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The Impact of Hotspot Policing and Municipal Services on Crime: Experimental Evidence from Bogota

Last registered on April 07, 2016
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Impact of Hotspot Policing and Municipal Services on Crime: Experimental Evidence from Bogota
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001156
Initial registration date
April 07, 2016

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 07, 2016, 10:11 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Colombia
Region
Bogota

Primary Investigator

Name
Christopher Blattman
Affiliation
University of Chicago
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Santiago Tobon
PI Affiliation
Universidad de Los Andes
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Daniel Ortega
PI Affiliation
CAF
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Don Green
PI Affiliation
Columbia University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2016-02-09
End date
2016-06-10
Keywords
Governance, Post-conflict, Welfare
Additional Keywords
policing, crime
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Place-based policy interventions have been shown to effectively reduce crime, which exhibits a high level of spatial concentration. Two such strategies are hotspots policing, which focuses on targeting police and enforcement resources on specific streets, and broken windows, which focuses on cleaning up streets to stop criminal behavior. We partnered with the Bogota Police to test these two theories in 1,919 of the most crime-ridden street segments in the city. In a 2x2 factorial design, we assign street segments to receive hotspot policing, broken windows, both or neither. Our randomization strategy takes into account the spatial clustering of hotspots, which allows us to estimate direct treatment effects and indirect spillover effects.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Blattman, Christopher et al. 2016. "The Impact of Hotspot Policing and Municipal Services on Crime: Experimental Evidence from Bogota." AEA RCT Registry. April 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1156-1.0
Former Citation
Blattman, Christopher et al. 2016. "The Impact of Hotspot Policing and Municipal Services on Crime: Experimental Evidence from Bogota." AEA RCT Registry. April 07. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1156/history/7561
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We are testing two interventions: hotspots policing and the provision of municipal services, or a broken windows treatment, in a 2x2 factorial design.

The hotspot policing intervention consists of increasing the dosage of police patrolling time from about 55 minutes per day per hotspot street segment (defined in section [sec:Design-randomization]) to 90, divided in six entries of 15 minutes each. This entry time is not arbitrary and is rather based on previous evidence from Telep et al. (2014), which finds decreasing returns on crime control after 15 minutes of police presence. Moreover, police patrols will be given specific instructions on how to distribute entries during the day. Hotspots located nearby bars and night clubs will have three entries during the day and three during the night. Other hotspots will have five entries during the day and one during the night. For hotspots in the control group, police will not receive any special instructions and will be free to patrol as they see fit. Activities while patrolling are standard, i.e. criminal record checks, door-to-door visits to the community, arrests, drug seizures, etc. Also, when necessary, police patrols will focus on problem-oriented policing strategies with support from different police branches as youth and juvenile, or counter narcotics specialized agents. The intervention began on February 9, 2016 and will continue for four months. The research team did not see any outcome data before this PAP was registered.

The broken windows intervention consists of sending a municipal team to selected hotspots to clean up streets in order to promote more informal social control by residents. The municipal team will be charged with repairing street lights, cleaning non-artistic graffiti, and collecting garbage every few weeks. The intervention began on April 6, 2016 (at the halfway mark of the hotspot policing intervention) and will continue until the end of the hotspots policing intervention.
Intervention Start Date
2016-02-09
Intervention End Date
2016-06-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
See section 4 in PAP.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
See section 2.3 in PAP.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
STATA code
Randomization Unit
Street segment level
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
none
Sample size: planned number of observations
1,919 segments
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
756 receive hotspot policing
415 receive broken windows
See table 4 in PAP for distribution of all 16 experimental conditions
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
See section 6.7 in PAP.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Universidad de Los Andes
IRB Approval Date
2016-02-09
IRB Approval Number
n/a
IRB Name
Innovations for Poverty Action
IRB Approval Date
2016-04-01
IRB Approval Number
13991
IRB Name
Columbia University
IRB Approval Date
2016-02-25
IRB Approval Number
IRB-AAAQ7568
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-Analysis Plan

MD5: 52eb0e8faa8fe618af71976c140d8ea5

SHA1: 9bee4cef469a077869c088f5a1ddc0b94c46a1b9

Uploaded At: April 07, 2016

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials