· Thesecurity agencies in the United States continue to experience momentous changesin the way personnel think and exercise their daily duties. The advancement intechnology has led to the new perspective in policing and determination of’what works’ in preventing and controlling crime. Crime and disorder areunevenly distributed across geographical locations. Studies indicate theimportance of clustering crime at much smaller areas called the ‘ hot spot’. Therefore, the hot spot policing aims to identify locations where disorder, crime andprobably other problems in the community are prevalent.
It allows the lawenforcement to take necessary actions as a deterrent measure. The strategies ofhot-spotting involve careful evaluation of crime patterns thus enabling thepolice to narrow their target and respond effectively to the problem. Additionally, hot spotting is applicable to a variety of crime prevention areasthat include gun seizure and searches, drug trafficking crackdown, maintainingorder and zero tolerance policing. The paper analyzes the emergence of hot spotpolicing and its effectiveness in crime reduction.
