The Kansas City Gun Experiment
1. The evaluation/research project is about the ability of a police patrol project to reduce gun violence, shootings, and homicides in Kansas City. The study suggested that the presence of police force can reduce the handgun crimes, and this theory was tested in the study in the city of Kansas, where the homicide rate was 20 times higher than the national average (Sherman, Shaw & Rogan, 1995). The hypothesis of the study is that the greater the number of guns that are available for the public has the tendency to produce increases in gun homicides.
The results of the evaluation show that directed police patrols within the identified gun crime “hot spots” can minimize the gun-related crimes by increasing the gun seizures of the police of illegally carried guns (Sherman, et al., 1995).
2. The sampling frame made use of a targeted area in Kansas City that measures about 80 by-10 block that has a homicide rate of 177 per 100,000 individuals or about 20 times the national average. Aside from the 8 homicide incidents that occurred in 1991, there were also some crimes that were reported involving 14 rape cases, 72 armed robbery incidents, 222 aggravated assaults, wherein 142 of these crimes made use of firearms. The total number of violent crimes committed in Kansas City in a day is 349 as shown in the report of Sherman, et al (1995). The records also show that the population of the offenders composed of mostly blacks, with very low property values for the predominantly single-family detached homes (Sherman, et al., 1995). The targeted area shows that home ownership rates are very high wherein about two-thirds of all occupants are the owners of their homes.3. The methods used to gather data are surveys, computerized crime reports and arrest records in Kansas City. Aside from these sources, other measures used are separate bookkeeping that was done since the project needed extra patrol hours, which was funded using federal budget. In effect, there was a separate bookkeeping was required to document the time spent during the patrol hours. Additionally, there was an onsite University of Maryland evaluator who was asked to accompany the patrol officers for at least 300 hours during the hot spots patrol of the police in Kansas City. The bookkeeper used different codes every shift activity to monitor the patrol time and enforcement within the target area (Sherman, et al, 1995).
Other tools that were used to gather data are the property room data on guns that were seized by the police, computerized crime reports, calls for service data, and arrest records that were used as part of the analysis of Kansas City. Aside from these sources, the researchers also made use of before and after survey of the target area and comparison beats in order to measure the perception of the citizens regarding the program in place (Sherman, et al, 1995). However, there was no attempt made to conduct victimization surveys regarding gun-related crimes.
4. The data gathered represented a combination of both qualitative and quantitative data. Since the qualitative research mostly involves exploratory research, the researchers used opinions and motivations of a targeted group, or the residents of Kansas City. The opinions of the people were used to understand the underlying reasons and insights to develop a hypothesis for the quantitative research. The sample size is usually small in number and the respondents were selected to match a given quota. For the quantitative research, the researchers used numerical data that was converted to statistical data for analysis. The researchers made use of before and after survey of the target area to measure the perception of the citizens regarding the program in place for the purpose of quantifying the attitudes, opinions and other defined variables. This was done in research through the community surveys before and after the intensive patrols on gun seizure in the target area (Sherman, et al., 1995).
5. The project is experimental in the sense that the objective in the sense that the researchers want to assess the effect of presence of police force to confiscate illegally carried firearms to reduce the handgun crimes and the targeted area is Kansas City. The study used a sampling of 100,000 handguns in Kansas City, where there were 25 of those guns that were seized by the police showed that there was a decreased from the previous number of 29 handguns that were seized prior to the presence of police patrol in the target area. The significant reduction in gun crime shown in the records of the study was based on three plausible theories on how the police patrols reduced the gun crime which are: high-risk places, high-risk offenders, and deterrence (Sherman, et al. 1995).
The researcher made use of two potential mechanisms to reduce gun crimes: deterrence and incapacitation. Under the deterrence theory, there is a presumption that if the police strictly implemented the policy on confiscation of guns, the number of illegal gun carriers will be lessened in the targeted area. The incapacitation theory suggests that if the guns of potential gun criminals in the area are seized, they would be unable to commit gun-related crimes since it will take them time and money to acquire new guns (Sherman, et al. 1995).
6. The dependent variables are the number of guns seized in the targeted area and the records showing the number of gun-related crimes in Kansas City. The independent variables are the attitudes of the potential criminals toward the confiscation of the police patrols.
7. Other helpful information that might be helpful in assessing the research can be obtained using past research studies on the effect of directed patrol that was made on gun-crime hot spots as opposed to the normal uniformed police activity within the cities.
8. The rating that I will give on the quality and applicability of this research study is 9 out of 10. The research study made use of reliable data and was able to show based on the results that in the Kansas City experiment that by using only a pair of two-officer cars who worked independently of each other was able to increase gun seizures by 65 percent, which is 20 times higher than the national homicide rate. The study shows that such experiment on increasing police visibility is very economical and does not need higher costs to reduce gun-related crimes. With only limited budget used, the city was able to reduce the number of gun seizures using the deterrence theory and incapacitation theory. Therefore, it can be concluded that the lesser the number of guns that are available for the public, the expected outcome will be decreased in the number of homicides using guns and other gun-related crimes. This research study can also be applied to other cities in the US that have high number of gun-related crimes.
References:
Sherman, L.W, Shaw, J.W. & Rogan, D.P. (1995). The Kansas City Gun Experiment. National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice. Web. Retrieved from
http://www.popcenter.org/problems/drive_by_shooting/PDFs/Sherman_etal_KansasCity_1995.pdf
