Objectives To examine the impacts of broken windows policing at crime hot spots on fear of crime, ratings of police legitimacy and reports of collective efficacy among residents of targeted hot spots. Methods A block randomized experimental design with a police intervention targeting disorder delivered to 55 treatment street segments with an equal number of segments serving as controls. Main outcomes were measured using a panel survey of 371 persons living or working in these sites. Results The broken windows police intervention delivered to crime hot spots in this study had no significant impacts on fear of crime, police legitimacy, collective efficacy, or perceptions of crime or social disorder. Perceptions of physical disorder appear to have been modestly increased in the target areas.Conclusions The findings suggest that recent criticisms of hot spots policing approaches which focus on possible negative "backfire" effects for residents of the targeted areas may be overstated. The study shows that residents are not aware of, or much affected by, a three hour per week dosage of aggressive order maintenance policing on their blocks (in addition to routine police responses in these areas). Future research needs to replicate these findings focusing on varied target populations and types of crime hot spots, and examining different styles of hot spots policing.

PurposeTo summarize and compare both the methodology and findings of existing studies of patrol officer workload that have contributed to what is known about “downtime” (time not responding to citizen calls for service), and provide more standardized estimates of downtime for comparison purposes.Design/methodology/approachA total of 11 studies of police workload published between 1970 and 2001 that used data collected through either dispatch records or systematic social observations of police officers, and reported information regarding the amount and use of patrol officer downtime, are summarized and compared. The studies report information for 13 different (US) police departments and averages for the 24 departments studied in the Police Services Study (1977). A consistent measure of downtime is estimated for each study.FindingsA consistent measure of downtime estimated for each study yields more similar results across studies than the originally reported findings suggest. For the studies that used data collected through dispatch records, the average amount of downtime is 70 percent of a patrol officer's shift, for the studies that used systematic social observation data 79 percent. Observations regarding the methodologies and contributions of workload studies are discussed.Research limitations/implicationsSuggested changes in the reporting of future workload study findings would provide more accurate information and facilitate comparisons across studies, benefiting both researchers and police administrators.Practical implicationsThese findings suggest patrol officers always have had, and continue to have, a lot of downtime available for restructuring.Originality/valueCompiles, organizes, and compares information regarding what is known about the amount and use of patrol officer downtime, and suggests researchers and administrators consider approaching the study and use of downtime in new ways.

Research Summary:Our paper explores the impact of implementing a nonemergency 3-1-1 call system in Baltimore, Maryland. We found a large (34.2%) reduction in 9-1-1 calls following the introduction of the 3-1-1 nonemergency call system. Many, but not all, of these calls simply migrated over to the 3-1-1 call system. Overall, we identified a 7.7% reduction in recorded citizen calls to the police post 3-1-1 intervention. This recorded reduction in citizen calls was confounded by an increase in high priority calls to the 9-1-1 system (27.5%), a large overall reduction in low priority calls (54.3%), and an estimated increase (perhaps 8%) in unrecorded calls to the police. W e also note a small increase in response times to high priority 9-1-1 calls following the implementation of the 3-1-1 call system and virtually no change in the amount of officer time available for community policing or problem-oriented policing activities. ~ * This study was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice through an award (Grant 98-IJ-CS-0067) to the University of Cincinnati with funds transferred from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Findings, and the conclusions of the research reported here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department Justice. The authors acknowledge support from the Baltimore Police Department and the many research assistants who worked on the various components of this research project. Address all correspondence to Lorraine Mazerolle, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University (Mt Gravatt Campus), Brisbane, Australia 41 11. VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1 2002 PP 97-124 98 MAZEROLLE ET AL. Policy Implications:Our findings suggest that nonemergency call systems, such as 3-1 -1, can greatly facilitate police efforts to better handle citizen calls f o r police service. However, the intrinsic value of nonemergency call systems is tightly woven with a police department's willingness to change dispatch policie5 (especially f o r those calls received via the 3-1-1 system), reallocate patrol resources, and adopt organizational reforms to support alternative methods (apart from dispatch) for handling nonemergency calls for service.

Low base rates present strong challenges to researchers attempting to evaluate hot spots policing in smaller cities. As such, base rates must be taken directly into account when designing experimental evaluations. The article offers suggestions for researchers attempting to expand the examination of hot spots policing and other microplace-based interventions to smaller jurisdictions.

Using data collected through social observations of 188 police officer shifts, the current research examines the time allocated to proactive and reactive activities by traditional and community police officers to assess (a) the extent to which post officers engage in proactive activities, (b) whether these activities differ from the (proactive) activities conducted by community officers, (c) whether post and community officers' activities reflect an emphasis on different functions of policing, and (d) to what extent the activities of both types of officers reflect community policing philosophy.