Proactive Policing: A Resource Allocation Model for Crime Prevention with Deterrence Effect

54 Pages Posted: 2 Aug 2023

See all articles by Long He

Long He

George Washington University

Xiaobo Li

National University of Singapore

Yue Zhao

University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management

Date Written: July 30, 2023

Abstract

This paper addresses police resource allocation across multiple locations, aiming to minimize the overall cost of potential crimes. Unlike previous literature focused on reactive police tasks, we propose a proactive approach that emphasizes crime prevention through deterrence. To account for the deterrence effect of police resources on crime, we employ the multinomial logit model to calibrate the distribution of crime locations. Our model sheds light on two facets of the deterrence effect in proactive policing - crime control diffusion and crime displacement - relevant to modern crime patterns from both criminology and economics perspectives. We also investigate the structural properties of our problem and its relation to mixture-of-logits assortment optimization. Additionally, we provide reformulations for mixed-integer linear/conic programs that can be solved directly using conventional optimization software. Finally, we showcase the efficacy of our model through a data-driven case study on the allocation of surveillance cameras in New York City.

Keywords: Proactive policing, resource allocation, crime deterrence, multinomial logit model, conic programming

Suggested Citation

He, Long and Li, Xiaobo and Zhao, Yue, Proactive Policing: A Resource Allocation Model for Crime Prevention with Deterrence Effect (July 30, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4526158 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4526158

Long He (Contact Author)

George Washington University ( email )

2121 I Street NW
Washington, DC 20052
United States

Xiaobo Li

National University of Singapore ( email )

10 Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore, 115260
Singapore

Yue Zhao

University of Toronto - Rotman School of Management ( email )

105 St. George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6 M5S1S4
Canada

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