Policing Predicted Crime Areas: An Operationally-Realistic Randomized, Controlled Field Experiment, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2015-2016

The Philadelphia Predictive Policing Experiment was a place-based, randomized control trial to study the impact of different patrol strategies on violent and property crime in predicted crime areas. The experiment's goal was to learn whether different operationally-realistic police responses to crime forecasts, estimated by a predictive policing software program, would reduce crime. Specifically, the study tested whether greater awareness among general duties patrol officers of the predicted crime areas would be sufficient to deter crime, whether a dedicated uniform patrol attendance in predictive areas would increase visible police presence sufficiently in the local area to deter crime, or if dedicated plain-clothes units performing surveillance and unmarked patrol would increase interdiction and offender incapacitation sufficiently to reduce crime. With support of the Philadelphia Police Department, the study took place over two, three-month periods between 2015 and 2016.