Hot Spots of Crime and Crime Prevention

David WeisburdGeorge Mason University

Hebrew University

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Conventional Criminology: Who Done

It?

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New Area of Criminology that Asks: Where Done

It?

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Different from Community Based Crime

Prevention

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The Criminology of Place and Hot Spots of Crime: Micro Geographic

Units of AnalysisThe Street Segment (Sherman and Weisburd, 1995)

Cluster-- Street Segments (Weisburd et al., 2006)

Oak St.

Maple St.

Spruce St.

10

th Ave

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11th

Ave

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12

th Ave

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Where I am Going…

The logic model for place based prevention The law of crime concentration Bad places and not bad neighborhoods Specific traits couple crime to place

Place based prevention works! Strong scientific evidence that Hot

Spots Policing is effective Crime does not simply move around the

corner The promise of social prevention

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WEISBURD, DAVID, IN PRESS, THE LAW OF CRIME CONCENTRATION AND THE CRIMINOLOGY OF PLACE. CRIMINOLOGY, IN PRESS.

The Law of Crime Concentration at Places

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The Law of Crime Concentration in Larger

Cities

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Sacramento, CA Seattle, WA New York, NY Tel Aviv-Yafo Cincinnati, OH0.0%

1.0%

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0.8% 1.0%1.4% 1.4% 1.6%

4.2%

5.1%5.5% 5.6%

6.0%

25%

50%

David Weisburd (In press) The law of crime concentration and the criminology of place. Criminology

The Law of Crime Concentration in Small Less Urbanized Cities

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Brooklyn Park, MN Redlands, CA Ventura, CA0%

1%

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0.4% 0.4% 0.7%

2.1% 2.1%

3.5%

25% 50%

David Weisburd (In press) The law of crime concentration and the criminology of place. Criminology

The Law of Crime Concentration over Time (and Crime Incidents)

Is it the same places?

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20

40

60

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100

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Crim

e C

ount

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Trajectory1(13.4%) Trajectory2(33.5%) Trajectory3(12.3%) Trajectory4(6.4%) Trajectory5(4.8%)Trajectory6(8.2%) Trajectory7(4.2%) Trajectory8(4.1%) Trajectory9(3.7%) Trajectory10(0.4%)

Trajectory11(1.5%) Trajectory12(2.1%) Trajectory13(1.0%) Trajectory14(1.2%) Trajectory15(0.5%)Trajectory16(1.0%) Trajectory17(0.9%) Trajectory18(0.7%)

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Weisburd, David, Shawn Bushway, Cynthia Lum, and Sue-Ming Yang. (2004). Trajectories of Crime at Places: A Longitudinal Study of Street Segments in the City of Seattle. Criminology, 42(2), 283-322.

HOT SPOTS OF CRIME AND NOT “BAD COMMUNITIES”

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Hot spots are Spread Throughout the City

Landscape

13Weisburd, David, Nancy Morris and Elizabeth Groff. (2009). Hot Spots of Juvenile Crime. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 25:443-467.

Juvenile Crime Hot Spots

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Weisburd, David, Nancy Morris and Elizabeth Groff. (2009). Hot Spots of Juvenile Crime.Journal of Quantitative Criminology , 25:443-467.

Street by Street Variability: Much of the Action of the Crime Problem Would be Lost by

Studying Communities

15Weisburd, Groff and Yang (In Press, Oxford University Press). The Criminology of Place: Street Segments and Our Understanding of the Crime Problem

SPECIFIC TRAITS COUPLE CRIME TO PLACE

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Juvenile Activity Spaces, Unsupervised Socializing, and Juvenile Crime Hot Spots

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Weisburd, David, Nancy Morris and Elizabeth Groff. (2009). Hot Spots of Juvenile Crime. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 25:443-467.

What Couples Crime to Place?

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Crime Opportunities and Social Disorganization

Variable*   Odds Ratio Standardized Coefficient

Employees   1.075*** 9.16162Residents 1.241*** 5.87801High Risk Juveniles 2.218*** 1.67532Property value 0.704*** -1.26272Physical Disorder 25.634*** 1.23021Arterial Road 10.870*** 1.05545Collective Efficacy .041*** -1.00986n = 24,023; B = beginning value; C = change variable * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001Cox and Snell Pseudo R2 = .632; Nagelkerke Pseudo R2 = .684

*Other street segment-level variables in the model:Percent of residents on housing assistance, number of truant juveniles, racial heterogeneity, urbanization, mixed land use, street segment length, bus stops, percent vacant land, street lighting, presence of police & fire stations, spatial lag variables, and eight variables related to changes over time.

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THERE IS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT HOT SPOTS POLICING WORKS

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Isn’t It Obvious?….

“The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best-kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it, but the public does not know it. Yet the police pretend that they are society’s best defense against crime This is a myth.”

—Bayley (1994:3)

“..no evidence exists that augmentation of police forces or equipment, differential patrol strategies, or differential intensities of surveillance have an effect on crime rates.”

—Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990:270)

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The Minneapolis Hot Spots Experiment (1990)

The first major study to show the potential crime prevention benefits of place based policing.

