ABSTRACT
The core foundation of law enforcement strategies that have demonstrated measurable crime reduction benefits has been, at least in large measure, the deterrence framework. In this chapter, we illustrate that when the police began to alter the perceived risk of apprehension among offenders in more context specific ways (i.e., by concentrating their efforts either geographically or within high-risk offender locales, or both), the impact on crime became more tangible and sustained. Here we outline police strategies that have an emergent body of scholarly evidence demonstrating impact: hot spots policing, problem-oriented policing, and pulling levers policing. We conclude with a call for improved theoretical clarity on strategic police practices due to the likelihood of enhanced social support and informal social control mechanisms that are likely complementing these deterrence-based police approaches.
