NCJ Number
236043
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 22 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2011 Pages: 350-374
Date Published
September 2011
Length
25 pages
Annotation
Police practitioners and academics alike have heralded hot spots policing as evidence-based practice.
Abstract
Police practitioners and academics alike have heralded hot spots policing as evidence-based practice. It has encountered few hurdles in its path to widespread implementation in the United States. Examining the social construction of its diffusion, including the empirical, theoretical, social-political, technological, and media contexts that converged to promote its diffusion, reveals a partial, positively skewed image perpetuated among the public, scholars, and policymakers. Through a different lens, hot spots policing might have led to concerns about legitimacy, discussion of bias, and lack of public support. Instead, the infectious popularity of this reform may thus far have buffered it from critical consideration of the potentially disproportionate impact of hot spots policing on disadvantaged community members and its consequences for police legitimacyevidence that should be important to evidence-based practice. This article promotes a research agenda that extends beyond short term crime-reduction to investigate these important unstudied consequences. (Published Abstract)