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Place-Based Policing

NCJ Number
224692
Journal
Ideas in American Policing Issue: 9 Dated: January 2008 Pages: 1-16
Author(s)
David Weisburd
Date Published
January 2008
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the benefits of place-based policing.
Abstract
The research suggests that because the action of crime is at very small geographic units of analysis, such as street segments or small groups of street blocks, police should shift from person-based policing to place-based policing. These types of small units offer a stable target for police interventions, rather than the more difficult to target constantly moving criminal offenders. Evaluation research provides solid experimental evidence for the effectiveness of place-based policing and contradicts the assumption that such interventions will just move crime to another location. The available evidence suggests that such interventions are much more likely to lead to a diffusion of crime control benefits to areas nearby, while a shift to place-based policing will demand radical changes in data collection in policing, in the organization of police activities, and particularly in the overall world view of the police. Likewise, police officers who see the key work of policing as catching criminals must shift their understanding of their work to crime prevention which ameliorates crime at place. Many forward-looking police organizations have begun to recognize police should put places rather than people at the center of police practices. Not only should places be considered in policing, but the places should become a key component of the databases the police use, of the geographic organization of police activities, of the strategic approaches that police employ to combat crime and disorder, and in the definitions of the role of the police in urban settings. Figures and references