Translating ''Near Repeat'' Theory into a Geospatial Police Strategy: A Randomized Experiment testing a Theoretically-Informed Strategy for Preventing Residential Burglary

For over a decade research has shown that once a burglary occurs on a street, the homes on that street and on nearby streets are at a much higher risk of burglary over the next one to two weeks. In 2012, NIJ funded a randomized controlled field trial in Baltimore County, MD and Redlands, CA. to test whether providing timely information about increased risk to residents would disrupt the near repeat pattern of residential burglary. Custom software NRAIT was developed and used to create and track the near repeat high-risk zones. The original software design was to support research, which limited its generalizability to non-research settings. The proposed work involves two principal activities. The first is to enable the Police Foundation to explore more fully the question of whether providing timely information about increased risk to residents would disrupt the near repeat pattern of residential burglary. The second is to enable the Police Foundation to implement NRAIT in a computer program that would enable law enforcement agencies to use historical data to develop a baseline for the crime prevention potential of differing approaches to addressing near repeat crimes. The NRAIT software will be made available to law enforcement through the Police Foundation website. ca/ncf