Person:

Marcoux, Ashley

Objectives: Prior research has found that reporting behavior of crime incidents and service needs remain low in many U.S. cities, which may be improved by place-based interventions. This study investigates whether a place-based intervention combining door-to-door education, outreach, rapid beautification, and community-oriented law enforcement can affect reporting of crime (through emergency 911 calls) and service needs (through non-emergency 311 calls).

Methods: This study employs a matching strategy using observational data from a large public repository to generate effect estimates of a place-based intervention on reporting of 911 and 311 calls. Matching is conducted using the matching frontier with an energy-distance balance metric, which allows for fine managing of the balance-precision tradeoff. Results are analyzed by overall call volume and individual sub-types.

Results: Findings indicate that treated households were 32% more likely to report a drug-related crime than untreated households within 3 months of the intervention and 42% more likely within 5.5 months compared to untreated households. In examining calls related to blight, treated households were 9% more likely to report a blight incident than untreated households within 3 months of the intervention, with similar results within 5.5 months. There was no evidence of differences in reporting of other crime or service needs between treated and untreated households.

Conclusions: This research fills an important gap in the literature by not only investigating the impact of a place-based intervention with reporting as the outcome variable, but also by assessing whether it is effective to bring together components of other interventions previously studied in isolation. The results of this study suggest that highly visible place-based interventions that build relationships between residents and institutions may have a relationship to reporting behavior, particularly for drug-related crime and blight-related service reporting.

Creating and sustaining safe, healthy urban environments requires active collaboration between residents and local governments. Public safety and the upkeep of public spaces depend, in a large part, on residents’ reports of crime and service needs. However, in underserved areas, factors such as urban decay, inadequate public services, and concentrated disadvantage have weakened these cooperative dynamics. This breakdown can exacerbate the underreporting of crime and service needs and deepen neighborhood inequalities. In Buffalo, NY, the city-led initiative “Clean Sweeps” works to reduce neighborhood disparities through rapid beautification and community outreach in targeted city blocks. The program aims to improve quality of life by reducing crime and blight while fostering greater community engagement. In an analysis of data from 77,955 matched properties (published elsewhere), we found that residents were more likely to report drug-related crimes (via 911) and blight-related service needs (via 311) compared to untreated properties in the 6 months following the Clean Sweep. In this study, we analyze data from 21 interviews with city staff and four focus groups with residents to explore how interventions in the social and physical environment of neighborhoods, like the Clean Sweep innovation, can influence residents’ willingness to coproduce with local government. We identify improved responsiveness, trust, and self-efficacy as key mechanisms impacting residents’ reporting behavior. The findings show how relatively simple environmental interventions paired with outreach can help create safer, healthier neighborhoods.