Post-hoc evaluation of a police-led pilot cocooning intervention: a promising start with room for improvement

Dr Joe Clare1

1UWA, Perth, Australia

The Western Australian Police piloted an 8-month small-scale targeted burglary prevention initiative involving distribution of crime prevention pamphlets to burglary victims and their immediate neighbors in the few days directly after victimization. As external researchers, we undertook a post-hoc evaluation of this intervention, examining (a) a pre-and post-comparison of the spatial/temporal burglary patterns using Ratcliffe’s (2009) near-repeat calculator, (b) police records relating to the implementation of the intervention, and (c) an online survey of residents who had been scheduled to receive the burglary prevention information. In aggregate, this triangulated data suggested this approach is promising, with reductions in near-repeat residential burglary and survey trends that were indicative of the pamphlet changing residents’ behaviors to reduce the opportunity for burglary. However, data management implementation limitations that reduced the impact of this police-led approach were also identified. The theoretical and applied implications will be discussed, along with a preview of ‘where-to-next’ for this approach on a local level.


Biography:

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