The Indianapolis harmspot policing experiment

Abstract

Purpose This 100-day experiment explored the impact of a dynamic place-based policing strategy on social harm in Indianapolis. Scholars have recently called for place-based policing to consider the co-occurrence of substance abuse and mental health problems that correlate within crime hot spots. Moreover, severity is not ubiquitous across harmful events and should thus be weighted accordingly. Methods Harmspots and hotspots were operationalized for this experiment and both received proactive police activities. Evaluation analyses includes multivariate point processes and hawkes processes to determine experimental effects. Survey data was collected via telephone surveys, was weighted for demographic representativeness, and analyzed using Poisson regression. Results Results indicate proactive policing in dynamic harmspots can reduce aggregated social harm. No statistical deterrence effect was observed in crime hotspots. Proactive police activity in harmspots was associated with higher arrest rates, though not disproportionate across race and ethnicity, nor was there an effect on incidents of use of force. A two-wave pre/post community survey indicated Indianapolis citizens believe data-driven policing to be useful, though perceptions vary across demographic groups with moderate trust around computer algorithms. Conclusion Place-based policing strategies should consider social harm events as a method to operationalize proactive policing. Observed effects are consistent with those of hotspots policing while enabling cities to broaden the set of harms experienced by varying communities. Harmspot policing may also position municipalities to maximize social service delivery at places beyond policing.