Measure type: Intervention force

Arrest of a protester in Hamburg

A reaction force is the measure of having adequate resources (first responders) to react to emergencies in order to minimize impact and restore a normal situation as soon as possible.

Description

A reaction force is the last link in the reaction chain detection-perception-interpretation-formulating action-acting of the comprehensive approach. The essence of deploying a reaction force lies in intervening in an observed incident. This is done by way of first responders, who by their action minimize impact, restore the situation to normalcy and in general also take actions to facilitate the prosecution, if needed.

Essential conditions

• For a reaction force to be effective, they need to be well aware of the situation; what parties are involved, in what way, what are their motives, goals, backgrounds and means, what has happened and where are the parties located.
• In order to get this awareness, it is essential that the reaction chain is unbroken. As often the links in the reaction chain are managed by different people or organisations, the communication in this chain is of vital essence.
• A timely arrival at the location of the incident is essential to keep the number of options to resolve the situation as open as possible; an incident can escalate very quickly, making gentler interventions impractical or impossible.

Requirements to the urban environment

The extent to which a reaction force can operate effectively is dependent of:

• The travel time to the incident. A short travel time from the place of deployment of the reaction force to the location of a (potential) incident. traffic management measures such as incident management and Evacuation management are vital for maintaining robustness in travel times to incidents.

The duration and impact of incidents can be minimized by applying proper incident management, which requires among others a good cooperation between the agencies responsible for incident management. Incident management is used to reduce the time to detect and verify an incident occurrence; implement the appropriate response; and safely clear the incident, while managing the affected flow until full capacity is restored.

Effectiveness

The effectiveness of a reaction force against crime lies in two effects:

• the mitigating effect of authority present
• the direct actions undertaken by the reaction force to mitigate the effects of an incident
• make contributions to the prosecution of crime (gathering evidence and leads and arresting suspects)

As such, it can be effective to all security issues that are susceptible to the presence of authority or the use of violence. These are:

• burglary
• ram-raiding
• pickpocketing
• robbery with assault
• snatch theft
• car theft
• physical assault
• sexual assault
• vandalism
• Grafitti
• Antisocial behaviour

Economic effectiveness

Reaction forces intend to increase the level of security and in this way lower the costs of security threats. Security measures, however, also require time and money by private agents, companies/developers and the public authorities, exacting economic cost/impact. The costs of reaction forces contain the relatively straightforward direct expenditures on capital equipment and operational costs (both temporary and permanent), and in addition generate various types of secondary effects. Whether these primary and secondary costs are making sense from an economic point of view, depends on many factors, and can be answered by two distinct sets of questions:

1. Are the envisioned reaction force measures cost effective from a socio-economic point of view, or are there better alternatives?
2. Which specific agents (individuals, companies, sectors, authorities) are affected by the reaction forces, and to which extend? How do the envisioned measures adjust the behaviour of these agents, and of course the behaviour of criminals/terrorists?

Economic tools can help the decision makers to answer these questions and to prevent wasteful expenditures on security (of course in collaboration with insights from criminology, sociology, etc.).

Being the first line of defence, public authorities spend annually billions on policing. There exist nevertheless relatively few rigorous studies by economists, political scientists, and criminal justice researchers on the impact of policing (as a security measure). According to Levitt(2004), until the start of this decade, most studies found an insignificant or negative correlation between the number of police forces and criminal offences. This is due to the fact that these studies failed to account for the fact that policing does not only influences crime, but also the amount of crime influences the amount of policing. Recent studies, therefore, conclude that more police is associated with reductions in crime. A recent study by the London School of Economics (2008) for example concludes that police patrols are highly effective for cutting crime. Moreover, Levitt (2004) concludes that based on a crude approximation, the effectiveness of policing from a cost-benefit perspective is “attractive”. Both reports, however, do not claim that more policing should be the sole focus to reduce crime.

Side effects

Side effects of deploying an action force can be:

• the resulting publicity can deteriorate the status of a neighbourhood, which can attract more crime
• the use of violence can give a bad reputation to the local authorities
• the use of violence can in itself also cause damage and injuries
• the deployment can lead to feelings of victimization on the side of the affected public
• The deployment of a reaction force is a relatively expensive measure, as it needs to be maintained at all times in order to be deployable when needed

Footnotes and references

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