FEATURE Precision Meets PreventionBy Sergeant Paul Stam, Ottawa Police Service Born from the chaos of the Industrial Revolution, modern policing was a radical idea that nearly failed before it even began. In 1829, London, England, was bursting with new workers packed into overcrowded slums, bringing waves of crime, disease and disorder on a scale never seen before. Crime flourished, opposed only by a patchwork of reluctant parish constables, elderly night watchmen and corrupt bounty hunters.1 Into this chaos stepped Sir Robert Peel and his team of reformers. Peel proposed a professional police force made up of ordinary citizens. The new police would be granted authority only with the consent of a trusting public, and their success would be measured not by their response to crime but by their ability to prevent it. Visible and present, Peel’s “bobbies” walked their beats – they knew their communities, and their communities knew them. They brought safety to the law-abiding and the threat of swift punishment to potential criminals. Later known as Peel’s Principles of Policing, these ideas would become the foundation of modern policing in Canada.2 Over the next century, policing evolved to meet rapidly changing public demands. Beginning in the 1950s, motorized patrols with radio dispatch and 911 systems led to the current Standard Model, also known as the 3Rs: random patrol, rapid response and reactive investigation – an approach designed to deter crime through visibility and the capacity to respond quickly and investigate thoroughly.3 THE LIMITS OF REACTIVE POLICING While Canadian policing remains rooted in the Standard Model, the limitations of its reactive approach are increasingly clear in today’s rapidly evolving operational environment. Failures in social policy – particularly regarding addiction, mental health and housing – have pushed crime and disorder into public spaces, leaving police to fill the gaps. As around-the-clock emergency responders, officers act as “ad hoc social workers, street-corner psychiatrists, rehabilitation counsellors and community mobilizers.”4 With fewer officers available and increasing demands for service, police organizations are struggling to keep up. In some cases, response times can exceed 24 hours – a timeframe that was unheard of a decade ago. In a study by Simon Fraser University, officers described their experiences dealing with the “total systems failure” across justice, social services and health systems. As one officer explained, “There is no one else. We see ourselves at the very bottom of a huge societal funnel; whenever there is an issue that no one else can deal with, it becomes our problem.”5 The fentanyl crisis brought this operational failure to a breaking point. Since 2016, more than 47,000 Canadians have died from opioid overdoses.6 In Ottawa, overdose deaths averaged 36 per year in the early 2010s. By 2021, deaths rose to 130 – nearly triple the historical average (2010–2015).7 Simultaneously, Ottawa’s homeless population surged 78 per cent, from 1,654 in 2018 to 2,952 in 2024, with 42 per cent reporting mental health issues and 37 per cent reporting substance use problems.8 THE PROMISE OF CRIME SCIENCE Recent advances in crime science attempt to provide a solution. By identifying precisely where, when and why crime occurs, police can take action to prevent it. Crime is not evenly spread across communities; it is concentrated in hot spots: a city block, an intersection or even a single address. Dozens of experiments from around the world support the “law of crime concentration,” which states that about 50 per cent of crime occurs in just five per cent of places.9 As a result, police can deploy hot spots policing, problem-oriented policing and focused deterrence strategies as effective methods for preventing crime in public spaces.10 What these strategies have in common is precision. Rather than patrolling randomly across entire districts, hot spots policing focuses police attention where it is most needed.11 Problem-oriented policing addresses why crime concentrates in hot spots,12 while focused deterrence identifies who is responsible, communicating clear consequences while offering support.13 Most importantly, research tells us how police can be most effective: increasing visible presence and law enforcement, mobilizing community support and changing the physical environment.14 OTTAWA’S (CORE) STRATEGY The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) implemented the CORE strategy using a SARA approach (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment).15 Each stage answered a key question: What are the problems? Where and when do they concentrate? Who is involved? Why and how do we solve them? SCANNING: LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY CORE began by listening – not just to residents and businesses, but to street-involved populations, people who use drugs, harm reduction workers and shelter staff. The initial data analysis revealed that in these communities, violent crime, property crime and Crime Severity Index scores were three times the city average. Through surveys, focus groups and town halls, patterns emerged that data could not tell us. The problems were consistent across communities: open drug markets, overdoses, deaths, random assaults, open sex trafficking, break-ins, thefts, and the list goes on. Residents described neighbourhoods where discarded needles littered playgrounds, where street violence and constant unpredictable, erratic behaviour forced long-standing businesses and daycares to close. Communities demanded a visible police presence. They wanted accountability. They wanted their neighbourhoods back. ANALYSIS: FINDING WHERE AND UNDERSTANDING WHY Guided by community-identified priorities, we mapped three years of crime data to create eight high-priority hot spot areas. Each hot spot was represented as a 150-metre-wide hexagon – an ideal size for an officer to maintain full visibility and accessibility from all points. To understand why these areas had become hot spots, we examined the unique context of each location (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1995). Within several hot spots, shelters, a day drop-in centre, community health centres, supervised consumption sites (SCS), a safer-supply clinic and nearby pharmacies clustered together. While these services reduce individual harms,16 the concentration produced complex public-safety dynamics that required joint problem-solving with health and social partners. Through deeper analysis, we catalogued every physical feature, business and gathering point in each hot spot. A liquor store repeatedly targeted for theft also served as a gathering place for public