Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Crime also does not occur randomly. It tends to concentrate at particular places for reasons that can be explained in relation to victim and offender interaction and the opportunities that exist to commit crime. These concentrations or clusters of crime are commonly referred to as hotspots. There is no single universally accepted definition of a hot spot. A hot spot can be a single location that produces a large volume of calls (e.g., a bar); a cluster of locations, such as some residences across several contiguous blocks experiencing burglaries; or an area. Also, there is no universal or standard numerical threshold that can be used to define the number of crimes that need to have occurred in an area for the area to be defined as 'hot'. Hot spots policing refers to the concentration of police resources in small discrete areas such as addresses, street blocks, or clusters of addresses or street blocks. Research showed that focused police activities on crime hot spots can reduce crime problems. One of the most thorough evaluations of the effectiveness of focused police efforts to prevent crime in hot spot areas was examined by E. Braga who reviewed all available academic studies evaluating hot spots policing programs. The results of this systematic review support the assertion that focusing police efforts on high-activity crime places can be used to good effect in preventing crime. As soon as these findings showed that the focus of police efforts on crime hot spots presented a new and promising approach for police practice as they enable police commander to focus resources into the areas of highest need, new dilemma emerged. How would one know if crime prevention benefits gained at hot spots would not simply be displaced to other areas close by? Today, the growing body of research evidence suggests that focused crime-prevention efforts do not inevitably lead to the displacement of crime problems, rather, when displacement was measured, it was quite limited and often unintended crime prevention benefits were associated with the hot spots policing programs.
Author: Milić, Nenad
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7110501481