A Longitudinal Study of Police Differential Response Team Impact on Crime in Houston: A Test of Broken Windows Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to partially test the broken windows thesis, and to evaluate the effect of Houston’s Differential Response Team (DRT) in particular at the patrol division level using crime-related calls for service data (CFS) in the city. Monthly DRT assignment data over a period of 13 years in five different space-time patterns were utilized to estimate the effect of targeted disorder enforcement from 2005 to 2017. Our findings suggest that the DRT overall did not produce significant effects on crime-related calls, with only one out of five space-time patterns showing demonstrable benefit. We highlighted the underlying features generating differential rates of crime across geographic areas as an explanation in the discussion section. The unique feature of this study was the focus on routine police activities as opposed to arrests as the key indicator of law enforcement intervention in the management of crime.