The Community Policing Dispatch had an interesting piece that looked at Sacramento Police's Hotspot Experiment. This experiment looked to test a theory of hotspot policing to determine just how effective it would be in Sacramento.
Within a 90 day time period that started on February 8 and ran through May 8, 2011, Sergeant Renee Mitchell of the Sacramento [California] Police Department designed a research methodology that she hoped would test out the Koper curve theory of hot spot policing. This theory proposes the notion that certain specific locations or neighborhoods can harbor an unequal distribution of crime in comparison to other locations in that same area. Additionally, this theory goes on to explain that police officers who are highly visible in these areas for 12–16 minutes can cause a reduction in crime as well as calls for service (CFS) within that hot spot. With her knowledge and experience in evidence-based policing and hot spot policing, Sergeant Mitchell used her training to conduct research in order to find if such a theory proved true within Sacramento.
According to the piece, the experiment proved to be effective in driving crime down in these hotspots. The article is worth the read.
What is your agency doing to tackle crime hot spots?
