Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Evaluating Policing Approaches and Institutionalizing Smart Policing

Philadelphia Police Badge

Site LE Agency
Philadelphia Police Department

Site Researcher
Jerry Ratcliffe, Ph.D., Temple University

Site Focus
Violent Crime

SPI Strategy
Intelligence-led policing

Site Cohort
2014

Site Profile
Large urban area of 134.10 sq. miles with a population of 1,559,062

Project Overview

Philadelphia has received three SPI grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The first initiative (2010-2012) was to conduct a test the effectiveness of three policing strategies; foot patrol, problem-solving, and an offender-focused strategy. The second initiative (2012-2014) incorporated the lessons learned from the first initiative, and moved from randomized experiments to an organizational change model. Philadelphia SPI's third initiative (2014-2017) continued efforts to integrate Smart Policing and analytics through the Philadelphia Police Department through use of the hypothesis testing approach.

Methods and Findings

  • The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) received funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) 2009 Competitive Grant for Smart Policing: Evidence-Based Law Enforcement Initiative.
  • The Analysis Coordinator program was expanded to include Analysis Coordinators dedicated to requests from the Inspector of the Division, one Analyst to Regional Operations Command (ROC) North, and one Analyst to ROC South. This increased the total number of Analysts in Patrol Operations to 30.