Reducing Firearms Violence through Directed Police Patrol*

In the early 1990s, the Kansas City Police Department conducted a quasi-experiment in which they tested the effect of directed police patrols in a high violent crime neighborhood. The directed patrol strategy utilized officers in patrol cars who were freed from the responsibility of responding to calls for police service. The officers were instructed to proactively patrol the neighborhood with a special emphasis on locating and seizing illegally possessed firearms. The results of the project were striking. The increased traffic enforcement led to a 65% increase in seizures of illegal firearms. This, in turn, was associated with a 49% decrease in gun-related crime in this area (Sherman and Rogan, 1995; Sherman et al., 1995). Given the seriousness of the firearms violence problem in America