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The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment

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This landmark experiment found that traditional routine patrol in marked police cars does not appear to affect the level of crime. Nor does it affect the public’s feeling of security. The experiment demonstrated that urban police departments can successfully test patrol deployment strategies, and that they can manipulate patrol resources without jeopardizing public safety.
Patrol is considered the backbone of police work. Billions of dollars are spent each year in the United States to maintain and operate uniformed and often superbly equipped patrol forces. The assumption underlying such deployment has been that the presence or potential presence of officers patrolling the streets in marked police cars deters people from committing crime.
But the validity of this assumption had never been scientifically tested. And so, in 1972, with funding and technical assistance from the Police Foundation, the Kansas City Police launched a comprehensive, scientifically rigorous experiment to test the effects of police patrol on crime.
THE EXPERIMENT
The experiment began in October 1972 and continued through 1973; it was administered by the Kansas City Police Department and evaluated by the Police Foundation.
Patrols were varied within 15 police beats. Routine preventive patrol was eliminated in five beats, labeled "reactive" beats (meaning officers entered these areas only in response to calls from residents). Normal, routine patrol was maintained in five "control" beats. In five "proactive" beats, patrol was intensified by two to three times the norm.
The experiment asked the following questions:
• Would citizens notice changes in the level of police patrol?
• Would different levels of visible police patrol affect recorded crime or the outcome of victim surveys?
• Would citizen fear of crime and attendant behavior change as a result of differing patrol levels?
• Would

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