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future trends in policing 2014

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Introduction 9<br />

then we likely would see a reduction of prison populations as well as an <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> the crime-prevention<br />

effectiveness of the police.<br />

Chief Michael Davis, from Brooklyn Park, M<strong>in</strong>nesota, and I have recently added a new dimension to the<br />

promise of hot spots polic<strong>in</strong>g. Based on a recent study <strong>in</strong> which we found many social as well as opportunitybased<br />

risk factors for chronic crime hot spots, Davis and I have begun to argue for polic<strong>in</strong>g that <strong>in</strong>creases<br />

“collective efficacy” 11 and <strong>in</strong>formal social controls at crime hot spots. The focus on crime hot spots provides<br />

an opportunity to reduce the scale of social and health <strong>in</strong>terventions. Just as efficiency <strong>in</strong> patrol can be<br />

<strong>in</strong>creased by direct<strong>in</strong>g police at chronic crime hot spots, it may also be possible to create greater efficiency<br />

<strong>in</strong> social <strong>in</strong>terventions.<br />

In other words, try<strong>in</strong>g to <strong>in</strong>crease collective efficacy and community social controls across a whole<br />

neighborhood may simply be too large a task for police and other crime prevention agents. But<br />

focus<strong>in</strong>g on just one percent of the city streets may make such <strong>in</strong>terventions realistic.<br />

The evidence-based <strong>future</strong> of polic<strong>in</strong>g must <strong>in</strong>clude a focus on the small percentage of streets that generate<br />

much of the crime <strong>in</strong> a city. But that focus will be most effective if the police try to use not only strategies<br />

that <strong>in</strong>crease surveillance and deterrence, but also ones that try to strengthen the micro-communities of<br />

people who live <strong>in</strong> crime hot spots.<br />

11. Harvard Professor Robert Sampson and his colleagues def<strong>in</strong>e collective efficacy as “social cohesion among<br />

neighbors comb<strong>in</strong>ed with their will<strong>in</strong>gness to <strong>in</strong>tervene on behalf of the common good.”

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