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12 - Advocate Hot spots policing as a model for police innovation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
David Weisburd  and
Anthony A. Braga
Edited by
David Weisburd  and
Anthony A. Braga
David Weisburd
Affiliation:
Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem; Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Maryland, College Park
Anthony A. Braga
Affiliation:
Senior Research Associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government
David Weisburd
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Anthony A. Braga
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

Looking at the major police innovations of the last decade, what is most striking from a criminologist's perspective is the extent to which new programs and practices have been developed without reference to either criminological theory or research evidence. Some institutional theorists might argue that this is understandable given the limited ability of police agencies to reliably demonstrate their successes, and the political environments within which police agencies must operate (Meyer and Rowan 1977; Mastrofski and Ritti 2000; Willis, Mastrofski, and Weisburd 2004). However, this reality is very much at odds with a model of policing that would seek to draw new policies and practices from a solid research base (Sherman 1998), and suggests an approach to policing that is based more on intuition and luck than on research and experimentation. Recent studies of the adoption of police innovation reinforce this problematic portrait of American police innovation. Widely touted programs such as Community Policing or Compstat have been widely diffused across the landscape of American policing absent any reliable evidence that they accomplish the goals that they set out to achieve at the outset (Weisburd, Mastrofski, McNally et al. 2003; Weisburd and Eck 2004).

In this context, “hot spots policing” represents a particularly important innovation on the American police scene. Its origins can be traced to innovations in criminological theory, and it was subjected to careful empirical study before it was diffused widely across American police agencies.

Type
Chapter
Information
Police Innovation
Contrasting Perspectives
 , pp. 225 - 244
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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  • Advocate Hot spots policing as a model for police innovation
    • By David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem; Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Maryland, College Park, Anthony A. Braga, Senior Research Associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government
  • Edited by David Weisburd, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Anthony A. Braga, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Police Innovation
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489334.012
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  • Advocate Hot spots policing as a model for police innovation
    • By David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem; Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Maryland, College Park, Anthony A. Braga, Senior Research Associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government
  • Edited by David Weisburd, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Anthony A. Braga, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Police Innovation
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489334.012
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Advocate Hot spots policing as a model for police innovation
    • By David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem; Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Maryland, College Park, Anthony A. Braga, Senior Research Associate in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government
  • Edited by David Weisburd, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Anthony A. Braga, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Police Innovation
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489334.012
Available formats
×