Advantage and Disadvantages of Evidence Based Policing - Essay Example

The use of evidence-based policing will empower the police forces to make smarter decisions when controlling and solving crimes (Bueermann, 2012). Despite its advantages, there are cases wherein the police task force may not be knowledgeable enough to implement these strategies properly. For this reason, the process of continuously promoting evidence-based policing may only give the community members a wrong sense of safety and security (Alfredo, n.d.). For example, to reduce crime in Sacramento, the Sacramento Police Department conducted a “90-day Hot Spot study” between the 8th of February 2011 to the 8th of May 2011 (Sacramento Police Department, 2011).

Based on the available crime records, the police highlighted “42 hot spots” wherein most crimes occurred. Based on the research study findings, police visibility by simply patrolling around the hot spot areas for at least a 15-minute period daily is effective in reducing crime rates in hot spot areas. Lum et al. (2010) conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine whether or not the use of license plate readers (LPR) can effectively prevent crime in hot spot areas. Throughout 30 hot spots across 2 jurisdictions, police patrols with LPR were assigned to monitor 15 hot spot areas using the “sweep and sit” approach within a 30-day experimental period.

The research findings show that deploying a small number of police patrols with LPR is not sufficient to control crime.