Citation

Sherman LW. Crime Justice 1992; 15: 159-230.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Growing experimental evidence suggests police actions can reduce crime, increase it, or make no difference, depending on a wide range of conditions. Growing epidemiological evidence suggests police can focus their crime-control efforts much more sharply on high-risk places, times, offenders, and (to a lesser extent) victims. These twin findings suggest the value of a more intensive and sustained program of research and development for testing current and innovative police efforts to control crime. Less than 3 percent of street addresses and 3 percent of the population in a city produce over half the crime and arrests. There has been little testing of alternative police tactics for addressing these high-risk targets. Improving police strategy and tactics for crime control requires much more empirical evidence to specify the conditions under which they succeed or fail. It also requires hard choices about resource allocation and more ideas for how to attack specific crime targets.

Language: en