Police-led crime prevention initiatives at crime hot spots can be effective, but they come with limitations. The police do not have the tools to deal with all the complex risk factors that create crime hot spots and some of the tools they do have can potentially damage community trust. There are many effective strategies that local governments can implement to reduce or prevent crime at hot spots that don’t rely solely on police expertise. These include increasing guardianship, changing the physical environment, changing or enforcing policies and rules, and strengthening the capacity for community problem-solving. It is imperative for local governments to help promote and build capacity for diagnosing the crime problem(s) at hot spots and understanding the specific local conditions that contribute to the crime at these locations.
Shader et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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