drinking. Back alleys and vacant lots, hidden by wooden fences and overgrown bushes, became sites for concealed encampments. Abandoned buildings, neglected by landlords, were frequently broken into and set on fire. A convenience store directly across from a supervised consumption site was being robbed on a daily basis. Each element either attracted, facilitated or generated criminal activity – and each represented a unique problem that could be addressed with evidence-based strategies.17 RESPONSE: PRESENCE, PARTNERSHIP, ACCOUNTABILITY AND PREVENTION Effective police responses to high-crime areas can be grouped into four categories: guardianship, enforcement, environmental changes and community efficacy.18 To strengthen guardianship, high-visibility foot patrols became the cornerstone of our approach, with teams of uniformed officers patrolling each hot spot during peak times – typically weekday early afternoons through late evenings, with patrol cadence and timing adjusted based on local crime patterns.19 ACROSS ALL EIGHT HOT SPOTS, REPORTED CRIME FELL BY FIVE PER CENT. COMMUNITY FEEDBACK MIRRORED THE STATISTICS: RESIDENTS AND BUSINESS OWNERS REPORTED FEELING SAFER, SEEING OFFICERS REGULARLY AND NOTICING TANGIBLE IMPROVEMENTS IN THEIR NEIGHBOURHOODS. While a visible presence deters crime, partnerships are essential to address underlying issues. OPS established the Integrated Community Situation Table, uniting 35 agencies to provide immediate support for those at risk. Partners include the John Howard Society, the Canadian Mental Health Society, the Children’s Aid Society, local shelters, hospitals, community health centres and many others. When officers encountered individuals in crisis, the Table connected them to housing, mental health services, addiction treatment and income assistance.20 However, not every issue is solvable through social services. Enforcement prioritized high-harm offenders and predatory traffickers based on intelligence and harm indices.21 Officers distinguished chronic, low-harm offenders for service connection and diversion where lawful and appropriate. The physical environment can either enable or deter crime.22 CORE collaborated with two Business Improvement Areas (BIAs) to fund security upgrades at the most affected locations. The aim was to make crime more difficult to commit and easier to detect. This included clearing sightlines in previously hidden alleys, improving lighting in areas that became dangerous at night and upgrading security at businesses that were frequently targeted. ASSESSMENT: MEASURING WHAT MATTERS Over the first 90 days, officers conducted 238 patrols across the eight hot spots, logging 972 community interactions and making 21 arrests. Calls for service dropped 17.9 per cent overall, with some locations seeing reductions exceeding 30 per cent. On patrol days, proactive police contacts increased by 250 per cent while calls for service decreased by 15 per cent. Across all eight hot spots, reported crime fell by five per cent. Community feedback mirrored the statistics: residents and business owners reported feeling safer, seeing officers regularly and noticing tangible improvements in their neighbourhoods. These results demonstrate that precision problem-solving, grounded in evidence-based strategies and supported by community partnerships, can produce measurable improvements even in areas facing the most complex challenges.23 CONCLUSION The future of policing is a return to first principles, now executed with unprecedented precision. Robert Peel understood what the evidence confirms today: public safety is achieved through prevention, delivered by officers who are present, visible and trusted by the communities they serve. The Standard Model’s capacity for rapid emergency response remains indispensable, but it was never meant to stand alone. Crime science now shows us that consistent daily presence in the places that need it most, guided by data, focused on prevention and grounded in community partnership, reduces harm more effectively than reactive enforcement ever could. Sergeant Paul Stam leads evidence-based policing initiatives with the Ottawa Police Service, applying precision problem-solving through the Community Outreach Response and Engagement (CORE) strategy. Stam is completing his graduate studies in Applied Criminology at the University of Cambridge, where his research bridges the gap between police science and practice. 1 Lentz, S. A., & Chaires, R. H. (2007). The invention of Peel’s principles: A study of policing “textbook” history. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35(1), 69–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2006.11.016 2 Lentz & Chaires, 69-79.3 Kelling, G. L., & Moore, M. H. (1988). The evolving strategy of policing (Perspectives on Policing No. 4). U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.4 Huey, L., Ferguson, L., & Schulenberg, J. (2022). The wicked problems of police reform in Canada. In L. Huey, R. K. Buker, & C. J. Schneider (Eds.), The politics of policing: Between force and legitimacy (2nd ed., pp. 290–307). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003296447 5 Butler, A., Zakimi, N., & Greer, A. (2022). Total systems failure: Police officers’ perspectives on the impacts of the justice, health, and social service systems on people who use drugs. Harm Reduction Journal, 19(1), 48. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-022-006296 Public Health Agency of Canada. (2024). Opioid-and stimulant-related harms in Canada. https://health-infobase.canada.ca/substance-related-harms/opioids-stimulants7 Ottawa Public Health. (2022). Opioid surveillance report: Ottawa 2021. Ottawa Public Health.8 City of Ottawa. (2024). 2024 point-in-time count: Homelessness in Ottawa. https://ottawa.ca/en/family-and-social-services/housing-and-homelessness9 Weisburd, D. (2015). The law of crime concentration and the criminology of place. Criminology, 53(2), 133–157. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12070 10 Weisburd, D., & Majmundar, M. K. (Eds.). (2018). Proactive policing: Effects on crime and communities. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/2492811 Braga, A. A., Tillery, T. R., & Reynald, D. M. (2019). The effects of hot spots policing on crime: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis. Justice Quarterly, 36(4), 635–665. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2018.154189512 Goldstein, H. (1990). Problem-oriented policing. McGraw-Hill.13 Braga, A. A., & Weisburd, D. L. (2012). The effects of focused deterrence strategies on crime: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical evidence. 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