Center for Security and Crime Science
Current and recent projects
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The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment On the invitation of the Philadelphia Police Department, police and academic researchers worked together to plan the Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment as a randomized control trial. 6o violent crime hotspots were targeted during the summer of 2009, and after three months violence had reduced by 23 percent compared to comparison areas. Analysis of the results found little displacement, but did find a threshold level for effectiveness. Recent follow-up work has further illuminated the long-term effects of the study. Faculty: Jerry Ratcliffe, Eilzabeth Groff, Jennifer Wood |
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The crime reduction effectiveness of CCTV Newspaper accounts suggest that CCTV cameras are being implemented at a rate never seen before. Yet there has been a lack of high quality, independent evaluation studies, and only one significant study in the US, conducted over a decade ago. Drs Ratcliffe and Groff are currently working on an NIJ-funded study to evaluate the crime reduction impact of over 100 CCTV cameras in Philadelphia, PA, - an ongoing NIJ-funded large-scale, multi-method, quasi-experimental research study. Faculty: Jerry Ratcliffe, Elizabeth Groff |
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The Smart Policing Initiative The Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) is a collaborative between a number of police departments in the US and a research partner. In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department has partnered with Temple University and researchers from CSCS. The project is funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. In this project, we are testing a range of solutions to serious crime problems in the city, including; foot patrol, offender-focused activity, and problem-oriented policing. Preliminary results available from this link. Faculty: Elizabeth Groff, Jerry Ratcliffe |
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Predictive modeling of long and short term crime risk This ongoing project will create a free software tool that will enable police departments to use their geocoded crime data in combination with freely-available census data to create micro-spatial estimates of future criminal activity at the local block level. Working with Azavea, an innovative Philadelphia-based GIS company, Drs Ratcliffe and Taylor are developing a methodology to combine long-term risk prediction from underlying socio-demographics with event-created near-repeat risk. Faculty: Jerry Ratcliffe, Ralph Taylor |
More information about CSCS will be available shortly. If you have any questions in the meantime, please send an e-mail to cscs@temple.edu.