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Patterns in the supply and demand of urban policing at the street segment level

Davies, T; Bowers, K; (2020) Patterns in the supply and demand of urban policing at the street segment level. Policing and Society , 30 (7) pp. 795-817. 10.1080/10439463.2019.1598997. Green open access

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Abstract

Policing plays a critical role in crime prevention, incorporating both deterrent and responsive activities. Since many policing activities require the physical presence of officers, a crucial issue for police effectiveness concerns the extent to which officers are located where they are needed. Operationally, this can be framed as a ‘supply and demand’ issue, where the aim is to match the supply of police resource to the demand for service. In this paper, we examine this issue for a 5-month period in London, UK, using police vehicle tracking data and call-for-service records. We examine the extent to which supply and demand are aligned at the street segment level, and build a statistical model which seeks to explain the disparity between the two quantities in terms of network structure. We find that police activity is distributed unevenly, with over-supply on more central streets, and discuss the implications of this for police practice.

Type: Article
Title: Patterns in the supply and demand of urban policing at the street segment level
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/10439463.2019.1598997
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2019.1598997
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: crime; policing; street networks; officer tracking
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Security and Crime Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071152
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