Evaluating the Crime Control and Cost-Benefit Effectiveness of License Plate Recognition (LPR) Technology in Patrol and Investigations, United States, 2014 (ICPSR 37049)
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
This study, through a national survey and field studies in both patrols and investigations, examined the crime control and cost-effectiveness of the use of license plate readers (LPRs) within police agencies in the United States.
The collection contains 1 SPSS data file (Data-file-for-2013-IJ-CX-0017.sav (n=329; 94 variables)).
A demographic variable includes an agency's number of authorized full time personnel.
Gun Density, Gun Type, and the Dallas Homicide Rate, 1980-1992 (ICPSR 3145)
Improving the Investigation, Clearance Rates, and Victim Restoration of Robberies: A Randomized Controlled Experiment, Seattle, Washington, Rochester, New York, 2021-2023 (ICPSR 39101)
Clearance rates for most crimes have remained low and stable for decades (Braga et al., 2011), despite advances in police technologies (Koper et al., 2015). Many police agencies have developed triaging practices for criminal investigations using solvability factors to guess which cases are most likely to be solved and to allocate investigative resources to those crimes (Eck, 1983; 1992). This practice partially stems from a persistent belief that resolving crimes and the resulting clearance rates are due to circumstances of the crime and community context, and are beyond the control of police. However, a growing body of research has challenged this belief, demonstrating that enhanced investigative efforts can improve crime clearance rates beyond solvability factors (Braga and Dusseault, 2018; Lum and Wellford, 2023).
In this study, the research team sought to determine if investigative follow-ups could increase clearance rates for robbery and burglary cases (frequently occurring crime types with traditionally low clearance rates) and increase victim satisfaction with police services. Agencies selected for the study were the Seattle Police Department (SPD) in Seattle, Washington, and the Rochester Police Department (RPD) in Rochester, New York. Both agencies triaged a large proportion of robbery cases and would have a large enough sample size to successfully carry out an experiment.
The original study design was a randomized controlled trial. In both sites, robbery cases would be allocated to either the intervention condition--an investigative follow-up conducted by an officer during their daily patrol assignment--or the control condition with no follow-up. Challenges to personnel and agency funding from the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and other officer-involved deaths in 2020 led to difficulties implementing the study as initially designed. The experiment was not initiated in Rochester, and initiated but not completed in Seattle. Therefore, the team transitioned to a natural quasi-experiment design in Rochester and added a case analysis of robberies in Seattle.
This collection contains three datasets: victim satisfaction surveys from Seattle (DS1, n=39) and Rochester (DS2, n=37), and supplemental reports on follow-ups made during the Seattle experiment implementation (DS3, n=82).