THE PHILADELPHIA FOOT PATROL EXPERIMENT: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF POLICE PATROL EFFECTIVENESS IN VIOLENT CRIME HOTSPOTS*

Originating with the Newark, NJ, foot patrol experiment, research has found police foot patrols improve community perception of the police and reduce fear of crime, but they are generally unable to reduce the incidence of crime. Previous tests of foot patrol have, however, suffered from statistical and measurement issues and have not fully explored the potential dynamics of deterrence within microspatial settings. In this article, we report on the efforts of more than 200 foot patrol officers during the summer of 2009 in Philadelphia. Geographic information systems (GIS) analysis was the basis for a randomized controlled trial of police effectiveness across 60 violent crime hotspots. The results identified a significant reduction in the level of treatment area violent crime after 12 weeks. A linear regression model with separate slopes fitted for treatment and control groups clarified the relationship even more. Even after accounting for natural regression to the mean, target areas in the top 40 percent on pretreatment violent crime counts had significantly less violent crime during the operational period. Target areas outperformed the control sites by 23 percent, resulting in a total net effect (once displacement was considered) of 53 violent crimes prevented. The results suggest that targeted foot patrols in violent crime hotspots can significantly reduce violent crime levels as long as a threshold level of violence exists initially. The findings contribute to a growing body of evidence on the contribution of hotspots and place‐based policing to the reduction of crime, and especially violent crime, which is a significant public health threat in the United States. We suggest that intensive foot patrol efforts in violent hotspots may achieve deterrence at a microspatial level, primarily by increasing the certainty of disruption, apprehension, and arrest. The theoretical and practical implications for violence reduction are discussed.     

The Central Paradox of the Digital Age

Civilizations are mortal. Some rise to meet their challenges, others collapse and disappear into history. Why do some posses the capacity to change, and others not? Jared Diamond warns that the Anthropocentric Age, in which the human species for the first time is the dominant influence on the planet, could end up like the extinct Maya, terminating our civilization's accomplishments if we don't squarely face our ecological challenges. Bruce Mau, like Alvin Toffler, sees hope in the “distributed power” enabled by new technologies. Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt examine the paradoxes of the digital age which has transformed how we live our lives in every respect.     

PERINATAL COMPLICATIONS PREDICT VIOLENT OFFENDING

Pregnancy and birth complications are frequently treated as one variable, despite evidence that pregnancy events and birth events may have different impacts on the developing child. This paper studies the association between perinatal events and the development of violent and property crime. In the context of a prospective study of a sample of 216 subjects drawn from a Danish birth cohort, 15 violent criminals and 24 property criminals were compared with 177 nonoffenders on pregnancy and delivery events. Delivery events predicted adult violent offending, especially in high-risk subjects and recidivistically violent offenders. No other significant predictive results were found.     

Legal Ambiguity and the Politics of Compliance: Affirmative Action Officers' Dilemma

Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action mandates, like many other laws regulating organizations, do not clearly define what constitutes compliance. Thus compliance depends largely on the initiative and agenda of those persons within organizations who are charged with managing the compliance effort: in the case of civil rights, "affirmative action officers." This paper draws on case studies of affirmative action officers to suggest that the political climate within which affirmative action officers work, together with the officers' interpretations of the law, their role conceptions, and their professional aspirations have important implications for the nature and extent of organizational compliance with law. We conclude that compliance should be understood as a process that evolves over time rather than as a discrete event or non-event.     

