knew officer by name, 50% of remainder could recognize the beat officer

• Newark research beget the “Broken Windows” perspective

• Flint research beget the community oriented perspective.

Minneapolis Recap Experiment• 3% of 115,000 addresses

accounted for 50% of CFS• 5% of addresses generated

64% of all CFS• Special unit of 5 officers

assigned 125 residential & 125 commercial addresses

• After 6 months, target addresses had 15% fewer CFS, but erased after one year.

Kansas City Gun Reduction Experiment

• July 92 to Jan 93 two extra patrol units in Beat 144 during evening

• Beat 144 is an 8 x 10 block area with homicide rate of 177/100,000 - 20 times national average

• Beat is 92% nonwhite, but 66% home ownership• Gun seizures increased by 65%, gun crimes declined by 40%.

No change in Control Beat, no displacement• Drive by shootings & homicides dropped significantly• Saturation generated 29 more guns seized, 83 fewer gun crimes,

55 patrol hours invested per gun crime prevented, traffic stops most productive - one gun seized for every 28 stops.

Efficacy of Crime-Specific Approaches

• San Diego Field Interrogation Experiment

• Problem Oriented Policing in Newport News

• Flint Foot Patrol

• Minneapolis Recap

• Kansas City Gun Reduction

Crime-Specific Policing

• Clearly defined intervention strategies

• Targeted at particular offenses

• Committed by particular offenders

• At specific places

• At specific times.

A Final Note

• In 25 years we have learned a great deal

• However, we still know relatively little about what works in policing.

TIME FOR THE RECEPTION