POLICING CRIME AND DISORDER HOT SPOTS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL*

• Date: 01 August 2008
• Published date: 01 August 2008
• Author: BRENDA J. BOND,ANTHONY A. BRAGA
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2008.00124.x

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POLICING CRIME AND DISORDER HOT

SPOTS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED

TRIAL*

ANTHONY A. BRAGA

John F. Kennedy School of Government

Harvard University

Boalt Hall School of Law

University of California, Berkeley

BRENDA J. BOND

Sawyer Business School

Suffolk University

Dealing with physical and social disorder to prevent serious crime

has become a central strategy for policing. This study evaluates the

effects of policing disorder, within a problem-oriented policing frame-

work, at crime and disorder hot spots in Lowell, Massachusetts. Thirty-

* This research was supported under Award 2004-DB-BX-0014 from the Bureau of

Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice

through the Programs Division of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public

Safety. The authors would like to thank former Superintendent Edward Davis,

Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee, Captain Thomas Kennedy, Captain John

Flaherty, Captain Jack Webb, Lieutenant Barry Golner, Lieutenant Paul

Laferriere, Lieutenant Kevin Sullivan, Lieutenant Kelly Richardson, Lieutenant

Frank Rouine, Lieutenant Mark Buckley, Sergeant Steve O’Neil, Officer Mark

Trudel, Meghan Moffett, John Reynolds, Sara Khun, and other officers and staff

of the Lowell Police Department for their valuable assistance in the completion

of this research. Jesse Jannetta, Russell Wolff, Carl Walter, and Deborah Braga

deserve much credit for their assistance with data collection and analysis. John

Laub, Robert Sampson, Chris Winship, Denise Gottfredson, and three

anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments that greatly improved the

quality of the research. Finally, we would like to thank Sarah Lawrence for her

support and patience in the successful completion of this research project. The

points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily

represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice, Massachusetts

Executive Office of Public Safety, or Lowell Police Department. Direct

correspondence to Anthony A. Braga, John F. Kennedy School of Government,

Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (e-mail: anthony_

braga@ksg.harvard.edu).



2008 American Society of Criminology

CRIMINOLOGY V

OLUME

46 N

UMBER

3 2008 577

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578 BRAGA & BOND

four hot spots were matched into 17 pairs, and one member of each

pair was allocated to treatment conditions in a randomized block field

experiment. The officers engaged “shallow” problem solving and

implemented a strategy that more closely resembled a general policing

disorder strategy rather than carefully designed problem-oriented polic-

ing responses. Nevertheless, the impact evaluation revealed significant

reductions in crime and disorder calls for service, and systematic obser-

vations of social and physical disorder at the treatment places relative

to the control places uncovered no evidence of significant crime dis-

placement. A mediation analysis of the isolated and exhaustive causal

mechanisms that comprised the strategy revealed that the strongest

crime-prevention gains were generated by situational prevention strate-

gies rather than by misdemeanor arrests or social service strategies.

KEYWORDS: problem-oriented policing, hot spots, disorder, broken

windows

Crime policy scholars, primarily James Q. Wilson and George L. Kel-

ling, and practitioners, such as Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Brat-

ton, have argued for years that when police pay attention to minor

offenses—such as aggressive panhandling, prostitution, and graffiti—they

can reduce fear, strengthen communities, and prevent serious crime (Brat-

ton and Kelling, 2006; Wilson and Kelling, 1982). Spurred by claims of

large declines in serious crime after the approach was adopted in New

York City, dealing with physical and social disorder, or “fixing broken win-

dows,” has become a central element of crime-prevention strategies

adopted by many American police departments (Kelling and Coles, 1996;

Sousa and Kelling, 2006). The general idea of dealing with disorderly con-

ditions to prevent crime is found in a myriad of police strategies that range

from “order maintenance” and “zero tolerance” policing strategies in

which the police attempt to impose order through strict enforcement to

“community” and “problem-oriented policing” strategies in which police

attempt to produce order and reduce crime through cooperation with

community members and by addressing specific recurring problems

(Cordner, 1998; Eck and Maguire, 2000; Skogan, 2006; Skogan et al.,

1999). Although its application can vary within and across police depart-

ments, policing disorder to prevent crime is now a common crime-control

strategy.

The available research evidence, however, does not demonstrate consis-

tent connections between disorder and more serious crime (Harcourt,

1998; Sampson and Raudenbush, 1999; Skogan, 1990; Taylor, 2001). Evalu-

ations of the crime-control effectiveness of policing disorder strategies also

yield conflicting results. In New York City, for example, it is unclear