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What term is used to describe the use of computer software to identify geographic “hot spots” where a majority of predatory crimes are concentrated?

Although most studies on police officer discretion is focused on racial profiling, it has also been shown that officers patrol hot spots. Hot spots are areas known to have a high rate of criminal activity. Focusing on hot spots is an officer’s discretion, because they are ignoring other areas that could potential produce criminal activities. All surveillance and enforcement efforts are focused on the “hot” area. Not only are officers ignoring other areas, but they have determined those areas are not as important as the hot spot. Hot spots can prove to be problematic if the criminal activity located in the hot spot before it was being patrolled is moved to a new location. The new location is prone to no police surveillance because all resources are focused on the old hot spot (Mastrofski, 2011).

The routine activities theory is based on the concept of the crime triangle. This triangle consists of a “motivated offender a suitable target and the lack of guardianship” (Cohen & Felson, 1979). When Hot spot policing is employed its focus is directed at two of the three elements of the triangle. Those elements are the suitable target and the lack of a capable guardian (Hoover, 2014). Some of the major tenants of this perspective are geographic targeting, focused patrol, saturation patrol, and interactive programs. There are other tenants such as simple visibility and foot patrol but I will focus on the three mentioned above. Geographic targeting uses techniques which address crime based on the “hot spot” theory. Hot spots are another

Buntin, J. (2017, July). In Extreme Community Policing, Cops Become the Neighbor. Retrieved October 15, 2017, from

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Reiman and Leighton comprehensively begin the discussion of crime by outlining their main objectives, establishing the immediate problems surrounding crime control in America, and setting the groundwork for their premises. In recent years, the crime rate in the United States has declined. This decline is generally attributed to ‘tough on crime’ and mass incarceration policies, but the authors are quick to assert that other variables--economic, social-- are greater contributors to this decrease, with the ‘imprisonment binge’ only actually contributing a small amount to the decline. These strict crime enforcement policies might have a small impact on crime prevention, but criminologists are concerned with the potential effect such policies might have on criminal justice procedures--promoting profit rather than safety-- and endangering citizens’ rights (particularly those considered minorities).

Hot spots policing revolves around the idea that crime is focused in small problem locales, and that crime can be more efficiently reduced if police concentrate their efforts on those smaller areas (Papachristos & Hureau, 2012). By stopping crime in smaller areas, it is easy to prevent it from growing in larger parts. Activities like patrolling high crime areas and presence of law enforcement officers in the area are performed will reduced crime (Hot spots policing, 2017, What is the focus of the intervention?). “When authors calculated the overall

“Broken Windows” policing drives crime rates down. When the New York City Police Department employed this policy, “murders decreased 19 percent and car thefts fell by 15 percent in the first year” (Noble 2016).

In addition, the increase in officers resulted in more random patrols, deterring crime in public places. Criminals looking to commit crime had less time. Police officers arrived within seconds of a 9-1-1 phone call. Also, New York City police used precision to focus patrol resources on the times and places with the highest risks of serious crime known as “Compstat”. With more police officers, patrol presence was concentrated at the "hot spots" and "hot times" of criminal activity. As a result, the increase in police between 1991 and 2001 accounted for a “crime reduction of 5– 6 percent” (Levitt). Arrest rates skyrocketed from “50 to 70 percent” in the 1990s (Francis). The “number of transit crimes dropped over 65%” during the early 1990s showing that crime fell rapidly (Loop). Law enforcement officers were pulling low-level crooks out of rap clubs, bars and streets congesting the justice system but also interrogating them for information that led to hundreds of arrests of more violent criminals involved in gun trafficking, robbery and murder. Within the first 50 weeks of 1994,

The Philadelphia foot patrol experiment: a randomized controlled trial of police patrol effectiveness in violent crime hotspots is an experiment that had over 200 foot patrol officers during the summer of 2009, in the Philadelphia area (Ratcliffe, 2011). This research covered 60 violent crime hotspots in twelve weeks (Ratcliffe, 2001). There was a noticeable reduction in the violent crimes within those area hotspots. Furthermore, 53% of violent crimes were prevented during the twelve weeks of the experiment (Ratcliffe, 2011). In conjunction the type of patrol that was utilized, was foot patrol in the hotspot areas, which was the independent variable. The dependent variable was the reduction

The problem with using and developing hot spots is the complexity of crime. “Taylor suggests that hot-spot-based strategies, in general, have produced minimal impacts on crime and these impacts are typically only achieved for the short term” (Paynich & Hill, 2013, p. 193). This is only partially true. Social order crimes such as drugs, prostitution, public drunkenness, loitering, disorderly conduct, and others typically take place in the same locations over and over. A plan using hot spots, developed with a combination of officer knowledge and crime analysis, could drastically reduce those crimes over a long term. Hot spots could also be useful in identifying and capturing a serial rapist. However developing hot spots for crimes

There are approximately 5 ways to identify and look at clusters of crime and one of most simple is the eyeball method (Paynich & Hill, 2013). In this method, one would place dots on a map to represent criminal events and then look for points clustered together (Paynich & Hill, 2013). This method does have its down falls. One problem is that someone who is not familiar with the area might incorrectly identify clusters (Paynich & Hill, 2013). There might be so many dots that useful patterns can’t be identified (Afflitto, 2015). Two ways to fix a cluttered map are the use of graduated symbols and repeated address mapping or RAM. Graduated symbols are different size circles representing the number of crimes, as addresses with more

and so forth, to identify crime patterns, clusters, suspects, and hot spots. Strategies are then

Both Goldstein & McEwen, (2009) and Button, Sharples & Harper (2007) studies agree that crime mapping is effective in uncovering and monitoring crime

Sampson tampabay.com). In Raytown, Missouri, officials are considering labeling Wal-Mart a “public nuisance” due to the high crime rate it poses while the city receives no money from Wal-Mart in the form of tax dollars (Ian Cummings kansascity.com). Departments are increasingly trying to come up with ways to bridge the gap between budgetary concerns and high-quality service. One way they are doing this is predictive policing or Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS). DDACTS allow departments to use geomapping to assist officers in identifying “hotspots” in the cities where they work to identify times and areas where enforcement would be most beneficial (“Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety nij.gov). Similarly, DDACTS can assist with staffing and scheduling weeks in advance to deploy the most officers during certain shifts (Holcomb and Sharpe 51). With the issues of budgetary concerns, officer retention, and the example of existing resources being diverted to one business in a community, who will be responsible for effectively enforcing an outdoor smoking ban in our public parks?