Rigorous evaluation research among US police departments: special cases or a representative sample?

This study considers whether police departments’ characteristics relate to the methodology and results of the evaluations that they participate in, and contrasts police departments that have carried out rigorous crime prevention research to comparison groups of US police agencies. Findings include departments that participate in quasi-experimental crime prevention research are larger and more likely to find statistically significant successes than those that participate in experiments, and evaluators differ in composition and practices from most US police departments. This suggests that researchers and policy makers should involve smaller suburban and rural police agencies to increase the generalizability of evaluation research.