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

sas City Crack House Raids Experiment (Sherman & Rogan,1995a), crackdowns on drug locations were also found to lead tosignificant relative improvements in the experimental sites, althoughthe effects (measured by citizen calls and offense reports) were modestand decayed in a short period. In yet another randomized trial,however, Eck and Wartell (1996) found that if the raids were immediatelyfollowed by police contacts with landlords, crime preventionbenefits could be reinforced and would be sustained for longer periods.More general crime and disorder effects are also reported in threeother randomized controlled experiments that tested a more tailored,problem-oriented approach to dealing with crime hot spots. Inthe Jersey City Problem-Oriented Policing in Violent Places experiment(Braga et al., 1999), strong statistically significant reductionsin total crime incidents and total crime calls were found in thetreatment hot spots relative to the control hot spots. Importantly, allcrime categories experienced reductions and observational data revealedstatistically significant declines in social and physical disorderas well. In the Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Program experiment(Weisburd & Green, 1995a), hot spots policing tactics werefound to be more effective at reducing disorder at drug hot spotsthan generalized enforcement. In the Oakland Beat Health study,Mazerolle and Roehl (1998) also reported strong reductions in crimeand disorder in an experimental evaluation of civil remedy interventionsat specific drug-involved locations.Nonexperimental studies provide similar findings. For instance,the Kansas City Gun Project evaluation (Sherman & Rogan, 1995b)found strong crime control gains for hot spots policing approaches.Using intensive enforcement in an eight by ten block area, includingtraffic stops and searches, Sherman and Rogan (1995b) reported a65 percent increase in guns seized by the police and a 49 percentdecrease in gun crimes in the treatment area relative to a matchedcontrol area. Hope (1994) examined the effects of a problemorientedpolicing strategy, which relied primarily on traditional lawenforcement tactics, on total calls for service in three drug hot spotlocations in St. Louis, Missouri. The evaluation compared total callsin the targeted drug hot spots to addresses proximate to the treatmentlocations and blocks in the surrounding areas. Hope (1994)reported significant crime reductions in the treatment locationswhen compared to the control locations.This strong body of rigorous evaluations led the National ResearchCouncil Committee to Review Research on Police Policy andPractices to conclude in 2004:There has been increasing interest over the past two decades inpolice practices that target very specific types of crimes, crimi-37