Race, Place, and Effective Policing

Abstract

The police need public support and cooperation to be effective in controlling crime and holding offenders accountable. In many disadvantaged communities of color, poor relationships between the police and residents undermine effective policing. Weak police–minority community relationships are rooted in a long history of discriminatory practices and contemporary proactive policing strategies that are overly aggressive and associated with racial disparities. There are no simple solutions to address the complex rift between the police and the minority communities that they serve. The available evidence suggests that there are policies and practices that could improve police–minority community relations and enhance police effectiveness. Police departments should conduct more sophisticated analysis of crime problems to ensure that crime-control programs are not indiscriminate and unfocused, engage residents in their crime reduction efforts by revitalizing community policing, ensure procedurally just police contacts with citizens, and implement problem-solving strategies to prevent crimes beyond surveillance and enforcement actions.

Allocating Police Resources While Limiting Racial Inequality

“…To date suggestions by scholars that potentially limit the disparate outcomes among minority citizens in targeted hot spots of crime tend to focus on the type of policing that is undertaken. Examples include focusing on problem oriented policing as opposed to more traditional policing tactics such as stops and arrests (Braga & Apel, 2016;Braga et al, 1999;Owens et al, 2018), or improving perceptions of police legitimacy during police interactions with the public (Braga, Brunson, & Drakulich, 2019;Lum & Nagin, 2017;Owens et al, 2018). But problem oriented policing often devolves into more traditional policing (Braga & Bond, 2008), and one should not entirely dismiss the capability of traditional approaches, such as conducting more police stops in hot spots of crime, to reduce crime (Groff et al, 2015;Rosenfeld, Deckard, & Blackburn, 2014;Weisburd, Telep, & Lawton, 2014).…”

“…One, the concept of fairness is intimately tied into legitimacy (Tyler, 2017;Tyler, Fagan, & Geller, 2014). Increasing perceptions of fairness is then expected to have downstream effects of the community cooperating with police, thus making investigations more effective (Braga et al, 2019).…”

“…Other recent work focuses on what police do at hot spots to reduce crime, in particular strategies focusing on problem-oriented policing approaches and procedural justice are less likely to result in negative community impressions (Braga et al, 2019;Owens et al, 2018). While encouraging police to be procedurally just in their encounters with the public is no doubt a good thing, there is scant evidence that improving procedural justice has resulted in improved police-citizen relations (Nagin & Telep, 2017;Worden & McLean, 2017).…”

“…I attempt to solve this problem by formulating a linear program to spatially allocate police resources to maximize police activity in high crime areas, while limiting the amount of racial disparity one would expect in contacts with the police. Currents solutions only focus on the types of policing that occurs within hot spots, which although may improve police community relations (Braga, Brunson, Drakulich, 2019;Lum & Nagin, 2017;Owens et al, 2018) are unlikely to reduce DMC and the disparate impact that occurs with more criminal justice contact (Brayne, 2014). As opposed to focusing on what the police do in hot spots, this article proposes a proactive policing strategy that is consistent with a hot spots policing approach, but still takes into consideration how the spatial distribution of police resources can either exacerbate or mitigate DMC.…”

Breaking the chain: How arrests reduce the probability of near repeat crimes

“…This is an important finding that not only replicates prior findings for the deterrent effect of arrests following shootings (Wyant et al, 2012), but provides evidence that solving violent crimes results in a lower probability of retaliation (Leovy, 2015). Improving clearance rates for serious violence is not impossible (Braga & Dusseault, 2018) and is also expected to have downstream effects of improving perceptions of police as well (Braga, Brunson, & Drakulich, 2019). These estimates of crime reductions can potentially be used to justify increased detective resources, especially given the costs associated with serious violence (Hunt, Saunders, & Kilmer, 2019).…”