Closing the Macro-Micro Link: Testing the Effects of Hot Spots Policing on Individual Adolescent Outcomes
Open Access
- Author:
- Bucci, Rebecca Ann
- Graduate Program:
- Criminology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 18, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Jennifer Maggs, Outside Unit & Field Member
Jeremy Staff, Major Field Member
Thomas Loughran, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Eric Baumer, Major Field Member
Thomas Anthony Loughran, IV, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Offender-decision making
hot spots policing
offending
adolescents - Abstract:
- The effect of punishment and punishment threats on offending and collateral outcomes is less straightforward than one may believe. Furthermore, these effects for adolescents who are at the peak of criminal involvement are largely unknown. In this dissertation, I examine the effect of a hot spots policing intervention, known as Operation Safe Streets, on perceptions of arrest risk, offending behavior, perceptions of police and the law, disorder, and rewards to crime. By exploiting the timing of Safe Streets, which began during ongoing data collection of the Pathways to Desistance Study, a sample of previously adjudicated adolescent offenders aged 14-17, I am able to estimate the effect of this intervention on these outcomes. Results suggest that Safe Streets did significantly increase perceptions of arrest risk for these adolescents. Safe Streets had some effect on offending, primarily by reducing individuals’ frequency of offending but had little impact on the likelihood of engaging in crime. Finally, Safe Streets did not impact perceptions of procedural justice, police legitimacy or legal cynicism, nor did it have a large impact on the perceived rewards to crime. However, Safe Streets may have resulted in the spatial spillover of neighborhood disorder. My findings suggest that Safe Streets was effective at increasing adolescents’ perceptions of the likelihood of arrest, but suggest these effects did not translate into large reductions in offending as was hypothesized. This finding, coupled with the lack of beneficial effects on perceptions of police and neighborhood disorder, suggest that hot spots policing interventions like Safe Streets should be utilized as just one aspect of crime-reductions strategies and interventions aimed to improve police-community relations.