Automated Vehicle Locator (AVL) Information to Aid Patrol Allocations (Dallas, TX)

Axios
Policing

Solution types
Hot Spots Policing

Problems addressed

Crime and delinquency (multiple types)

Effectiveness

No Effect

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Life periods served

People of all ages

Where the program was applied

Community (streets or community centers)

Country of application

United States

Description

This is an experiment to evaluate the impact of data collection through automatic police vehicle tracking technology on police effectiveness to reduce and prevent crime. The intervention associates the technology installed in the vehicles with the police hot spot strategy to track police presence during patrols and street actions.
Vehicle location data is sent to commanders, who analyze the distribution of police resources in different areas of the city to ensure that police officers are redirected to the places where criminal activity needs to be prevented the most.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation showed a statistically significant decrease in crime at hot spots. However, there were no significant differences in crime at the level of police approaches, in the consistency between patrols distributed and conducted per police raid and per hot spot, nor in the number of hours of patrolling in raids or at hot spots [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Weisburd, D., Groff, E., Jones, G., Amendola, K. L. y Cave, B. (2015). The Dallas AVL Experiment: Evaluating the Use of Automated Vehicle Locator Technologies in Policing. Final Report. Washington, D.C. National Institute of Justice (NIJ); Office of Justice Programs [U.S. Department of Justice]. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248958.pdf

Information source