Hotspots strategy shows effectiveness in Medellin

If carefully analyzed, crime does not occur everywhere or at all times, but rather concentrates in limited spaces and times. This is the case of cities such as Cali, Medellin, Bogota, and Barranquilla, where 50 percent of homicides occur in only 7 percent of the territory. 

These spaces or areas, which exceed the average number of crimes in a city, are called hotspots. The identification of hotspots helps redirect resources such as patrolling, security cameras, and preventive social programs toward the areas that are most affected by crime.   

The intervention of "hotspots" in the city of Medellin consisted in parking police cars in several critical points four times per day, for fifteen minutes every day of the week. During these minutes, the patrol car would park and officers would use the opportunity to talk with the people, establish control points, and detain suspects, among other things. The experiment randomly picked 967 street segments where 34 percent of the crimes in Medellin occur. Thus, 417 segments were patrolled as hotspots and 550 segments were patrolled with the regular patrolling of the police force of Medellin. This strategy lasted six months. 

Results show that patrolling hotspots was more effective that regular patrolling, leading to a relative reduction of homicides and theft of motorcycles and cars, especially in the critical points which received the patrolling prescribed by the intervention. 

According to Daniel Mejía, teacher at the Universidad de Los Andes, making rigorous evaluations that measure the causal effects of the policies implemented is the only way to know if the policies work or not. This is the case of Medellin's Hotspots, a strategy that was copied in other cities of the country as a result of its successful implementation.