Police to patrol crime hot-spots — as an experiment

Reporter: JANICE BARKER
Date online: 12/01/2010

A new experiment which aims to clamp down on violent offending by focusing on hotspots for criminal activity will begin later this year, it was announced today.

Greater Manchester Police are planning to test the initiative, instigated by Cambridge University, by letting officers focus on pressure points known for high levels of offending, the university said.

Police will centre their attention on hundreds of small areas, including Oldham, none of which will be larger than a few hundred feet.

They will be testing the theory that one constable can deter more crime by checking a series of hot-spots for offending rather than making less structured patrols across a wider area.

Criminology professor Lawrence Sherman, who is leading the project, said the final arrangements will be discussed this week and the research will start in spring.

“This will be the first controlled experiment in history which allows us to assess not only whether this patrol design will reduce crime in those areas, but also whether it just encourages offenders to go elsewhere,” said Prof Sherman.

“We believe that simply by having a police officer stationed in the middle of one of these pressure points we can spoil the party for would–be offenders and stabilise the area.

“If the experiment produces the results we hope it will, we could end up revolutionising policing by putting officers not on neighbourhood beats, but focusing them heavily on these pressure points.”

The experiment will divide 200 hotspots into two groups, the first will be policed normally and the second will feature officers stationed in the pressure points.

After a year researchers will measure the levels of crime in both groups.