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Cited by 63Policing Practices and PerceptionsCrime Patterns and InterventionsCriminal Justice and Penology

Police stops to reduce crime: A systematic review and meta-analysis

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Petersen, Kevin, Weisburd, David, Fay, Sydney, Eggins, Elizabeth, Mazerolle, Lorraine·2023·Campbell Systematic Reviews: Better Evidence for a Better World
DOI 10.1002/cl2.1302PMC PMC9831287
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Abstract

Background Police-initiated pedestrian stops have been one of the most widely used crime prevention tactics in modern policing. Proponents have long considered police stops to be an indispensable component of crime prevention efforts, with many holding them responsible for the significant reductions in violent crime observed across major US cities in recent decades. Critics, however, have taken issue with the overuse of pedestrian stops, linking them to worsening mental and physical health, attitudes toward the police, and elevated delinquent behavior for individuals directly subject to them. To date, there has been no systematic review or meta-analysis on the effects of these interventions on crime and individual-level outcomes. Objectives To synthesize the existing evaluation research regarding the impact of police-initiated pedestrian stops on crime and disorder, mental and physical health, individual attitudes toward the police, self-reported crime/delinquency, violence in police-citizen encounters, and police misbehavior. Search Methods We used the Global Policing Database, a repository of all experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of policing interventions conducted since 1950, to search for published and unpublished evaluations of pedestrian stop interventions through December of 2019. This overarching search was supplemented by additional searches of academic databases, gray literature sources, and correspondence with subject-matter experts to capture eligible studies through December 2021. Selection Criteria Eligibility was limited to studies that included a treatment group of people or places experiencing pedestrian stops and a control group of people or places not experiencing pedestrian stops (or experiencing a lower dosage of pedestrian stops). Studies were required to use an experimental or quasi-experimental design and evaluate the intervention using an outcome of area-level crime and disorder, mental or physical health, individual or community-level attitudes toward the police, or self-reported crime/delinquency. Data Collection and Analysis We adopted standard methodological procedures expected by the Campbell Collaboration. Eligible studies were grouped by conceptually similar outcomes and then analyzed separately using random effects models with restricted maximum likelihood estimation. Treatment effects were represented using relative incident rate ratios, odds ratios, and Hedges' g effect sizes, depending on the unit of analysis and outcome measure. We also conducted sensitivity analyses for several outcome measures using robust variance estimation, with standard errors clustered by each unique study/sample. Risk of bias was assessed using items adapted from the Cochrane randomized and non-randomized risk of bias tools. Results Our systematic search strategies identified 40 eligible studies corresponding to 58 effect sizes across six outcome groupings, representing 90,904 people and 20,876 places. Police-initiated pedestrian stop interventions were associated with a statistically significant 13% (95% confidence interval [CI]: −16%, −9%, p < 0.001) reduction in crime for treatment areas relative to control areas. These interventions also led to a diffusion of crime control benefits, with a statistically significant 7% (95% CI: −9%, −4%, p < 0.001) reduction in crime for treatment displacement areas relative to control areas. However, pedestrian stops were also associated with a broad range of negative individual-level effects. Individuals experiencing police stops were associated with a statistically significant 46% (95% CI: 24%, 72%, p < 0.001) increase in the odds of a mental health issue and a 36% (95% CI: 14%, 62%, p < 0.001) increase in the odds of a physical health issue, relative to control. Individuals experiencing police stops also reported significantly more negative attitudes toward the police ( g = −0.38, 95% CI: −0.59, −0.17, p < 0.001) and significantly higher levels of self-reported crime/delinquency ( g = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.48, p < 0.001), equating to changes of 18.6% and 15%, respectively. No eligible studies were identified measuring violence in police-citizen encounters or officer misbehavior. While eligible studies were often considered to be at moderate to high risk of bias toward control groups, no significant differences based on methodological rigor were observed. Moderator analyses also indicated that the negative individual-level effects of pedestrian stops may be more pronounced for youth, and that significant differences in effect sizes may exist between US and European studies. However, these moderator analyses were limited by a small number of studies in each comparison, and we were unable to compare the effects of police stops across racial groupings. Authors' Conclusions While our findings point to favorable effects of pedestrian stop interventions on place-based crime and displacement outcomes, evidence of negative individual-level effects mak

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  • Police contact is perhaps the most common form of criminal legal contact.

    “Police contact is perhaps the most common form of criminal legal contact, with police-initiated stops being heralded by law enforcement agencies as a successful crimeprevention tactic (Petersen et al. 2023).”

    From The Rise of the Carceral State: Foundations and Contours of a Rapidly Changing Criminal Legal System (2025) · cites this paper as Petersen et al. 2023

    The Background sections describe police-initiated stops as a widely used crime-prevention tactic and say advocates emphasize their crime-reduction benefits. They do not establish that police contact is the most common form of criminal legal contact; the cited sentence’s first clause remains unsupported by this source. (LLM, conf=0.83)

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  19. Smith, D. C., & Purtell, R. (2008). Does stop and frisk stop crime? Paper presented at the Annual Research Conference of the Association of Public Policy and Management, Los Angeles, CA.
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Authors
Petersen, K., Weisburd, D., Fay, S., Eggins, E., & Mazerolle, L.
Affiliations
  • George Mason University (US)
  • Griffith University (AU)
  • The University of Queensland (AU)
Corresponding author
Petersen, Kevin
ORCID
Venue
Campbell Systematic Reviews: Better Evidence for a Better World
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2023-01-10
Volume
19
Issue
1
Pages
e1302-e1302
ISSN
1891-1803 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1002/cl2.1302
PMC
PMC9831287
OpenAlex
W4319841416
Cited by
63
References
137
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 7
FWCI
11.79
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Campbell Systematic Reviews (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Griffith Research Online (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Youth Endowment Fund
  • National Institute of Justice (2019-R2-CX-0025)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
Keywords
crime prevention, crime reduction, disorder reduction, attitudes toward police, self-reported crime, delinquency, mental health, physical health, risk of bias, effect size, police use of force, racial disparities in policing, police-community relations

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