This brief examines proactive steps police can take to lessen the potential for disaster, improve preparedness for disasters that do occur and enhance our ability to respond to and recover from them. Featuring several countries across the globe as case studies, it illustrates the predictability of various natural and manmade disasters and the need of the local police organizations to develop contingency plans to save lives and structures. With disaster losses and the human toll reaching staggering rates, and even more destructive events projected for the future as the climate shifts, there is a need for action by police and the local communities together. This volume offers a proactive plan that needs to be put in place for future crises, based on the projected predictability of reoccurring events. The brief can serve as a template for other countries and police task forces that have and will face similar crises situations in the future.

This brief examines 36,263 homicides in Chicago over a 53-year study period, 1965 through 2017, at micro place grid cells of 150 by 150 meters. This study shows not only long-term historical patterns of homicides in Chicago, but also places that historical context of homicide in reference to the dramatic increases in homicides in 2016-2017. It uses several different inequality metrics, as well as kernel density maps to demonstrate that homicides were more clustered in the 1960's compared to later periods. Using zero inflated group-based trajectory models, it demonstrates the long-term temporal stability of homicides at micro places. This brief will be of interest to researchers in policing, homicide, and research methods in criminology.