Directed Enforcement or Random Patrols? Hot Spots of Arrests and Crimes in London

• In Event: Evidence-Based Policing in an International Context

Abstract

The arrest locations of police are useful in understanding where police departments are focusing their resources, geographically and temporally. Theoretically, the police should direct resources to crime hot spots because crime is not evenly spread out across urban cities but clustered in very small places that experience crime and victimization at disproportionately higher rates. Directed enforcement activities arguably are more successful than random enforcement in crime reduction. Drawing on the locations of nearly 8,000 arrests along with property and violent crimes, the current study empirically tests whether the London Metropolitan Police Department directed its resources to the crime and disorder locations between June and September 2016. This project examines whether the police arrests resulted in a pattern around crime and disorder locations in the jurisdiction. Policy implications are also discussed in the study.

Authors

• Michael J Jenkins, University of Scranton

• Ismail Onat, University of Scranton