Treatment Fidelity in Directed Patrol Experiments: Potential Benefits of Using Computer Aided Dispatch and Automated Vehicle Locators

• In Event: Outcomes from Portland’s Field Experiment with Directed Community Engagement Patrols

Abstract

Treatment fidelity, the extent to which interventions undergoing evaluation are delivered as intended, is a growing concern in the social sciences (Gearing, et al., 2011). Studies may fail to observe the true effects for an intervention if it is poorly implemented. Likewise, program outcomes may be difficult to replicate across different sites if there is undocumented variation in how the program was initially implemented. While the importance of fidelity has been noted by policing researchers studying patrol strategies (e.g., Weisburd, 2005), gaining full compliance of street officers remains a challenge and standard approaches to monitoring treatment adherence are time-intensive (i.e., covert observation, ride-alongs). This presentation reviews the use of computer aided dispatch (CAD) in Portland, Oregon during a field experiment on policing in hot spots. Officers were randomly assigned to patrol high crime areas two or four times per day and these visits were pre-programmed as CAD calls. Measures of compliance with the CAD protocol will be presented along with cross validation data from Automated Vehicle Locators (AVL) in patrol vehicles. Implications for treatment fidelity in future studies on directed patrol will be discussed.

Authors

• Kris R. Henning, Portland State University

• Christian Peterson, Porltand Police Bureau

• Renee Mitchell, American Society of Evidence Based Policing

• Sean Sothern, Portland Police Bureau

• Brian Renauer, Portland State University

• Greg Stewart, Portland Police Bureau

• Kimberly Barsamian Kahn, Portland State University

• Yves Labissiere, Portland State University