Based on 14 years worth of data that shows half of Seattle’s crimes take place on 4.5 percent of its streets, the city auditor’s office is recommending that police focus their energies on a handful of high-crime areas, reports KOMO-TV. “These ‘powerful few’ hot spots are responsible for many of the disorder problems in Seattle,” said the report.
The report says it would be more effective to focus on the 1,500 hot spots responsible for half the city’s crime than to attempt to focus on the equivalent 6,108 offenders responsible for the same amount of crime each year. Hot spot approaches to policing have been successful in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Jersey City, Oakland, and elsewhere, the auditor said.