Program Goals/Target Sites
The Tactical Police Response to Micro-Time Hot Spots intervention aims to deter residential burglaries and thefts from vehicles by deploying short-term responses to micro-time hot spots identified by crime analysts. The program was implemented in Port St. Lucie, which is in southeast Florida along the coast. As of 2014, the population included 170,000 residents. The city does not have any major malls or large business plazas; therefore, the majority of burglaries and thefts from vehicles occur in residential neighborhoods (Santos and Santos 2015a).
Program Activities
The first step used by the Port St. Lucie Police Department is to have crime analysts identify eligible micro-time hot spots using an established method. Hot spots refer to small geographic areas where there is a high concentration of crime. Micro-time hot spots refers to geographic concentrations of crime occurring within a short time period. The department defines a micro-time hot spot as a location in which two or more residential burglaries or thefts from vehicles occur within 1 to 14 days of each other, and within a 0.5-mile radius or 0.79 square miles.
Trained crime analysts identify micro-time hot spots on a daily basis, using an established crime analysis method. The crime analysts then produce a one-page bulletin that includes information such as date; time; location of the crimes; method and suspect information; known suspects who live in the micro-time hotspot; field interview information; and whether evidence, such as fingerprints and DNA, was collected at the scene. Additionally, they include a map that illustrates locations of the crimes, field contacts, and known suspects' residences. The bulletins are posted into an intranet system. For those micro-time hot spots that are assigned a response, police officers enter their response information in real time through laptops in their police cars. All theft from vehicle or residential burglary incidents occurring within the micro-time hot spots that are reported to the police are responded to by sending a patrol officer to the home, taking a report, doing a preliminary investigation, and following up when appropriate.
Next, one or more of the following three tactical responses is employed: 1) directed patrol, 2) contacting potential victims, or 3) contacting known suspects. The directed patrol response involves police officers either being stationary or driving in the micro-time hotspot area for 15 minutes (depending on the circumstances and level of resources). Directed patrol can result in field interview cards, vehicle traffic stops, citations, searches, or contacts with potential victims. Contacting potential victims consists of a “reverse-911” call, in which the police department calls residents living in the micro-hotspot area and leaves a tailored message about the crime that is occurring. A volunteer response team also distributes flyers and talks to citizens about crime happening in their neighborhoods. Contacting known suspects refers to reaching out to those living in micro-time hotspots to determine if they are suspects or to deter them from committing crime.
Responses are implemented based on available resources. Each response is implemented for 14 days after the last recorded crime in the micro-time hot spot. If a crime is committed after the 14 days, then the tactical response is implemented again in the area. The micro-time hot spots are tracked by the crime analysts until there are no more crimes, within 21 days of the last crime, occurring within a 0.5-mile radius. If there are more crimes, the analysts produce and disseminate an updated bulletin that might depict a new radius.
Program Theory
The following theories apply to the micro-time hot spots policing intervention: rational choice theory (Cornish and Clarke 1987), routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979), and environmental criminology (Brantingham and Brantingham 1991). Rational choice theory assumes that individuals are self-interested and weigh the costs and benefits of offending before making the choice to offend. Routine activity theory suggests that crime is the convergence in time and space of a motivated person, a suitable target, and a lack of capable guardianship. Environmental criminology is concerned with criminal events and the importance of the characteristics of the places where crime happens (Braga 2007). Hot spots policing emerged, in part, from these criminological theories.
The intervention was also designed based on research into repeat victimization, which suggests that places that have been victimized in the past have a higher likelihood of being victimized again (for example, where houses next to a burgled home are at substantially higher risk for burglary) (Farrell and Pease 1993; Bowers and Johnson 2005b).
