Does Hot Spots Policing Inevitably Lead to Unfair and Abusive Police Practices, or Can We Maximize Both Fairness and Effectiveness in the New Proactive Policing?

Hot spots policing has emerged as one of the most important and widely diffused of what are sometimes termed the “new policing” strategies. Such strategies were developed in response to a critique of police effectiveness in preventing crime that developed in the late 20th century. While hot spots policing strategies have been shown to be effective in preventing crime, a narrative is developing that links hot spots policing, as well as other new policing strategies focused on crime control, to unfair and brutal police practices. In this chapter, I examine this growing narrative both to challenge some of its assumptions and to create a counternarrative about how we can integrate hot spots policing with…

• DU
  Deakin University