Page 57 - 1Proactive Policing

Pro-Active Policing

Practice Theory:

Recent interest in hot spots policing is due in part to changes and innovations in policing that have
occurred over the last three decades and the emergence of theoretical perspectives in
criminology suggesting the importance of ‗place‘ in understanding crime. The observation that the

distribution of crime varies within neighborhoods and is not spread evenly across areas has
existed for some time (Braga et al. 2012). However, with the emergence of powerful computer

hardware and software capable of carrying out sophisticated spatial analyses, crime analysts in
police departments are now able to identify and track spatial concentrations of crime. Moreover,
police reforms like Comp stat revealed the strong linkages between spatial analyses of crime

patterns and police operations meant to disrupt those patterns. Criminologists have also relied on
spatial analysis tools to point out that much of the crime in a community is committed in a small

number of criminogenic places.

Three related theoretical perspectives influenced the study of place-based crime: rational choice

theory (Cornish and Clarke 1987), routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979), and
environmental criminology (Brantingham and Brantingham 1991). Rational choice theory assumes
that offenders are self-interested and weigh the costs and benefits of offending before making the

choice to offend. Routine activity theory suggests that crime is the convergence in time and space
of a motivated offender, a suitable target, and a lack of capable guardianship. Environmental
criminology is concerned with criminal events and the importance of the characteristics of the

places where crime happens (as cited in Braga, 2007). Hot spots policing emerged, in part, from
these criminological theories.

Practice Components:

Hot spots policing relies primarily on highly focused, traditional law enforcement strategies. A
visual representation of the relationship between the diversity of the hot spots policing approach

and its level of focus compared to other policing strategies, such as community-oriented and
problem-oriented policing, can be found in Weisburd and Eck (2004, pg. 45).

Hot spots policing can adopt a variety of strategies to control crime in problem areas, including
order maintenance and drug enforcement crackdowns, increased gun searches and seizures, and
zero-tolerance policing. These strategies can be categorized into two fundamentally different

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