Repeat Complaint Address Policing: Two Field Experiments - A User's Guide to the Machine-Readable Files and Documentation and Codebook

• NCJ Number: 146213
• Date Published: 1991
• Author(s): L W Sherman; P R Gartin; M E Buerger
• Length: 18 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0037
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored

Annotation

This study deviated from traditional criminology research by analyzing places instead of collectivities as units of spatial analysis. Data set archived by the NIJ Data Resources Program at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, located at URL http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/nacjd.

Abstract

The first phase of the study tested whether crime occurred randomly in space or was concentrated in hot spots, based on 323,979 telephone calls for police service made in 1985 and 1986 to the Minneapolis Police Department. From this number of telephone calls, 2,000 addresses that generated the most concentrated and most frequent repeat calls for police service were selected and rank ordered. The top 250 residential addresses and the top 250 commercial addresses were selected for further analysis in the second phase of the study. Two field experiments were designed to test the effectiveness of a proactive policing strategy called Repeat Complaint Address Policing (RECAP). From each set of 250 addresses, 125 were randomly selected as experimental addresses and 125 were randomly selected as control addresses. Experimental addresses were subjected to more focused proactive policing. Although data resulting from the analysis are tabulated separately, a data completeness and consistency report and a codebook are included. 2 references and 10 tables