What You'll Learn
The Concept
Crime is not evenly distributed across a city. A relatively small number of streets, intersections, businesses, apartment complexes, transportation hubs, or other locations may generate a disproportionate amount of crime and calls for service. These locations are commonly called crime hot spots.
Hot-spots policing directs police attention toward places where crime is highly concentrated rather than distributing police activity evenly across an entire jurisdiction. Research examining hot-spots strategies has produced substantial evidence that appropriately designed place-based policing can reduce crime.
The concept sounds simple: Find high-crime locations and send police there. Effective hot-spots policing, however, should involve considerably more analysis. Police should ask: What crimes are occurring? At what times? Who are the victims? Who are the offenders? What features of the location create opportunities for crime? Does the location require visibility, enforcement, investigation, environmental changes, or partnerships?
Consider two locations with identical numbers of calls. One may have repeated robberies outside a transit station. Another may generate disorder complaints around several nightlife establishments. The same response may not work for both. Hot-spots policing therefore becomes even stronger when combined with problem-oriented policing.
A common criticism is that increased enforcement simply moves crime somewhere else. While displacement can occur, research has also documented circumstances in which crime reductions extend into nearby locations rather than simply relocating.
Modern crime analysis makes these strategies increasingly sophisticated by allowing agencies to examine geographic patterns, time patterns, repeat locations, repeat victims, offender networks, calls for service, arrest data, shooting incidents, and other intelligence.
Real-World Application
A mid-sized city's crime analyst identifies that 5% of street segments account for 50% of violent crime calls over a two-year period. The department develops a hot-spots strategy targeting those segments during peak hours. Officers are directed to conduct brief, visible patrols — not extended stationary presence — at each location during identified high-risk windows. Six months later, violent crime calls at targeted locations decline significantly, and analysis shows no evidence of displacement to adjacent blocks.
Why It Matters
For Police Officers
Understanding hot-spots principles helps officers and supervisors make more strategic deployment decisions rather than spreading resources evenly across an entire jurisdiction regardless of where crime is actually occurring.
For Students
Hot-spots policing is one of the most researched strategies in modern criminology. Understanding the evidence base — including both the supporting research and the displacement debate — is essential for students studying crime prevention and police strategy.
Think About It
Why is it important to analyze what type of crime is occurring at a hot spot rather than simply increasing police presence?
How does the displacement concern affect how you would evaluate the success of a hot-spots policing initiative?
How might hot-spots policing be combined with problem-oriented policing to produce more durable crime reductions?
Sources & Further Reading
Weisburd, D., et al. (2016). Does hot spots policing have criminogenic effects? An experimental assessment. Journal of Experimental Criminology.
National Institute of Justice. Hot Spots Policing. nij.gov.
Braga, A. A., & Weisburd, D. (2010). Policing Problem Places: Crime Hot Spots and Effective Prevention. Oxford University Press.