Hot Spots of Crime And Place-Based Prevention

This article was my August Vollmer Award and focuses on my contributions to justice and on my research and policy experiences. I begin with recapping my personal journey to recognizing hot spots of crime and their importance for prevention. I then go on to summarize the “law of crime concentration” and its importance for the logic model underlying this approach. I also describe the seminal Minneapolis Hot Spots Patrol Experiment and the subsequent evaluation research in hot spots policing and place-based prevention more generally that led to its broad acceptance as an effective crime prevention strategy. Finally, I turn to key unanswered questions in place-based prevention, focusing on police legitimacy, identifying jurisdictional effects, and emphasizing the importance of harnessing informal social controls.