The Importance of Place in Policing - Empirical Evidence and Policy ...

Sampson et al., 1997; Sampson, 2004). Using voting behavior at thestreet segment level as an indicator of collective efficacy, Weisburdet al. find a direct relationship between collective efficacy and crimepatterns. As expected, the crime free and low activity segments havethe highest rates of collective efficacy as reflected by active votingpatterns. The chronic crime trajectory segments have the lowestevidence of voting participation (see Table 2). These findings areparticularly important, because they suggest that in targeting hotspots of crime the police should also consider the social features oflife at places. While many hot spots policing programs have reliedlargely upon intensive enforcement to ameliorate crime problems(e.g. Braga et al., 1999; Sherman & Rogan, 1995a, 1995b), thesedata emphasize the importance of applying community policing andother strategies that might reinforce the ability of residents of placesto bring to force informal social controls.Table 2: Relationship Between Collective Efficacy (Active Voters) andTrajectory Patterns.Classification of Trajectories% Active VotersInitial Value (1999)Pairwise Comparison ToCrime Free PatternCrime Free (n=12,033) 0.3534 N/ALow Stable (n=7,696) 0.4238 Low Decreasing (n=2,212) 0.4164 Low Increasing (n=903) 0.3151 Moderate Stable (n=292) 0.2472 High Decreasing (n=574) 0.2388 High Increasing (n=221) 0.2089 Chronic (n=247) 0.1741 Pattern has Significantly Higher Level of Collective Efficacy than Crime Free Pattern. Pattern has Significantly Lower Level of Collective Efficacy than Crime Free Pattern.Source: Weisburd, Groff, and Yang (in progress).Weisburd et al. find even stronger relationships between directmeasures of social disorganization and crime at the street segmentlevel. Using illegal dumping as an immediate and visceral indicationof the social order of street segments they find a strong relationshipwith the trajectory patterns (see Table 3). The number of illegaldumping incidents increase as the levels of crime in trajectory patternsincrease in the first year of observations. This relationship issignificant and strong across the trajectory groupings. By far thelowest number of illegal dumping incidents is found in the crime freetrajectory pattern. In the low rate trajectory groupings there areabout four times as many illegal dumping incidents, and in the high33