U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

The effects of community-infused problem-oriented policing in crime hot spots based on police data: A randomized controlled trial

NCJ Number
305821
Journal
Journal of Experimental Criminology Dated: November 2022
Author(s)
Bruce G. Taylor; Weiwei Liu,; Poulami Maitra, ; Christopher S. Koper; Jackie Sheridan ; William Johnson
Date Published
November 2022
Annotation

This randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessed the effectiveness of a community-infused problem-oriented policing (CPOP) intervention on reducing property/violent crime.

Abstract

In two mid-Atlantic cities, a total of 102 crime hot spots were randomly assigned to receive CPOP or standard patrol. Analyses examined changes in crime the year before, during, and one year after the intervention. The authors used hierarchical Poisson regression models. No main effects for the CPOP intervention on property and violent crimes were found in either site. In site B, the violent crime count in low treatment hot spots was 200-percent higher than controls post-intervention, but this likely reflected officers paying less attention to treatment locations with lower levels of crime. These results suggest that CPOP was not effective in the unusual context of the COVID-19 pandemic and post-George Floyd killing. Given the challenges of implementing CPOP during this unique time, caution is needed in interpreting these findings. (Publisher abstract provided)