Getting Proactive with Police Proactivity: the Benefits of Computer-Aided Dispatch for Directing Police Resources to Areas of Need

Sherman et al. [Sherman, L. W., Williams, S., Ariel, B., et al. (2014). ‘An Integrated Theory of Hot Spots Patrol Strategy Implementing Prevention by Scaling up and Feeding Back.’ Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30(2): 95–122.] argue that crime reductions associated with hot spot policing can be maximized by carefully managing the dosage of supplemental resources delivered. Fully achieving this goal in prior studies has been difficult due to resistance by officers, the use of atypical strategies for directing patrols to target locations, and insufficient attention to the measurement of treatment dosages. This has led to calls for process research examining the implementation of hot spot policing in law enforcement agencies. The current study represents one such effort. The computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system for a large US police department was pre-programmed with 16,200 supplemental community engagement patrols that were communicated to officers similar to emergency calls for service generated by the public. An interdisciplinary team comprised sworn officers, crime analysts, and academics designed and evaluated the intervention using an experimental design. The team found that the vast majority of patrols were delivered as scheduled (n = 12,965; 80.0%) and that planned dosage ratios between treatment conditions were achieved. Advantages of using CAD for proactive policing initiatives and benefits of police–academic partnerships are discussed

Public Response to Community Engagement Patrols in High Crime Areas

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an experiment to improve residents’ opinions of the police in Portland, Oregon. Officers conducted community engagement patrols (CEPs) in 60 high-crime areas. The CEPs prioritized non-investigative contacts with community members to build trust and promote positive police–community interactions in designated high-crime locations. It is hypothesized that community members living in/near intervention sites would report greater exposure to officers, more positive interactions and feel more positively about police than residents in control areas. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 90 crime hot spots were identified using crime reports and calls for service. Locations were randomized into three groups: 2 CEPs/day (n=30), 4 CEPs/day (n=30), and control (i.e. no supplemental patrols, n=30). Officers were dispatched to treatment locations via the computer-aided dispatch system for 90 consecutive days, resulting in 16,200 scheduled CEPs. Surveys were mailed to 11,760 households immediately after the intervention ended and 1,537 were returned (13.1 percent). Findings: Residents from intervention areas reported a higher number of positive police contacts, whereas contacts that residents perceived as negative did not differ between the three conditions. Community attitudes, including perceived police legitimacy, were generally unaffected by CEP dosage. Originality/value: This paper documents the outcomes of a large-scale field experiment seeking to improve public attitudes toward police using directed CEPs in crime hot spots. Whereas the intervention succeeded in providing more opportunities for positive contact with police, attitude change may necessitate longer-term strategies