National Plan for Community Surveillance by Quadrants
Axios
Problems addressed
Effectiveness

Effective

.

.

.

.

.

Effective

Want to know more about this classification? Check out our methodological manual.

Life periods served
Country of application
Description

This is a plan implemented by the Colombian National Police starting in 2010 that included an extensive training program for more than 9,000 police officers to improve interpersonal skills and apply new patrolling protocols.
The plan divided each city into small geographic areas (quadrants), assigned six policemen to each, established new policing and patrolling protocols that involved greater contact with the community, and held the policemen responsible for whatever happened in their quadrant in terms of security incidents.
Each police station was equipped with a Sectional Strategic Police Information Center (CIEPS, for its acronym in Spanish), which produced weekly geo-coded information on criminal activity in all quadrants of the police station.
At the management level, the plan decentralized strategic decisions by empowering quadrant patrols to diagnose the most urgent problems, plan the necessary interventions, and monitor the evolution of criminal activity at the quadrant level.

Impact evaluations

An impact evaluation study focused primarily on the training component of the program showed that a 22% reduction in homicides in seven cities can be attributed to the intervention. The results of the intervention’s impact on residential and vehicle burglaries were not statistically significant [1].

Bibliographic reference

[1] Garcia, J., Mejia, D., & Ortega, D. (2013). Police reform, training and crime: experimental evidence from Colombia's Plan Cuadrantes. Documento CAF, (2013-04). https://scioteca.caf.com/bitstream/handle/123456789/245/police_reform_t…

Information source