RT Article
T1 Patterns in the supply and demand of urban policing at the street segment level
JF Policing and society
VO 30
IS 7
SP 795
OP 817
A1 Davies, Toby
A2 Bowers, Kate 1972-
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1798316420
AB 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 five-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.
K1 Crime
K1 officer tracking
K1 Policing
K1 street networks
DO 10.1080/10439463.2019.1598997