Prof. David Weisburd of Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem was awarded the 2010 Stockholm Prize in Criminology on June 15. This is the first time in the prize’s history that it has been awarded to just one recipient.
Weisburd received the prize in recognition of a series of experiments he conducted showing that intensified police patrol at high crime ”hot spots” yields far less total crime than conventional patrol patterns do.
The evidence from research conducted by Weisburd and his colleagues in Jersey City and Seattle encourages police around the world to concentrate crime prevention efforts at less than five percent of all street corners and addresses where over 50 percent of all urban crime occurs.
The prize jury selected Weisburd’s work on spatial displacement as the most influential single contribution of his wider body of work that has helped to bridge the gap between criminology and police practice.
The jury noted that Weisburd has been a leader among the growing number of criminologists whose evidence shows how the application of research findings can help to reduce not only crime, but also the unnecessary impositions on public liberty from policing activities that do not address a predictable crime risk.