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Kansas City Preventive Patrol Research

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The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment was an experiment that was conducted in 1972 by the Kansas City Police Department along with the Police Foundation and its purpose was to research and analyze how effective routine preventive patrol is (Kelling et al., 1974, pg. 2). In order to comprehend the results of this experiment, it is important to first understand what a preventive patrol is. A preventive patrol is a proactive tactic that the police employs and its goal is to prevent crimes from happening instead of “Sit around and wait” until the crimes have already occurred (Fritsch et al., 2009, pg. 21). The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment is a landmark experiment in the history of policing because it was the first experiment/investigation …show more content…

13). One of the groups did not have to patrol their beats and officers could only go to those five beats if they were responding to a call for service (Vigoa, 2010, pg. 13). Another group was instructed to do an aggressive patrol and to increase the amount of patrol officers from normal to twice and three times the amount of police officers normally assigned to those beats (Vigoa, 2010, pg. 14). The last group was instructed to keep the normal procedures and amount of police officers patrolling their beats (Vigoa, 2010, pg. 14). In conclusion, the experiment’s results indicated that the amount of patrol officers assigned to a patrol beat does not reduce crime, even if more officers are assigned to a patrol there is no evidence that the crime rates will necessarily go down (Vigoa, 2010, pg. …show more content…

15) In other words, patrol by itself or simply hiring new officers so that the police can be more visible while patrolling, will not lower the crime rate (Fritsch et al., 2009, pg. 15). Another thing to keep in mind is that the results of this experiment and for most of the police research for that matter, has not been or cannot be replicated (Fritsch et al., 2009, pg. 15). Therefore, it is something that cannot be relied on because something that can work while patrolling New York City might not work while patrolling a rural town in Mississippi and vice

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