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A quasi-experimental synthetic control evaluation of a place-based police-directed patrol intervention on violent crime

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Abstract

Objectives

This research evaluates the impact of an implementation of a place-based police-directed patrol intervention—originally based on the Data Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) model—on violent crime in Flint, Michigan, USA.

Methods

We utilize recent advances in synthetic control methods to implement a retrospective quasi-experimental design across seven separate intervention areas, producing a counterfactual estimate of what would have happened to violent crime had the intervention never been implemented. We use survey weight calibration to produce counterfactual intervention areas using comparison block groups in Flint, and account for treatment diffusion by using comparison block groups from Detroit.

Results

The synthetic control method calibrated a set of weights to exactly match the intervention hot spots to counterfactuals from Flint and Detroit. Although basic trend analyses suggested declines in violent crime in the treatment areas, the synthetic controls raised questions about treatment effects. Specifically, the Flint comparison revealed an unexpected increase in aggravated assaults associated with the intervention, whereas the Detroit comparison suggested a similar effect but also possible reduction in robberies.

Conclusions

This evaluation presents mixed findings regarding the effect of the intervention on violent crime. Inconsistent program effects may be attributable to incongruences between the program as implemented and the prescribed DDACTS model on which it was based. The findings also suggest the need for future research to investigate potential differential effects of directed patrol on specific types of violent crime. The synthetic control method provides a powerful means for counterfactual estimation in retrospective evaluations.

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Data Availability Statement

Replication data pertaining to the outcome evaluation of the program described in this manuscript, as well as (relatively messy) script for implementing the analyses are available from the primary author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. It is important to note that the implications of the distributional misspecification in applying WLS to count outcomes are mitigated through the use of permutation tests (described later). For peace of mind, we replicated the analyses for Hotspot 1 using negative binomial regression, and the substantive conclusions were unchanged from the WLS analyses. However, the variance estimates produced by WLS were somewhat more conservative than the negative binomial regression models.

  2. It is worth noting that Robbins et al. (2017) also propose a Wald-type omnibus test which can approximate an omnibus p value without the use of placebo tests. However, as the authors note, the computation of the quantities necessary for this statistic is non-trivial. We use the original permutation-based omnibus statistic (Robbins et al. 2015) in its place.

  3. Indeed, Robbins et al. (2015) note that the significance of the omnibus statistic can only be assessed via comparison to a distribution of permutation values. This is because of the potential for the omnibus statistic to simply continue to grow as more outcomes are included. Assuming this value was sampled from a normal distribution would have an increased type I error rate.

  4. It should be noted that the traffic stops were much more densely concentrated within the hot spots (9.6 monthly traffic stops per square mile outside the hot spots, compared to 73.8 within the hot spots).

  5. Our contention is not that virtually any intervention for a given city could successfully draw a comparison set of blocks from some other city. Rather, in the present case, Detroit is uniquely situated to act as a counterfactual donor pool to Flint, due to the cities' geographic proximity, shared socioeconomic history, and violent crime levels (Jacobs 2004; Matthews 1997). Further, it is important to note that, although Detroit was part of the Secure Cities Initiative, it did not receive the same DDACTS/directed patrol intervention as in Flint during the study period. Instead, the Detroit program involved embedding Michigan Department of Corrections community corrections agents within the Detroit Police Department, and provided additional Michigan State Police personnel to supplement homicide detectives. The State Police did conduct vehicle patrols in Detroit but these did not involve the intensity or the geographic hot spot focus of the Flint DDACTS/directed patrol initiative.

  6. Specifically, two sets of weights are estimated for each comparison (Flint and Detroit). The first set balances on the individual outcomes, and the second set balances on the aggregated total violence outcome. The two sets were estimated so that both the individual and aggregated outcomes would have corresponding synthetic controls which exactly matched the hot spots (i.e., the weights for the individual outcomes do not guarantee an exact match for the aggregated outcomes). Descriptive statistics for the weights presented in the following sections describe the individual outcome weights, given that these will have a larger variance and corresponding design effect.

  7. Table 2 displays weighted totals for outcomes and covariates across blocks in hot spot 1 and comparisons (estimated using svytotal). It should be noted that the weighted outcome and covariate means between the hot spot and comparison areas were also equivalent (produced using svymean).

  8. We focus on aggravated assaults and robberies, and do not plot homicides due to their relative infrequency, the fact that the synthetic control weights only balance on the total number of homicides over the pre-intervention period, rather than at individual quarters, and the largely null impacts for the program on homicides.

  9. A random-effects meta-analysis, consistent with the approach used by Saunders et al. (2015), produced identical results.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported grant number 2012-BJ-CX-K036 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. This research was made possible by substantial assistance from the Michigan State Police. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice or the Michigan State Police. We would like to thank the editorial team and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and especially Michael Robbins and Jessica Saunders for their insights on implementing the methods described here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Criminology and Justice Studies, Center for Program Evaluation, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Health and Social Sciences Building 495, 113 Wilder Street, Lowell, MA, 01854, USA

    Jason Rydberg

  2. School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Edmund F. McGarrell & Giovanni Circo

  3. Department of Criminal Justice, California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, USA

    Alexis Norris

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  1. Jason Rydberg
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  2. Edmund F. McGarrell
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  4. Giovanni Circo
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Correspondence to Jason Rydberg.

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Rydberg, J., McGarrell, E.F., Norris, A. et al. A quasi-experimental synthetic control evaluation of a place-based police-directed patrol intervention on violent crime. J Exp Criminol 14, 83–109 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-018-9324-8

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