Reducing Residential Crime and Fear - The Hartford (CT) Neighborhood Crime Prevention Program (A Methodological Review) (From Link Between Crime and the Built Environment, Volume 2, P C43-C58, 1980, by Tetsuro Motoyama et al - See NCJ-79544)

• NCJ Number: 79549
• Author(s): H Rubenstein; T Motoyama; P Hartjens
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 16 pages
• Corporate Author: American Institutes for Research
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Available on microfiche from NCJRS as NCJ-79544.

Annotation

This review assesses an evaluation by F. Fowler, M. E. McCallas, and T. W. Mangione of the Hartford Anti-Crime Demonstration Program (Connecticut). The program was designed to reduce residential crime and fear of crime.

Abstract

The program's major activities were closing and narrowing streets, instituting neighborhood police patrols, and creating and encouraging neighborhood organizations to undertake a broad range of activities to reduce crime. The program evaluation assessed implementation process and program impacts to (1) measure the program's effectiveness, (2) gain a better understanding of the relationship between the physical environment and criminal behavior, and (3) identify specific strategies that appear to be effective in reducing crime. The evaluation also investigated possible displacement of crime from the experimental to surrounding areas. The process evaluation involved collection and analysis of qualitative data on program inputs, police activities, physical design changes, and the individual assessments of the program by 30 community leaders. The impact evaluation involved collection and analysis of data from citizen surveys, archival police data, traffic counts, and police interviews. Overall, the evaluation concluded that crime in the experimental community was reduced as a result of program achievements, as was citizens' fear of crime. This conclusion is questionable, because the time period allowed for the evaluation was too short, the data had many limitations, and conceivable delayed reactions to prior intervening conditions prevent the discernment of conditions, other than program components, that might have had significant effects on the crime rates during the entire period. In any event, the evaluators acknowledge that any program impacts were necessarily short-term because of the evaluation timing. The program effects should be considered after several years of implementation.