Large experimental field study: 110 crime hot spots randomly allocated

to treatment and control conditions. Treatment sites were expected to

received between 2-3 times the preventive patrol as control sites.

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Sherman, Lawrence and David Weisburd. (1995). General Deterrent Effects of Police Patrol in Crime ‘Hot Spots’: A Randomized Study. Justice Quarterly, 12(4), 625-648.

Crime Calls

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Hot Spots Policing Trials

In a Campbell review Braga, Papachristos, and Hureau (2012) identifies 25 experimental and quasi experimental studies. 21 of 25 tests show

statistically significant crime prevention benefits.

10 experiments—all showed significant effects

There is an overall significant effect size in a meta analysis.

BUT DOESN’T CRIME JUST MOVE AROUND THE CORNER?

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The Police Foundation Displacement and Diffusion Study: A Direct Study

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Weisburd, David, Laura Wyckoff, Justin Ready, John E. Eck, Joshua C. Hinkle, and Frank Gajewski. (2006) Does Crime Just Move Around the Corner? A Controlled Study of Spatial Displacement and Diffusion of Crime Control Benefits Criminology 44(3), 549-591.  

Results

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Deterrence without Displacement (Braga et al.

2012)

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Reasons for Resistance to Spatial Displacement

Crime is coupled to place! The same opportunities do not necessarily exist in areas

nearby. Criminals are coupled to place!

One respondent arrested at the drug crime site, for example, explained that it is difficult to move because the “money won’t be the same,” that he “would have to start from scratch,” and that it “takes time to build up customers.”

Another said: “you really can’t deal in areas you aren’t living in, it ain’t your turf. That’s how people get themselves killed.”

“I walked over (to the graveyard cemetery) and I didn’t think I’d make money. It was unfamiliar to me. I didn’t know the guys (clients). On Cornelison you recognize the guys. I know from being out there every day (on Cornelison), the cars, the faces. It’s different. In my area, I know the people. Up on 'the hill' -- I don’t really know the people at that end of town” (Brisgone, 2004: 199).

National Academy of Sciences

“...studies that focused police resources on crime hot spots provide the strongest collective evidence of police effectiveness that is now available. On the basis of a series of randomized experimental studies, we conclude that the practice described as hot-spots policing is effective in reducing crime and disorder and can achieve these reductions without significant displacement of crime control benefits. Indeed, the research evidence suggests that the diffusion of crime control benefits to areas surrounding treated hot spots is stronger than any displacement outcome.”

National Research Council (2004:250)

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studies that focused police resources on crime hot spots provide the strongest collective evidence of police effectiveness that is now available. On the basis of a series of randomized experimental studies, we conclude that the practice described as hot-spots policing is effective in reducing crime and disorder and can achieve these reductions without significant displacement of crime control benefits. Indeed, the research evidence suggests that the diffusion of crime control benefits to areas surrounding treated hot spots is stronger than any displacement outcome.

The Potential for Social Prevention

At Crime Hot Spots

New opportunities for crime prevention!

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Social Risk Factors for Crime Waves

We saw earlier that both social disorganization and opportunity factors were related to being a crime hot spots.

Weisburd et al. (2014) also found that a series of factors that reflected social disorganization and weak informal social controls at street segments were related to crime increases in Seattle: Decreasing Property Values; Increased Housing Assistance;

Increased Racial Heterogeneity; Increased Physical Disorder; More Truant Juveniles; Fewer “Active Voters” (“Collective Efficacy”)

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% Agree or Strongly AgreeCold Spot

Cool Spot

Drug Spot

Violent Spot

Combined

Chisq

People on your block are willing to help their neighbors (N = 3618) 95% 87% 81% 80% 80% 88.41***Neighbors do NOT usually talk to each other on your block (N = 3693) 20% 22% 23% 27% 24% 31.28** In general people on your block can be trusted (N = 3347) 92% 77% 65% 60% 56% 216.89*** People on your block usually do NOT get along with each other (N = 3555) 7% 14% 22% 24% 24% 114.04*** People on your block do NOT share the same values (N = 3170) 21% 35% 44% 46% 47% 93.84*** Neighbors watch out for each other on your block (N = 3579) 94% 90% 83% 81% 83% 95.53***

Evidence of the Importance of Collective Efficacy in an NIH

Prospective Longitudinal Study of Crime Hot Spots

Changing the Scale of Social Interventions for Crime Prevention

Focus on crime hot spots provides an opportunity to “lower the scale” of social interventions, and accordingly to make such interventions relevant to crime prevention practitioners.

It is one thing to attempt change in the social conditions of an entire neighborhood or city. It is another to try to ameliorate problems on specific blocks. Perhaps it is time to consider providing economic aid to

problematic street blocks and not to neighborhoods overall.

It may be time to think of increasing collective efficacy on specific streets, and not in whole neighborhoods. 34

Increasing Collective Efficacy

Can police be used to increase collective efficacy at street segments?

The Brooklyn Park Collective Efficacy at Hot Spots Experiment.

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The Pittsburgh Housing Renewal in Hot Spots

Project In Pittsburgh we

are working with a non-profit land development company on a project that seeks to reduce crime by improving slum housing.

The purpose is not to change the neighborhood, but to improve hot spot streets.

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