Understanding the impact of hotspots policing on crime and community perceptions across Leicestershire

Setting the context

Leicestershire Police has been delivering hotspot policing via the Home Office’s Serious Violence Fund for the past three years. Hotspot policing involves identifying locations where crime is most concentrated and focusing policing resources and activities on them such as increasing uniformed police presence and high-visibility patrols in a specific area. This approach is proven to lead to significant reductions in violent crime and other associated offences.

NTU has been commissioned to help Leicestershire Police Force better the impact of hotspots policing. We will have a particular focus on how hotspot policing is perceived by individuals and communities living in and around hotspot areas and will be running an online survey and set of focus groups to help us do this.

Addressing the challenge

The project is interested in identifying the impact of hotspot policing patrols on serious violence and other crime and anti-social behaviour, the public awareness of hotspot policing patrols, public perceptions of the effectiveness of hotspot patrols, the influence patrols have on feelings of safety, perceptions of and confidence in the police and how all of the above vary by subject demography and whether the hotspots patrol were during core night-time economy times or not.

The research team has been commissioned to conduct:

• An evaluation utilising crime and hotspots policing tracking data from July 2021 - present to assess the impact of hotspots policing on crime and anti-social behaviour. Tracking data will include patrol routes, length of time in hotspots, patrol logs that detail observations and interactions while in the hotspot area, and compliance rates.
• A survey of 2,000 residents and businesses across a minimum of twenty hotspot areas – the survey will generate data about awareness of crime and serious violence within their local area, along with awareness and perceptions of hotspot policing.
• *Qualitative interviews with a minimum of 200 residents and businesses across 20 hotspot areas including key users of the hotspots – the interviews could be conducted individually or within groups and should focus on generating in-depth insights about awareness of and perceptions of hotspot policing.

Getting involved

To undertake this project we will seek views on hotspot policing across a set of selected areas across  Leicestershire from people and organisations that use these locations. This will be done in the form of a survey and in-depth interviews. Data can be shared via the link below, through our location based posters or by speaking with a series of fieldworkers across Leicestershire who will be asking people to give their views on the hotspot  polciing project.

To participate in this research please contact the project team via Leic.Hotspots@ntu.ac.uk.

For questions about the project you can also contact the project leader Professor Andy Newton.

Making a difference

We believe that violence is preventable and we share the common goal of reducing and preventing serious violence through understanding and tackling its root causes. We aim to achieve both short- and long-term reductions in serious violent crime and hospital attendances and admissions for violence-related injuries.

We want to prove the benefits of this approach and learn how it is understood within our communities.