"Focus on crime ‘hot spots’ and on the tiny percentage of the population that commits most of the crime."
National Review . . . "He passed background checks in buying at least some of his guns. If a 64- year-old multimillionaire exhibiting no warning signs is bent on mass homicide, we are unlikely to stop him before he’s achieved just that. If his weapon of choice hadn’t been a gun, it could just as easily have been a bomb (materials for which were found in his car) or a vehicle. Just last year, a vehicle attack in Nice, France, claimed even more lives than this rampage did.
. . .
“ 'Hot spots” are one important concept. These are the particular neighborhoods, blocks, and intersections where crime most often occurs. Nationwide, about one-quarter of gun homicides take place in just 1,200 census tracts, which contain just 1.5 percent of the population, according to an analysis by the Guardian. Zooming in even closer, one study of Boston showed that over a nearly three-decade period, 74 percent of the city’s shootings occurred on less than 5 percent of its street corners and block faces." . . .
. . . "In a recent literature review, Harvard’s Thomas Abt and Christopher Winship suggested that hot-spot policing has reduced violence by up to a third in places where it’s been tried. Importantly, hot-spot policing does not appear merely to displace crime, as nearby areas do not experience crime increases.
"The character of policing matters too. “Broken windows” methods — based on the concept of creating order by policing minor infractions — are effective, but they work best when the community cooperates with the police to set standards of acceptable behavior. It’s less effective for police to become an occupying force, imposing order by cracking down on every tiny violation of the law with “zero tolerance.' ” . . . Read more.
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