Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoIndustrias CreativasLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Seguridad Ciudadana

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Gender Violence
    • Reform of justice
    • Penitentiary Systems
    • Police
    • Crime prevention
    • Statistics and crime data
  • Authors
  • English
    • Español

Lessons from New York and Tel Aviv: policing hotspots

October 29, 2013 by Autor invitado Leave a Comment


By David Weisburd

Perhaps more than any other part of the criminal justice system, evidence based policy has taken hold in policing, and the police are looking to researchers to help them define what policies and practices they should adopt. A central area of evidence about what the police should do has come from studies of crime hot spots.

What is the evidence?

Image for hotspot Weisburd blog
Police should focus their attention on “hotspots”

A series of studies show that crime is very concentrated in urban areas. In my own research I have found that in Seattle, New York, Sacramento and Tel Aviv between 4 and 5 percent of street segments, intersection to intersection, produce 50 percent of crime.  In Seattle, we found that almost the exact same level of concentration existed year to year across sixteen years, irrespective of a declining crime trend in the period studied.  And just 1 percent of the streets in Seattle that stayed chronically “hot” during this period producing almost 25 percent of crime.

Importantly, such crime hot spots are not concentrated in a single area, but are spread throughout the city.  There are hot spots in so called good neighborhoods, and most streets have very little crime even in so called “bad” neighborhoods.

This law of crime concentrations led Lawrence Sherman and I to conduct a large randomized field study of hot spots policing based on Sherman’s finding that most crime calls in Minneapolis were concentrated at a relatively small number of street addresses.  Randomly allocating police patrol to crime hot spots, we found that the police could significantly reduce crime on the streets that received hot spots patrol.

Our findings were in stark contrast to the prevailing assumption among scholars at the time that the police could not prevent crime.  Subsequent research has confirmed our findings.  Braga and colleagues identified 25 hot spots field tests, and found that 20 produced significant crime prevention benefits.

Crime does not get displaced

In turn, there is little evidence of crime being displaced to areas nearby.  Indeed, not only does “crime not move around the corner,” there is strong evidence today that areas nearby are most likely to improve as a result of hot spots policing programs.

Based on this research I have argued that the police must refocus their paradigm of crime control from one that is centered on offenders to one that is centered on places. Policing places puts an emphasis on reducing opportunities for crime at places, not on waiting for crimes to occur and then arresting offenders. In this sense, place based policing is  likely to produce at the same time a reduction of prison populations as well as an increase in the crime-prevention effectiveness of the police.

Chief Michael Davis, from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, and I have recently added a new dimension to the promise of hot spots policing.  Based on a recent study in which  my colleagues and I found many social as well as opportunity based risk factors for chronic crime hot spots, Chief Davis and I have begun to argue for policing that increases collective efficacy and informal social controls at crime hot spots.  The focus on crime hot spots provides an opportunity to “lower the scale” of social and health interventions making social interventions cost efficient.

As Latin American and Caribbean countries look to make their police actions more effective in the face of rising citizen concerns over violence, hot spots policing provides a good place to begin.  Such policing should focus on increasing guardianship, solving problems, and reducing crime opportunities.  But it should also consider social interventions at crime hot spots.  Trying to increase collective efficacy and community social controls across a whole neighborhood may simply be impossible for police and other crime prevention agents.  But focusing on just 1 percent of the city streets may make such interventions realistic for social interventions just as it does for law enforcement.  Policing places is likely to be most effective if the police try to use not only strategies that increase surveillance and deterrence, but also ones that try to strengthen the micro communities that live in crime hot spots.

Prof. David Weisburd is a member of committee of experts advising the Inter-American Development Bank and a Distinguished Professor at George Mason University and Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. He also holds a joint appointment as the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law in Jerusalem. A version of this blog was originally published in the Police Executive Research Forum.


Filed Under: Police, Uncategorized Tagged With: caribbean, crime, crime rates, david weisburd, george mason university, hotspots, latin america, lawrence sherman, police, policing, prevención, prevention, sacramento, seattle, situational prevention, tel aviv, university of cambridge, violence

Autor invitado

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

SIN MIEDOS

Space for ideas and solutions about citizen security and justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Search

Similar post

  • Fix the divide between science and policing
  • Time for cities in Latin America and Africa to connect on citizen security
  • Four steps to use the public health model to curb crime
  • Brazilian paradox: how gangs grow stronger in prisons
  • Reducing Community Violence Starts at Home

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

    Blog posts written by Bank employees:

    Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


    For blogs written by external parties:

    For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

    The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

    Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



    Privacy Policy

    Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

    Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

    Aviso Legal

    Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

    facebook
    twitter
    youtube
    This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser.
    To learn more about cookies, click here
    X
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT