preview

Analysis Of Ratcliff Focused On Hotspots

Decent Essays

Ratcliff focused on hotspots in Philadelphia. To find these hotspots the researchers used violent crimes such as homicide, aggravated assault and robberies from the INCT database of the Philadelphia police report from 2006-2008. These measures have face validity since these are common violent crime that large cities have. The database used is a valid way to estimate crime but also does have limitations. The limitations of using official data from a police department is the not reported crimes that happen. Unreported crimes are a dark figure of crime and must be taken into consideration when using official data.
Foot Patrols of Newark, NJ found that foot patrols to reduce fear of crime ( Pate, 1986) but do not reduce geral incidences of crime (kelling, 1981), and also improve perception of the police. The causal mechanism that was hypothesized to reduce crime was the footpatrol. The footpatrol was meant to show presence and deter would be offenders. The actual policing the foot patrols did varied from community oriented to proactive policing.

Ratcliffe sampled more than 200 foot patrol officers and used Geographic information systems (GIS) to create randomized controls for crime hotspots. Previous studies had lacked this GIS technology which could be a reason for different results. Results showed significant reduction of violent crime in experimental group after 12 weeks, and when compared to control group there was 53 violent crimes that were prevented. Contradicting

Get Access