VIOLENT DELINQUENTS AND URBAN YOUTHS*

Violent juvenile crime is disproportionately concentrated in urban neighborhoods, and accordingly an understanding of the sources of serious delinquency is con founded by components of urbanism. These milieus usually have high rates of absolute poverty and relative economic deprivation, as well as weak social institutions. The persistent findings of delinquent peer contributions to delinquency have yet to be tested under conditions where social class and milieu effects are controlled. There is little empirical evidence to determine how adolescents in high-crime neighborhoods avoid delinquency despite frequent contact with delinquent peers. The differences between violent delinquents and other youths from comparable neighborhoods are little understood. This study contrasts a sample of chronically violent male juvenile offenders with the general male adolescent population (students and school dropouts) from inner-city neighborhoods in four cities. Violent delinquents differ from other male adolescents in inner cities in their attachments to school, their perceptions of school safety, their associations with officially delinquent peers, their perceptions of weak maternal authority, and the extent to which they have been victims of crime. Peer delinquency and drug“problems” predict the prevalence of three delinquency offense types for both violent offenders and neighborhood youths. Among violent delinquents, there appear to be different explanatory patterns, with one type better described by internal controls (locus of control), a developmental measure. Overall, there is strong support for integrated theory including control and learning components, and similar associations exist among inner-city youths as in the general adolescent male population. Despite the generally elevated rates of delinquency in inner cities, the explanations of serious and violent delinquency appear the same when subjects are sampled at the extremes of the distribution of behavior.     

Uganda's Progress and Problems

The following address was given by the former Governor of Ugandaat a joint meeting of the Royal African Society and the RoyalEmpire Society on February 7, 1957. Sir John Macpherson tookthe chair.     

CAN HOT SPOTS POLICING REDUCE CRIME IN URBAN AREAS? AN AGENT‐BASED SIMULATION*

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing consensus among researchers that hot spots policing is an effective strategy to prevent crime. Although strong evidence exists that hot spots policing will reduce crime at hot spots without immediate spatial displacement, we know little about its possible jurisdictional or large‐area impacts. We cannot isolate such effects in previous experiments because they (appropriately) compare treatment and control hot spots within large urban communities, thus, confounding estimates of area‐wide impacts. An agent‐based model is used to estimate area‐wide impacts of hot spots policing on street robbery. We test two implementations of hot spots policing (representing different levels of resource allocation) in a simulated borough of a city, and we compare them with two control conditions, one model with constant random patrol and another with no police officers. Our models estimate the short‐ and long‐term impacts on large‐area robbery levels of these different schemes of policing resources. These experiments reveal statistically significant effects for hot spots policing beyond both a random patrol model and a landscape without police. These simulations suggest that wider application of hot spots policing can have significant impacts on overall levels of crime in urban areas.     

FURTHERING THE INTEGRATION OF ROUTINE ACTIVITY AND SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORIES: SMALL UNITS OF ANALYSIS AND THE STUDY OF STREET ROBBERY AS A DIFFUSION PROCESS

Attempts to integrate the two predominant spatial theories of crime, social disorganization and routine activity theories, may benefit from examining empirical relationships at units of analysis smaller than the relatively large units characteristic of most ecological research (cities, SMSAs, census tracts, multiple city blocks). Small units of analysis, specifically, face blocks (both sides of a city block between two intersections) are analyzed in a study of street robbery within a medium-size southeastern U.S. city. Models of street robbery and street-robbery "potential" suggest a crime diffusion process. Several interaction effects between variables of social disorganization and routine activity theory are found, which may form the basis in future research for successful theoretical integration.     

INTERROGATING INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: ACTORS' ATTITUDES TO COMPETITION AND COOPERATION IN COMMISSIONING HEALTH SERVICES IN ENGLAND

Since the beginning of the 1990s the public healthcare system in England has been subject to reforms. This has resulted in a structurally hybrid system of public service with elements of the market. Utilizing a theory of new institutionalism, this article explores National Health Service (NHS) managers' views on competition and cooperation as mechanisms for commissioning health services. We interrogate the extent of institutional change in the NHS by examining managers' understanding of the formal rules, normative positions and frameworks for action under the regime of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Interviews with managers showed an overall preference for cooperative approaches, but also evidence of marketization in the normative outlook and actions. This suggests that hybridity in the NHS has already spread from structure and rules to other institutional pillars. The study showed that managers were adept at navigating the complex policy environment despite its inherent contradictions.