By Steve Yeong

Background

The Suspect Target Management Plan (STMP) is a New South Wales Police Force initiative designed to reduce crime among high risk individuals through proactive policing. There are two types of STMP: STMP-II, which was introduced in May 2005 and aims to reduce general offending; and DV-STMP, which was introduced in October 2015 and aims to reduce domestic violence related offending.
The objective of the present study is to determine: (1) whether these programs reduce crime; (2) how these programs reduce crime (i.e., through deterrence or incapacitation); (3) to determine whether (1) and (2) differ for juveniles or Aboriginal people.

Key findings

This study compared the outcomes of individuals in the 12 months before and after placement on STMP-II (n=10,106) and DV-STMP (n=1,028). The investigation of STMP-II focuses on a subset of violent and property crimes to avoid reporting/detection bias. The investigation of DV-STMP focuses on domestic violence related crimes since they are the focus of the program. These crimes are, however, likely to be influenced by reporting bias. Due to methodological constraints, caution is recommended when interpreting the non-causal, associative estimates reported in this bulletin.

The findings can be summarised as follows:

STMP-II is associated with large, practically and statistically significant reductions in property crime.DV-STMP is associated with large, practically and statistically significant reductions in domestic violence related crime.Although STMP-II is associated with an increased risk of imprisonment, the association between STMP-II and crime is likely driven by deterrence, not incapacitation.DV-STMP is not associated with an increased risk of imprisonment.The reduction in crime associated with STMP-II for juveniles is larger than it is for adults.The increase in the risk of a prison sentence associated with STMP-II is smaller for juveniles relative to adults.The reduction in crime associated with STMP-II for Aboriginal people is smaller than it is for non-Aboriginal people.The increase in the risk of a prison sentence associated with STMP-II is larger for Aboriginal people relative to non-Aboriginal people. Although STMP-II is associated with an increased risk of a prison sentence for juveniles and Aboriginal people, the association between STMP-II and crime is likely driven by deterrence.

Conclusion

Both STMP-II and DV-STMP are associated with a reduction in crime. The findings suggest that any crime reduction benefit for both programs is likely due to deterrence rather than incapacitation. These claims are also true for juveniles and Aboriginal Australians.

(Crime and Justice Bulletin No. 233 revised). Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. 2021. 33p.

By Timothy F. Leslie, Cara L. Frankenfeld & Angela J. Hattery 

Background: Police shootings are unevenly spatially distributed, with substantive spikes throughout the USA. While minorities are disproportionately the victims of the police force, social or structural factors associated with this distribution are not well understood. The objective of this work was to evaluate police shootings in relation to victim race or ethnicity and residential segregation and racial diversity.

Methods: Validated crowdsourced data from the Washington Post’s Fatal Force (2015–2020) were linked with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey. Residential minority dissimilarity, interaction, and a racial and ethnic diversity metric were calculated in order to assess the potentially variant importance of evenness in distribution, exposure likelihood, and general representation. Logistic and multinomial regression was used to model associations between segregation and diversity, adjusted for other ecological characteristics. Analyses were stratified by victim race or ethnicity (Black, Asian, or Hispanic).

Results: Across all races combined, the odds of a police shooting in a particular census tract were associated with non-Hispanic Black dissimilarity (OR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.97, 0.99) and racial and ethnic diversity (1.046, 95% CI 1.044, 1.060). Areas with higher racial diversity had a higher likelihood of having a police shooting event with Black victims (OR = 1.092, 95% CI 1.064, 1.120) or Asian victims (OR = 1.188, 1.051, 1.343) than less diverse areas. Higher non-Hispanic Black interaction was associated with a lower likelihood of having a police shooting event with Black victims (OR = 0.914, 95% CI 0.833, 0.946) than lower interaction areas. Higher Hispanic dissimilarity was associated with a lower likelihood of having a police shooting event with a Hispanic victim (OR = 0.398, 95% CI 0.324, 0.489) than in lower dissimilarity areas.

Conclusions: The variant effects of residential segregation are only seen when victims are analyzed separately by race. There appears to be a protective effect for Hispanic populations in Hispanic communities, while the reverse is true of Black individuals. We urge law enforcement responsible for locations with segregated communities to monitor individual interactions that police have with residents as well as the patterns of frequency and context of those interactions.

Injury Epidemiology volume 9, Article number: 8 (2022)