Crime Hot Spots Require More Than Police-Only Solutions

When crime concentrates at particular places, the conventional response is often straightforward: send more police to those places.

But what if the most effective intervention isn’t always a police intervention?
A recent randomized controlled trial offers an important example. Researchers increased code enforcement activity in crime hot spots and found larger reductions in calls for service in treatment locations than in comparison locations, with particularly notable results for residential burglaries and auto thefts.

The finding matters for a reason that goes well beyond code enforcement.
Cities have many resources for preventing crime. And many agencies or departments within a city have oversight or influence on places and settings where opportunities for crime or victimization occur. Police are only one of them. 

Public works can improve lighting or remediate neglected properties. Code enforcement can address problematic conditions at particular parcels. Transportation agencies can alter streets and access points. Parks and Recreation can enhance green spaces, playgrounds and public restrooms. Businesses and property owners can change how places are managed. Community organizations can activate spaces and connect residents with resources.

The challenge is knowing which lever to pull, where, and with whom. This is where the distinction between crime hot spots and Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) becomes important. 

A hot spot map identifies an area where crime repeatedly concentrates. RTM goes a step further by identifying the particular features of the environment—such as certain businesses, properties, facilities, or other places—that help explain why that area remains vulnerable.

RTM changes the conversation from: “Where should we send police?”
to: “What is it about this setting that produces risk, and who is best positioned to do something about it?”

Sometimes the answer will involve police. Sometimes it will involve other local officials or several partners working together.

That is the larger idea behind Data-Informed Community Engagement (DICE): use data to diagnose the conditions producing risk, then co-produce interventions with the people and organizations capable of changing those conditions. Prevention partnerships coordinate independent activities so that everyone operates with their own autonomy but simultaneously amplifies everyone else's collective impacts.

New Orleans offers a good example of the role of code enforcement for prevention when informed by RTM.

The goal isn’t simply to put more resources into hot spots. It’s to use the data to better understand why those areas are hot spots in the first place—and then change the conditions that keep them that way.

The aforementioned article pairs nicely with this one: "City government as super-controller: A systematic review of non-police mechanisms that city governments can apply to reduce crime at hot spots". Well worth a read!!