The Uses and Impacts of Mobile Computing Technology in Hot Spots Policing

Christopher S. Koper, Cynthia Lum and Julie Hibdon

Evaluation Review, 2015, vol. 39, issue 6, 587-624

Abstract: Background: Recent technological advances have much potential for improving police performance, but there has been little research testing whether they have made police more effective in reducing crime. Objective: To study the uses and crime control impacts of mobile computing technology in the context of geographically focused “hot spots†patrols. Research Design: An experiment was conducted using 18 crime hot spots in a suburban jurisdiction. Nine of these locations were randomly selected to receive additional patrols over 11 weeks. Researchers studied officers’ use of mobile information technology (IT) during the patrols using activity logs and interviews. Nonrandomized subgroup and multivariate analyses were employed to determine if and how the effects of the patrols varied based on these patterns. Results: Officers used mobile computing technology primarily for surveillance and enforcement (e.g., checking automobile license plates and running checks on people during traffic stops and field interviews), and they noted both advantages and disadvantages to its use. Officers did not often use technology for strategic problem-solving and crime prevention. Given sufficient (but modest) dosages, the extra patrols reduced crime at the hot spots, but this effect was smaller in places where officers made greater use of technology. Conclusions: Basic applications of mobile computing may have little if any direct, measurable impact on officers’ ability to reduce crime in the field. Greater training and emphasis on strategic uses of IT for problem-solving and crime prevention, and greater attention to its behavioral effects on officers, might enhance its application for crime reduction.

Keywords: policing; mobile computing; hot spots; technology; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193841X16634482 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:evarev:v:39:y:2015:i:6:p:587-624

DOI: 10.1177/0193841X16634482

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Evaluation Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().