NCJ Number
158286
Journal
Criminal Law Bulletin Volume: 31 Issue: 5 Dated: (September-October 1995) Pages: 446-460
Date Published
1995
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Law enforcement officials and researchers alike have long recognized that certain urban locations are particularly prone to disorder, violence, and crime; recent research has focused on changing community structures and the increasing frequency of what some call high-crime areas, disorderly neighborhoods, deviant or dangerous places, and hot spots.
Abstract
Some researchers argue that hot spots consume a disproportionate amount of police resources, and many police departments have developed special tactics to address urban hot spots. However, an issue that researchers have failed to address adequately in their efforts to understand hot spots is that certain urban areas exhibit a high level of personal criminal victimization and a heightened risk of police civil liability. The author discusses police civil liability for abandoning citizens in hot spot areas characterized by crime and dangerousness and examines how the common law public duty doctrine has been incorporated in constitutional jurisprudence through the 14th amendment's due process clause under the theory of special relationships. The author specifically focuses on how police-citizen contacts in hot spots may create special relationships, requiring a heightened duty on the part of police officers to protect citizens from criminal victimization. Judicial decisions in this developing area of civil liability are analyzed, and policy guidance for law enforcement agencies is offered. 77 footnotes