Kansas City Preventative Patrol

The Kansas City Preventative Patrol Experiment was a study done in the early 1970’s that would evaluate the success of routine preventative patrol. It was designed to test the techniques of modern policing such as visibility, regular, motorized and random patrol. The hypothesis of this research study is the presented policing techniques will directly deter crime, arrest offenders, and reduce the fear of crime. With the help of the Kansas City Police Department’s South Patrol Division, researchers from the Police Foundation, patrol officers, supervisors and task force, were included to evaluate the research surrounding how successful is the preventative patrol. The theories were tested through police shifts over a thirty-two square miles of

The study took place in Newark, NJ and was established to determine the success of foot patrols in urban communities. The experiment included three designs; the first was created to compare foot patrol officers to motor patrol officers. The is comparison would take place in all twenty-eight cities who were receiving state funding for foot patrols. The second design was compared studies of crime in Elizabeth, NJ with consistent foot coverage before and after the implementation of the Safe and Clean Neighborhood program to the area where there was no pre-program patrol coverage. The third and final design was used to match work shifts in Newark to compare the effects of continuing and stopping foot patrols. During the experiment, eight-foot patrol shifts in Newark were compared demographically. There were foot patrols that were kept in randomly selected shifts and ended in others (Police Foundation, 1981). There was also foot patrol started in four shifts who had not previously used foot patrol. The research team compared reported crimes, arrest and victimization rates, the fear and satisfaction with the police from the community, along with the attitudes of foot patrol officers and motorized patrol officers. Though there were no significant changes in the crime rate due to the foot patrol, the resident's attitudes toward the police changed considerably. The foot patrol enhanced the citizen’s

The researchers opted for a classic experiment design to permit the discovery of the effects of one item while still holding constant to the other causes of those effects. They chose to implement a lottery selection that ensured that there would be no difference in which response the suspect would receive from police in domestic assault incident. The three options for the suspect in the lottery is an arrest, leaving the scene for eight hours, or give advice which could include mediation at the officer’s discretion (Sherman & Beck, 1984). The study also included a six-month follow-up to evaluate the frequency f any other domestic violence cases with police involvement. The study applied to misdemeanor domestic assaults where both parties were present when police arrived, and officers were not obligated to arrest. The study began in 1982 with the hopes of receiving three hundred cases in a year. Due to lack of police participation, the research recruited eighteen more officers to join the project. The researcher attempted to do ride alongs and case along to ensure that officers were completing the paperwork. Three of the first officers produced almost twenty-eight percent of the cases. The researchers were able to reach three hundred and fourteen cases to be analyzed. Due to relatively small sample size, there is not enough